The Charlotte News

Thursday, March 12, 1942

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: Answer: Rosemary's baby.

Now, you must figure out why, in 1,000 words or less.

Hint: Start with the Missouri Compromise, or, if you prefer deeper gleaning, the Louisiana Purchase.

No, smart aleck. The explanation is not "Sunrise at Campobello". Show some prudence, please. Drop, do ten, start again. But that wasn't a bad try for a beginner.

The front page blasts the news that fully 1.5 million Russian troops, the largest offensive yet undertaken by the Russians in the war, were being sent, under the command of Semeon Timoshenko, into the area between Kharkov, west of Stalingrad, and Taganrog, at the eastern point of the Sea of Azou, in the eastern Ukraine, to make a push against the Nazis back across the Dneiper River, into the western Ukraine, by the beginning of the Nazis' expected spring offensive. The goal was to protect the breadbasket of the Ukraine and the rich oil reserves of the Caucasus.

"Salesman" on the editorial page follows up on the front page story of the day before regarding the promise by Churchill of full independence to India following the war and the sending of Sir Stafford Cripps, a trusted advocate of India's independence, to implement the plan approved by Parliament. The piece points out the distrust among India's nationalist population engendered from observing the results of British promises for independence to Palestine out of World War I, promises separately made to Jews and Arabs in exchange for their support in the earlier war, and in turn which led to fighting which had beset the Holy Land to 1942, indeed, fighting which has continued now 60 years after the creation of the modern state of Israel in 1948.

Empire.

"Land of Roc" tells why Madagascar had now become of strategic significance. Controlled by Vichy, the Japanese were eager to capture it, as were the Allies. The race was not for any prize on the island itself but rather for its control of the sea corridor around the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean, the route to secure India and supply defensive lines and China by sea, the only way left other than through the Nazi-troubled Mediterranean-Suez-Red Sea route or by air.

The roc of Madagascar, (also called "roche", "rock", or "ruck"), the piece informs, was a legendary monster bird, similar to the phoenix, described variously by Sinbad and Marco Polo as man-eating, laying large eggs, capable of devouring a horse, an elephant, or even whole ships. Some said it was a species of condor.

As to "Frozen Hem", the War Production Board obviously failed to do its duty in freezing the upward rising line through the 1950's and 1960's--and glory be unto it for that. No doubt, soon, we shall see a letter to the editor from that former perennial of the 1938 era, "Oggler", that is, if he hadn't been drafted by now and was fighting in the Pacific somewhere.

And, we think that the least The News could have done, if it was going to publish in spanish the letter to the editor from Havana regarding Cuba's mutual admiration for the font of all North American liberty, George Washington, was to provide us a translation. We took spanish, and more or less understand what the letter writer was saying, but if you didn't, write it all out and plug into a free internet translator to obtain the specifics. The exercise will do you good. We thought about it but then decided that because it's Saturday, raining, and our team lost, we are simply too lazy. ¿Cómo la victoria escapa así el victorioso? Amperio hora bien, la semana próxima... No, it isn't Portuguese. Drop, do ten, try again.