The Charlotte News

Saturday, September 5, 1942

FIVE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: After a twelve-day engagement beginning the 25th, the Japanese this day would begin a full retreat in the Battle of Milne Bay in New Guinea. The fighting would be over by Monday. The Japanese suffered 625 killed against 170 for the Allies.

Per the usual fare for Saturdays, the front page offers little of note. A raid the previous night on the Rouen railway and the docks of Le Havre in France involved three squadrons of Flying Fortresses manned by U.S. pilots, the largest U.S. raid thus far conducted in the European war.

At first glance, the photograph and the headline suggest that Frank Graham was nonplussed by the tenacity of the Russians at Stalingrad, but not so. It was only the large array of fuzzy-poppers, to which he was not accustomed--at least according to the caption.

Or, perhaps he saw a ghost.

Likewise, the editorial page revisits topics which have of late been thoroughly treated.

A letter to the editor from a disgruntled reader appears to threaten the brandishing of some shooting irons to resolve the situation over the recent editorial criticizing Olin Johnston unless an apology were forthcoming. Johnston had won the Democratic primary and thus was to become the next Governor of South Carolina, having previously served in the position from 1935 to 1939. He would be elected to the Senate in 1944 and serve for twenty years until his death.

Without the apology demanded by the code duello, the newspaper nevertheless continued without incident, and presumably without having to employ security guards and metal detectors, for another 43 years.

By the way, the first horseman bore a white kerchief, the second wore a red one, the third, a black one, and the fourth--carried an umbrella. The first three were dressed as women. Whether they were actually women, however, judging by their size, compared to the men standing next to them, is highly questionable.

Perhaps, that was why the President looked momentarily confused when he looked at them to his right.

Also, there is a large, perfectly square reflection, oddly, on the trunk lid, right beneath the radio antenna, at frame 300. It is much too defined to be merely a light anomaly. What is it? There was nothing apparent to cast that reflection.

VII

Long as man's hope insatiate can discern
Or only guess some more inspiring goal
Outside of Self, enduring as the pole,
Along whose course the flying axles burn
Of spirits bravely pitched, earth's manlier brood,
Long as below we cannot find
The meed that stills the inexorable mind;
So long this faith to some ideal Good,
Under whatever mortal names it masks,
Freedom, Law, Country, this ethereal mood
That thanks the Fates for their severer tasks,
Feeling its challenged pulses leap,
While others skulk in subterfuges cheap,
And, set in Danger's van, has all the boon it asks,
Shall win man's praise and woman's love,
Shall be a wisdom that we set above
All other skills and gifts to culture dear,
A virtue round whose forehead we inwreathe
Laurels that with a living passion breathe
When other crowns grow, while we twine them, sear.
What brings us thronging these high rites to pay,
And seal these hours the noblest of our year,
Save that our brothers found this better way?

VIII

We sit here in the Promised Land
That flows with Freedom's honey and milk;
But 'twas they won it, sword in hand,
Making the nettle danger soft for us as silk.
We welcome back our bravest and our best;--
Ah me! not all! some come not with the rest,
Who went forth brave and bright as any here!
I strive to mix some gladness with my strain,
But the sad strings complain,
And will not please the ear:
I sweep them for a paean, but they wane
Again and yet again,
Into a dirge, and die away, in pain.
In these brave ranks I only see the gaps,
Thinking of dear ones whom the dumb turf wraps,
Dark to the triumph which they died to gain:
Fitlier may others greet the living,
For me the past is unforgiving;
I with uncovered head
Salute the sacred dead,
Who went, and who return not.--Say not so!
'Tis not the grapes of Canaan that repay,
But the high faith that failed not by the way;
Virtue treads paths that end not in the grave;
No ban of endless night exiles the brave;
And to the saner mind
We rather seem the dead that stayed behind.
Blow, trumpets, all your exultations blow!
For never shall their aureoled presence lack:
I see them muster in a gleaming row,
With ever-youthful brows that nobler show;
We find in our dull road their shining track;
In every nobler mood
We feel the orient of their spirit glow,
Part of our life's unalterable good,
Of all our saintlier aspiration;
They come transfigured back,
Secure from change in their high-hearted ways,
Beautiful evermore, and with the rays
Of morn on their white
Shields of Expectation!

IX

But is there hope to save
Even this ethereal essence from the grave?
What ever 'scaped Oblivion's subtle wrong
Save a few clarion names, or golden threads of song?
Before my musing eye
The mighty ones of old sweep by,
Disvoiced now and insubstantial things,
As noisy once as we; poor ghosts of kings,
Shadows of empire wholly gone to dust,
And many races, nameless long ago,
To darkness driven by that imperious gust
Of ever-rushing Time that here doth blow:
O visionary world, condition strange,
Where naught abiding is but only Change,
Where the deep-bolted stars themselves still shift and range!
Shall we to more continuance make pretence?
Renown builds tombs, a life-estate is Wit;
And, bit by bit,
The cunning years steal all from us but woe;
Leaves are we, whose decays no harvest sow.
But, when we vanish hence,
Shall they lie forceless in the dark below,
Save to make green their little length of souls,
Or deepen pansies for a year or two,
Who now to us are shining-sweet as gods?
Was dying all they had the skill to do?
That were not fruitless: but the Soul resents
Such short-lived service, as if blind events
Ruled without her, or earth could so endure;
She claims a more divine investiture
Of longer tenure than Fame's airy rents;
Whate'er she touches doth her nature share;
Her inspiration haunts the ennobled air,
Gives eyes to mountains blind,
Ears to the deaf earth, voices to the wind,
And her clear trump slugs succor everywhere
By lonely bivouacs to the wakeful mind;
For soul inherits all that soul could dare:
Yea, Manhood hath a wider span
And larger privilege of life than man.
The single deed, the private sacrifice,
So radiant now through proudly-hidden tears,
Is covered up erelong from mortal eyes
With thoughtless drift of the deciduous years;
But that high privilege that makes all men peers,
That leap of heart whereby a people rise
Up to a noble anger's height,
And, flamed on by the Fates, not shrink, but grow more bright,
That swift validity in noble veins,
Of choosing danger and disdaining shame,
Of being set on flame
By the pure fire that flies all contact base
But wraps its chosen with angelic might,
These are imperishable gains,
Sure as the sun, medicinal as light,
These hold great futures in their lusty reins
And certify to earth a new imperial race.

X

Who now shall sneer?
Who dare again to say we trace
Our lines to a plebeian race?

--from "Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration," July 21, 1865, by James Russell Lowell

--Illustration by John Tenniel, England, 1865

Count the number of hearts. We've got our number. Try to beat the House. Definitive answer Monday.