The Charlotte News

Tuesday, August 11, 1942

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports of the continuing battle for Guadalcanal and Tulagi. The delayed information coming from the military did not yet communicate per se the disaster of Savo Island on Sunday, but did include the lost ships in the engagement. Nevertheless, its optimistic message was one which in reality should have been properly tempered by the devastation encountered in the two hours of fighting between 1:30 and 3:30 Sunday morning around Savo Island.

The other reports indicate bombing of the Japanese bases at Rabaul and Timor, the former several hundred miles from Guadalcanal and the latter fully two thousand miles away, on the other side of Australia. The Marines at Guadalcanal itself were left largely at this point to fend for themselves as the other operations, including the ground operations of General MacArthur to the north of Port Moresby in New Guinea, also several hundred miles away from Guadalcanal, were remote maneuvers to try to quell air operations and inhibit the transport of troops by ship down along the route taken by Admiral Mikawa on Friday and Saturday through "The Slot" of the Solomons to Guadalcanal.

But to the Marines fighting the Japanese on Tulagi and Guadalcanal, there was an increasing feeling of abandonment by the Navy and Air Forces as the enemy continued to land troops on the islands. The situation would get far worse before it got better.

Another brief piece provides a quick snapshot of the overall dilemma facing the Allies should the Nazi drive in Libya and Egypt under Rommel succeed in capturing Alexandria and the Suez Canal and the drive through the Caucasus reach Baku on the Caspian and Tiflis in Georgia, in the south central region of the Caucasus, to the west of Baku, enabling then access to the oilfields of Iran and Iraq and joinder between the forces of Rommel and those in the Caucasus to form a pincer over the entire Middle East, forcing the British from Syria and Egypt and therefore completely from the Mediterranean.

That, in turn, would pave the way for the larger pincer by Japan from the Far East through India, leaving potentially the entirety of Asia, save China, all of Continental Europe, and North Africa, plus the sub-continent of India, in Axis hands. And China would be left isolated to fall soon enough to the Japanese--unless Hitler's own paranoia with respect to his ally once again got the better of him to intercede to prevent such a large Japanese acquisition, one threatening of his would-be newly acquired Russian satrapy.

Meanwhile, in reality, the Soviet official press organs admitted German advances well into the central region of the Caucasus, backing the Russian forces into the mountains for defense. The Red Star urged a fierce stand as "’the edge of the abyss’", quoting an eighteenth century Russian general, appeared inevitable. "The fate of our country is being decided in the violent battles on the Don and the Kuban," it continued. Both Izvestia and Pravda echoed similar plaints.

The Vichy official organ in France reported Nazi troop penetrations as far as 70 miles to the north and 50 miles southwest of the oil center at Grozny. Nazi High Command communiques, however, did not claim such extensive advances.

In India, rioting continued as British troops were called up to support police in trying to break up the mobs by firing indiscriminately into crowds. Another 13 were killed and 30 injured by police and military bullets. It was not the spectacle desired by the Allies to have presented to the Axis at this critical juncture of history.

But, while Gandhi had called for the period of civil disobedience, he had called for non-violent civil disobedience, not the throwing of bottles and stones or the setting of bonfires, burning of police callboxes and other symbols of British rule of the country, as was being undertaken by the Hindu "goonas".

So, to lay these more violent acts off on Gandhi was as laying off the riots in the bitterly hot summers of 1965 through 1968 to the responsibility of Martin Luther King and the N.A.A.C.P.--and, of course, some in the United States, some in official positions, from Los Angeles through the Bible Belt of the Southwest to the South, even into the North, did precisely that, despite the bitter lesson of history in India, leading ultimately to the assassination of Gandhi on January 30, 1948.

The same pattern of pincers--initiated in India, though not yet reported, with the arrest by the British of Gandhi and the central committee of the All-India National Congress Party on Sunday--would lead ultimately to the assassination of Martin Luther King, in Memphis--you see--, April 4, 1968, amid the garbage workers strike in that city, amid the broader Poor People’s March on Washington, planned to reach the Mall and establish a "Tent City" there in mid-May. The March went on as scheduled and "Tent City" was established on the Mall.

We once walked on the border of "Tent City", about two weeks before it was ordered disbanded on June 25. We have never forgotten that walk.

On the editorial page, "No Choice" recognizes that there is historical precedent for the choice of timing of Gandhi’s call for civil disobedience at this critical moment to achieve independence from Great Britain--the American Revolution. The editorial nevertheless finds fault in the selfishness of the "Quit India" movement of Gandhi, suggests that any nation or group who was not in cooperation with the Allies was against the Allies.

Similar sentiments were heard in the United States in the period 1965 through 1968, as the country became increasingly embroiled in the bitterly heaving pit which was the War in Vietnam while increasingly turbulent racial and student unrest co-existed in the streets at home.

Enter the forces of Nixon and Reagan to break it up and restore "Order"--the "Law and Order" crowd, the representatives of "the Silent majority of Americans"--that is, those who failed much to read their history books, or much else outside the funny papers, with much discernment, even if Richard Nixon, himself, read his history books, indeed, all too well, with Machiavellian delusions intruding to the mix-master which was his mind. Ronald Reagan--well--Ronald Reagan-zap.

"The Clan Medill" reports of the brewing controversy, potentially amounting to treason or at least sedition, for the Chicago Tribune publisher, and owner of radio station WGN, Col. Robert McCormick--of late, during Stuart Rabb’s tenure as associate editor at The News, termed "McCosmick". (We add, McCosmick-zap.) It seems that The Tribune had reported, based on unnamed souces at ONI, that the Navy knew in advance of enemy strengths and positions as they approached for the attack on Midway and were able therefore to intercept the Japanese Fleet at sea. The report was true, but the problem was the premature reporting of the information not deemed by the military yet appropriate for release on June 7, just as the battle was still concluding.

It seems the Government should have been paying more attention to who the leaker was at ONI and less on whether newspapers were publishing information deemed inimical to the Allied war effort. A free press, especially in time of war, means precisely what it says in the First Amendment, free. It does not make exception for national emergency or war. The only limit at common law was the law of defamation. And it so remains the only limit.

One can never be assailed for publishing the truth. Nor should one be. It is the only way for growth in a democracy, and the preservation of democracy in each country where it has been constitutionally established, and that preservation is the only way in which the seeds may be borne on the winds across the world to establish more pervasive democracy, feeding on itself to instruct and promote more growth of the democratic seed even in fallow ground. Start to limit it and the limits likewise find mutally stimulative conditions to carry on after the determined emergent needs of the war are past--as they did in fact.

While Robert McCormick’s brand of politics was not in the least that of our own, he had the right, even the responsibility, to print as he saw fit, whether in wartime or peacetime. By like turns, his readership had the right, even the responsibility, either not to read his isolationist garbage or to protest what they did read, and in the streets if necessary. Had a large body of Chicagoans assembled, say, in Grant Park and fasted for a week in protest of Colonel McCormick’s views, perhaps the editorial policy of the newspaper, especially should its revenue stream have thereby started to dry up amid boycotts and advertisers fearful of lost revenue, and concern over further demonstrations outside its offices, would have gradually undergone change.

But trying to indict Col. McCormick, calling him a "traitor", was not the solution, or implying of any proper or just limit on the exercise of freedom of the press.

From across the state’s newspapers came praise for the blue ribbon panel’s recommendations on improvement of care for the mentally ill at Morganton and the other state hospitals for the insane. Special praise came from the newspapers in Greensboro, nearby Burlington, and in Fayetteville for Tom Jimison for airing the grievances which brought about the investigation and recommendations. Said The Fayetteville Observer, affably and ironically, "We salute ‘crazy’ Tom."

One person can sometimes effect mightily and in a positive manner the course of human events--even if thought by some in fact to be crazy for doing so.

Of course, there are others who instead resort to lies, the Big Lie, or violence to effect change, and, for a time, their efforts sometimes prove moderately successful, as with Hitler and Mussolini and Tojo--until the Devil of the Lie and the inevitable violence necessary to protect the bounty of the Lie finally get the better of them.

Framed Edition

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