The Charlotte News

Thursday, July 30, 1942

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: Two future Presidents receive mention on the front page and the editorial page today. On the front page, Senator Truman is quoted as being in agreement with Henry Kaiser, steel magnate of California, that the shipbuilders of the nation could broaden their manufacture to include flying boats for transport of troops and supplies. Said Senator Truman, they said they couldn't build the Bonneville Dam either, but it was done, and this, too, would be done.

Paul Mallon on the editorial page, under the header, "The Rep. Isn't Hep", discusses Congressman Lyndon Johnson's criticism of U.S. aircraft and pilots flying in the Far East theater from which Johnson had just returned. Mallon suggests that the criticism, while fair, was being met by the manufacturers and the air corps, exchanging the high maneuverability of the Japanese Zero for better armor and heavier, self-sealing fuel tanks.

In Washington, oral argument continued before the Supreme Court on the saboteur case, Ex Parte Quirin. Attorney General Francis Biddle argued that the President had unlimited power, not subject to check by the Supreme Court, when acting as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. The Army defense counsel, Colonel Kenneth Royall, a North Carolinian who until recently had been a Raleigh lawyer, argued that the accused saboteurs had fled Germany to the U.S., were not "enemies" of the state or "invaders" at all. The red light interrupted him and the Court adjourned for lunch.

Speaking of relative powers of the three branches, we understand that there is a court higher than the Supreme Court in the country. It is a basketball court which is positioned above the Supreme Court. Whether it was there in 1942 and whether the red light thus came from it to indicate a foul or expiration of time, we don't know.

"Stretchout" on the editorial page finds Colonel Royall's defense to be anathema and suggests that Tar Heelia would loathe to be soon forgetful of his words in support of the enemy.

The editorial, of course, forgets the fact that the Army appointed Colonel Royall to represent the accused to the best of his legal ability, which meant that he had to set forth every legal defense available to him. It was his ethical duty as a lawyer.

At the same time, that does not include putting forth a whopper, a defense which was plainly fabricated by the accused. Or, does it?

Was there some plausible basis for belief that the eight came to the country aboard a U-boat, stocked with plans to commit sabotage, only with the intent instead to flee Germany and enter the U.S.?

Well, you be the judge.

They were on trial for their lives and there was, no doubt, no effort by the prosecution to plea bargain. Colonel Royall was in an unenviable spot.

Perhaps, however, he should have stuck to the constitutional issues at stake before the Supreme Court and reserved the defense itself for the military tribunal. Yet, if asked the question by one of the justices, he couldn't have very well said, "That is my disingenuous argument for the tribunal, Mr. Justice, but here I prefer to stick to the legal argument as to whether these men are entitled to habeas corpus under our Constitution. If they are Nazi scalawags, aren't plenty of scalawags entitled to habeas corpus?" Or, could he have?

In Indianapolis, William Dudley Pelley, formerly of Asheville, and leader of the Silver Shirts, was standing trial with others for sedition for his publications. A meat cutter of Cleveland and a meat seller of Cleveland testified that they were Silver Shirts, had distributed the Pelley publications, "The Galilean" and "We Fight for This Republic Only". But, the Silver Shirts, they said, had not met since late 1939 or early 1940, except for "several metaphysical meetings".

Where in metaphysicality the meetings had occurred was not provided.

Ernie Pyle this day tells of another slice of life during his stint living among the soldiers being trained at the American naval base at Londonderry in Northern Island. Among other things, he relates of one Major Dugan, "Red" they called him, who regularly dropped by before dinner and for midnight coffee--midnight coffee?

In any event, the Major hailed from Quincy, Mass. and owned there a button factory. Whether he had a son, born the day a backward moving clock was installed in Quincy, causing him then to age backwards, is not told. But it probably was so.