The Charlotte News

Tuesday, March 31, 1942

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page and "Gymnosophy" in the editorial column tell of a harbinger of things to come in the post-war United States, a new Red scare brought forth by its chief architect and champion, obviously bored with Nazi hunting. Someone forgot to tell HUAC Chairman Martin Dies of Texas that the Reds were now our allies, and much needed allies at that, warding off as they were the Nazi Wehrmacht at the expense of millions of Russian lives--all of which kept safe American and British lives which otherwise might have been lost, to Nazi offensives in North Africa, in defense of England. Indeed, it was an effort which saved lives in the Pacific as well, with the omnipresent threat to the Japanese of an operation against their home waters from Russian territory.

But Chairman Dies believed and so reported to Vice-President Wallace, himself branded Red more than once by extremists, that 35 members of the Board of Economic Warfare, of which Wallace was Chairman, had been members of Red organizations. (Some of them might have been liberals also.)

By 1950, Senator Joe McCarthy would outgun Congressman Dies at the game of scurrilous charges with little or no foundation, brought for political aggrandizement to the folks back home quaking in their paranoiac stews, claiming Communist affiliation within the ranks of Army officers and the State Department, charging at one point that some 150 Communist agents had positions at State. He had their names, from reliable sources, neatly registered on a piece of paper which he brandished before the press. Eventually, the list included George C. Marshall and Dean Acheson, respectively former and present Secretaries of State, as well as columnist Drew Pearson. (Cf. McCarthy Rule No. 1998 (as contained in The Post-Modern Code Duello: Tripping the Light Fantastic Toe Beneath the Star of Cynosure's Show): It always helps to add names with public recognition to a defamatory list, obtaining thereby significant enough press interest to afford the broadest possible dissemination of the calumny and thus to insure maximum exposure, even unto those outside the cognoscenti among the constituents surrounding the hustings.)

In the case of Senator McCarthy, it turned out that the only Reds haunting the nation were the maraschino cherries populating his martinis. Probably, the same was true of Martin Dies.

In any event, the irritated members of the Board of Economic Warfare were looking into whether they could sue the Congressman for libel or whether his charges were made with the cloak of Congressional privilege.

Meanwhile, the Soviet army continued to batter the Nazis at Smolensk, around Leningrad, at Staraya Russa, and in the Donets region to the south. For Martin, the enemy of our worst enemy was still our worst enemy.

And besides being Red, the chief culprit on the Board, said Martin, was an avowed gymnosophist who advocated the practice in ordinary society—men and women, co-educationally so. Well, pity poor Martin. Have you ever tried to catch a Red gymnosophist?

"Gymnosophist", incidentally, says Oxford, is defined thusly:

One of a sect of ancient Hindu philosophers of ascetic habits (known to the Greeks through the reports of the companions of Alexander), who wore little or no clothing, denied themselves flesh meat, and gave themselves up to mystical contemplation. Also occas. allusively, an ascetic or mystic.

Only one thing worse than a Red nudist and that’s a mystical Red nudist. Martin, we understand, was also looking into whether Gandhi was such an agent. He was, after all, a partially nude weaver.

"100 Ships" provides the grim statistic that in a mere 113 days since the start of official U.S. involvement in the war, 100 ships had been sunk in the Atlantic by Nazi U-boats, nearly one for each day of the war.

Paul Mallon suggests that monsoon season rains in the Philippines, to begin by June 1, might provide respite for American-Filipino forces under the command of General Jonathan Wainwright, should they hold up that long. Unfortunately, their time was more constricted as food and supplies began to dwindle as the days wore on, with the loss of the Indies having cut off most of the Allied supply route to Bataan and Corregidor. The rains would come, but only to make the Bataan death march the drearier for the Allied prisoners.

And a piece on the front page explains what happened to sugar hoarders in Nazi Germany: Death. At least it was so for two women nurses found guilty of hoarding four tons of sugar, candy, and soap.

But Martin Dies was concerned about Red gymnosophists on the War Economics Board.

Candidly, a little government gymnosophy in the world by this point probably would have gone far to help matters. It certainly couldn’t have hurt. Imagine, for instance, Hitler directing his armies while being gymnosophically inclined.

You do see what we mean?

He might well have been sold on the idea in fact with a little prodding. For if it was good enough for Alexander, why not der Fuehrer?

All of which reminds us that a couple of weeks ago when we remarked that our team was in the same region as the Spartans in the basketball tournament, you probably made sport of our apparent ignorance, thinking we confused the Spartans with the Wolverines. Not so. Now you understand our precognition in the matter: this coming weekend, the Spartans and our team are in the same regional. Such a prediction is simply that which we call a flubber. Now you understand where Walt Disney got the term.