The Charlotte News

Friday, February 13, 1942

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: "Q.E.D." reports of the British failure to trap a fleet of four German ships, protected by a group of destroyers and aircraft, sailing through the narrow Straits of Dover between Calais and Dover. The piece suggests that the failure bodes ill for the fate of Britain and Ireland against any sort of concerted armada brought to bear by Germany for the purpose of invasion. Yet, it was obviously not so simple, with Hitler's armies and air power concentrated in Russia. An invasion required not just ships and air support, but wave on wave of landing troops. That was not to happen. The genius first had to kill the bear at his back door before he could seek to pounce on the beset lion through its front door, meanwhile finding enough oil to keep it all going. He didn't have it. That is what the piece did not appreciate. Roosevelt and Churchill did.

"'In Reserve'" decries the status of the Canadians, brave fighters in the First World War, the piece declares, but now protesting loudly, at least among the French in Montreal, the national conscription bill, as they were being held by the British "in reserve". The piece contrasts against this vacillation the unhaltingly brave stands of the Australians in Libya, Greece, Crete, and Malaya during the previous ten months of fighting. It concludes by questioning the loyalty of the French Canadians, whether to Vichy or Free France. Perhaps they needed another native poet such as John McCrae to write the equivalent of "In Flanders Fields" to inspire and fire anew nationalistic esprit de corps, ever elusive in most countries until the chips are down and the hearth of home is near the wrack.

Paul Mallon explains that rubber would be in short supply for at least a year and a half when the projected synthetic substitutes, costly though they inevitably would be, would begin to enable civilian usage again. In the meantime, he cautions, even long distance bus lines and truck transport companies might be forced into the defense effort. Start pedaling--until even those tires give out. Then it's to hoof.

Both Raymond Clapper and Dorothy Thompson warn of the perilous straits into which the country is again drifting, back to complacency, still not awakened to the realities of the imminent loss of the Philippines, Malaya, Burma, the Dutch East Indies, and possibly even Australia, and the consequences to the fate of the West of the tumbling of those crucial dominoes. Mr. Clapper suggests that even India was in danger, as the Japanese took Burma, and that China, with the Burma Road close to being cut off at Rangoon, would soon be without means of ready supply from the Allies.

Ms. Thompson writes caustically of the lackadaisical eye on preventing sabotage, suggests a strong suspicion that the sinking of the Normandie was not, as reported, the result of mere carelessness of a welder, tells of undercover reporters gaining easy access to ships and arms factories.

Despite the awakening afforded by Pearl Harbor, the United States and Canada were again falling fast asleep--or so it seemed to the observers commenting on daily events.

And, despite all of that gloom in the air, the apparent collapse of the world to feudalism and fascism upon them off two oceans, the imminent invasion of Britain by the Nazis, the hapless attitude of the Canadians suggesting a point of Axis entry to North America, the bulk of the world's oil then in danger of falling to the Axis in the Far East and Middle East, the danger of imminent occupation by the Axis of the world's key straits of trade, Singapore, the Suez, Gibraltar, all save Panama--despite all these things, the tyro described in the little piece titled "A Morning to Stay Home" knew precisely how to malinger his way out of his duty to attend kindergarten. Who wants to go to some institution possessed of one of those kraut names, anyway? Ah well, he was a little pirate in the best of the tradition.

As to the Herblock, comes to mind the thought: And the fireman wears his tights while he pirouettes, spritzing Fritz.

Hey-la, hey-a-hey-loa.

As tomorrow's edition is missing from the microfilm, we wish you a Happy Valentine. Remember, as the tyro said: "V" stands for Liberté. Which, no doubt, means that "III" stands for Fraternité. And, MI-5 stands for Égalité. Ergo, We Five stands for...? Ah well, all for one and one for all.

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