The Charlotte News

Thursday, June 25, 1942

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: Below are the complete verses quoted from Lord Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, set forth at the end of "One Last Dance", anent the steady march toward Alexandria of Rommel's outmanned, outgunned, nevertheless thus far victorious panzer divisions, and that which, should he accomplish the approach, the victors likely faced.

XXI.
There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium's capital had gathered then
Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men;
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage bell;
But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!
XXII.
Did ye not hear it?--No; 'twas but the wind,
Or the car rattling o'er the stony street;
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet.
But hark!--that heavy sound breaks in once more,
As if the clouds its echo would repeat;
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!
Arm! arm! it is--it is--the cannon's opening roar!

"Sure-Fire" reminds us of the current flap about the "disappearance" earlier this week for a whole four days of the Governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford. Some of his political opponents claim that his staff lied when they informed the press that the Governor had gone hiking last weekend on the Appalachian Trail, when in fact he went to Argentina. It turned out, said he, that he needed time away from it all to think, following the grind of the legislative session.

Not a bad idea. The Legislature and those who carped about his sudden disappearance would be well-advised to follow suit and disappear for four days and leave the rest of us alone. There is such a thing as taking one's self far too seriously. When the country was founded, most legislatures, including the Congress, took the whole summer off. Some met only at long intervals, some as little as biennially. Would that it were that the same tradition could start again. We would all be better off. More power to the Governor for taking time to think--not to drink, to think.

Combine Raymond Clapper's piece with that of Dorothy Thompson and the place of opening the second front, that adopted by the Allies, becomes clear--North Africa.

"Experts Run Wild" takes a swipe at the military experts'lack of discernment prior to Pearl Harbor re Japan's military strength. Freely providing their expertise, they were nearly uniform in defining it weak, even to the point of declaring its air force "almost non-existent".

"Lamentation" reminds again of the sale of scrap iron to Japan before Pearl Harbor, scrap now being hurled back at the United States Navy and Air Corps in the form of shrapnel.

Dancing the danse macabre, even beneath the ghost of the 6th Avenue El, they were now shooting each other, blasting each other's earthly raiment to bits, until the rains came, until the Divine Wind blew it all back to sea.

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