Tuesday, January 11, 1944

The Charlotte News

Tuesday, January 11, 1944

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that President Roosevelt's state of the union message to Congress, the text of which is set forth below, had outlined a modest five point domestic program and declared that the conferences at Tehran and Cairo had been devoted, not to any secret plans or promises, but solely to winning the war. The five-point program was headed by his proposal for a national service act whereby there would be universal draft of all male adults between ages 18 and 65 and all females 18 to 50 into the civilian labor service as needed to accomplish the war effort. He added the proposal for a sensible tax package, re-enacting the law on renegotiation of contracts, extending the Economic Stabilization Act, set to expire June 30, and enacting a food price control law.

For the first time, because of his flu and because of the long trip abroad in November and December, he delivered the speech from the White House, not directly to Congress.

In Italy, a pincers formation of the Fifth Army closed on Cassino, one arm nearing Cervaro, four miles southeast of Cassino. A contingent of American troops threatened Mt. Rocchio, less than three miles from Cassino, while the British captured Mount Pedro, five miles to the southeast.

The Eighth Army again was limited to patrol activity for the snowy weather on the Adriatic front.

American planes of the 15th Air Force again attacked Sofia in Bulgaria for the second straight day.

The Russians moved closer to the Rumanian border and the severing of the crucial Odessa to Warsaw rail link, the cutting of which would push the Nazis into reliance for supplies on routes through Rumania instead of Poland.

A report released jointly by the United States and Great Britain showed a 60 percent reduction in the loss of shipping in 1943 compared to 1942, while doubling tonnage of ships produced.

The Nazis announced the execution of Mussolini’s son-in-law, Count Ciano, the day after his conviction for treason for voting to oust Mussolini in July, 1943. Four other men, all former Fascists, were shot along with the Count on the same factual nexus alleged as treason.

A day after a squib appeared on the editorial page reporting that Congresswoman Claire Boothe Luce had criticized Hollywood "glamour gals" for not joining the war effort as WAC's or WAVES, as had many of the actors out of Hollywood, starting with Clark Gable, her daughter was reported to have been killed in an automobile accident in the vicinity of Palo Alto, California, while returning after the holidays to Stanford.

Republicans selected Chicago to be the site of their nominating convention in the summer.

And from Boston came the report that a School Committeeman had found that many sixth graders in the Boston schools believed that President Roosevelt was the only President the country had ever had.

Of course, you really can't fault them for the fact that, not only had he been in office for 11 of their 11 or 12 short years, but his three predecessors hardly counted for anything, certainly not exactly presidential timber, now were they? One cheated, then died; one slept most of the time; and the third brought the country to its knees in a depression of unprecedented dimension, one on which a fair argument may be premised that it led to the ostrich mentality of America as Italy, Germany, and Japan steadily armed themselves.

Hal Boyle reports of the Army's adoption of Daisy, a duck rescued from the frying pan by a lieutenant who was struck by her amiable waddle. At first named Donald, until she started laying eggs, the men had to rename her Daisy. Her nickname was "Queen", probably the Faerie Queen. Daisy had been through shot and shell in North Africa, in Sicily, and in Italy, and was still quacking with the best of them.

On the editorial page, "The Denial" comments on the sudden change of attitude toward the acquisition of food exhibited by Reichsmarshal Hermann Goering. Whereas the Ukraine had once been deemed a central piece, if not sine qua non, for the Axis puzzle to attain geopolitical control of the World Island from Europe, with the Wehrmacht browbeaten and in retreat all along the front in Western Russia, suddenly the Ukraine ceased to have so much importance as the Nazi breadbasket. Herr Goering had decided it was more important to be tender and sensitive to the lives of young Germans and call them homeward for defense of Die Vaterland.

"Conventions" tells of Chicago seeking out both the Democrats and Republicans to alleviate pressure on transportation in the country. The Republicans had already accepted Chicago as the locus for its party gathering, despite the disfavor in which it was held by Wendell Willkie for the presence of influential isolationist Chicago Tribune publisher Bertie McCormick.

"Tipoff" relates the news that German production priority had shifted from U-boats to planes, tanks, and artillery, in that order, finds it significant of the diminution of German industrial capability, that it had determined the most effective policy was one of land defense to thwart the now certain prospect of Allied invasion. The strategy had shifted only in the previous 90 days, during which the fateful conferences at Moscow, Cairo, and Tehran had been held.

"Peace Month" praises Rabbi Philip Frankel of Charlotte for his efforts in December to spread the word of peace and hope for the future, finding it in three events during December: the grant of asylum for 8,000 Jews by King Gustav of Sweden; the resistance of King Christian of Denmark to Nazi decrees against Jews in that country; and President Roosevelt's protest lodged against Argentina for its suppression of Jewish newspapers. The piece expresses the hope that the sentiment thus started would spread throughout the year and throughout the country and the world.

Mentioned with disdain a few weeks earlier, though not in this piece, were anti-Semitic occurrences in New York.

Raymond Clapper, his column starting on the front page, reports from somewhere in Australia of the worst hazard to life in the islands of that area, not the enemy, but mosquitoes--and not the plywood variety flown by the RAF but the biting kind which carried malaria. Soldiers under discipline were given the onerous duty of killing the avengers by spraying diesel fuel into ditches three times per week.

He also reports of the varying conditions of topography on different types of islands which he visited.

At one point he had run into the boxer, Commander Gene Tunney, who as a member of the Army had constructed an elaborate fitness center.

Drew Pearson comments on the glut now in trained Army Air Corps pilots, as indicated by General Hap Arnold to the War Department. The former preferred use of civilian pilots in the Air Transport Command had now given way to military-trained pilots to afford them something to do.

He next turns to the attempt by three members of Congress to provide amici curiae briefs to the Supreme Court on the issue of whether fire insurance companies were subject to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Chief Justice Harlan Stone had diplomatically declined the offer, indicating it was difficult enough to keep politics out of the Court. It came at a time when Justices Murphy and Black had criticized Justice Frankfurter for his "wholly gratuitous assertion" regarding a point of constitutional law in a dissent. Meanwhile, Justice Owen Roberts had complained of leaks out of the Court.

Finally, Mr. Pearson reports of the amicable relations between Congressman Harold Cooley of North Carolina--the same who the previous year had come under a good deal of derisive comment for his having pronounced openly on the floor of the House how wholly inappropriate it was for there to be no more than wooden dummies on the roof of the Capitol protecting it from air attack--and his former colleague from North Carolina, Frank Hancock, now head of the Farm Security Administration. The FSA had formerly been department non grata on Capitol Hill for its alleged inefficiency of operation. Now, suddenly, Mr. Cooley, previously a leading opponent of the agency, took it to his warm bosom for the sake of his old friend, its new Director. Concludes Mr. Pearson, it was amazing the feats of Congress when it worked in cohesive harmony with the Executive Branch.

Samuel Grafton finds hypocritical the controversy being stirred by William Randolph Hearst, advocating international settlement of the Polish-Russian border issue in favor of Poland. Given that Mr. Hearst, says Mr. Grafton, expressed no such sympathy for the Poles when Germany invaded the country to start the war September 1, 1939, indeed had found the prospect of Britain and France going to war over the issue a chivalrous and quixotic gesture without practical purpose, his sudden tender feeling for the rights of the Poles was the result only of his fervent anti-Communism. Poland, concludes Mr. Grafton, would be better served by not heeding the advice of such newly acquired friends, amicable only to the point of ridding Polish soil of Soviet influence.

Dorothy Thompson discusses the statement of Wendell Willkie to his own party counseling its leaders not to open a can of worms with respect to the Polish-Russian border issue, thereby incurring the wrath of the Russian allies. Pravda's Comrade Litella had jumped all over the statement as being inimical to Russian interests, misreading Mr. Willkie's intent.

Ms. Thompson asserts that the only way for the United States to assure its own future security in the post-war world was to be prepared to fight for interests determined as primary to security, negotiate where they were determined secondary, and let go all negligible interests.

While she does not expressly say so, her implication appeared to be that America should not meddle too heavily in the Soviet-Polish border question as it was only of secondary interest to the security of the United States.

The President's speech to the Congress follows. Note that toward its end he lists what he describes as a "Second Bill of Rights", within which is stated "[t]he right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health".

We find it rather boring, incidentally, to parse words, a favorite pastime in fact of the Nazis, and suggest that the President never intended his Second Bill of Rights to be part of the Constitution but rather stated it only as a legislative goal. While true that he so expressed formal legislation of the rights as the goal of the time 67 years ago, he also did not refer to the Second Bill as merely part of his legislative package to the Congress for 1944, but obviously intended to underscore the importance of these benefits of right through time by calling them collectively the "Second Bill of Rights". What, pray tell, then is the point in begging the issue by parsing words, except foolishly to convert into a parlor game the unalienable rights of all citizens to human progress? These rights which President Roosevelt enumerated were and are, when boiled down, merely specific expressions of that which is promised more generally in the Declaration of Independence by stating that among the unalianeble rights are "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness". Do you see?

This Nation in the past two years has become an active partner in the world's greatest war against human slavery.

We have joined with like-minded people in order to defend ourselves in a world that has been gravely threatened with gangster rule.

But I do not think that any of us Americans can be content with mere survival. Sacrifices that we and our allies are making impose upon us all a sacred obligation to see to it that out of this war we and our children will gain something better than mere survival.

We are united in determination that this war shall not be followed by another interim which leads to new disaster--that we shall not repeat the tragic errors of ostrich isolationism—that we shall not repeat the excesses of the wild twenties when this Nation went for a joy ride on a roller coaster which ended in a tragic crash.

When Mr. Hull went to Moscow in October, and when I went to Cairo and Teheran in November, we knew that we were in agreement with our allies in our common determination to fight and win this war. But there were many vital questions concerning the future peace, and they were discussed in an atmosphere of complete candor and harmony.

In the last war such discussions, such meetings, did not even begin until the shooting had stopped and the delegates began to assemble at the peace table. There had been no previous opportunities for man-to-man discussions which lead to meetings of minds. The result was a peace which was not a peace.

That was a mistake which we are not repeating in this war.

And right here I want to address a word or two to some suspicious souls who are fearful that Mr. Hull or I have made "commitments" for the future which might pledge this Nation to secret treaties, or to enacting the role of Santa Claus.

To such suspicious souls—using a polite terminology—I wish to say that Mr. Churchill, and Marshal Stalin, and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek are all thoroughly conversant with the provisions of our Constitution. And so is Mr. Hull. And so am I.

Of course we made some commitments. We most certainly committed ourselves to very large and very specific military plans which require the use of all Allied forces to bring about the defeat of our enemies at the earliest possible time.

But there were no secret treaties or political or financial commitments.

The one supreme objective for the future, which we discussed for each Nation individually, and for all the United Nations, can be summed up in one word: Security.

And that means not only physical security which provides safety from attacks by aggressors. It means also economic security, social security, moral security—in a family of Nations.

In the plain down-to-earth talks that I had with the Generalissimo and Marshal Stalin and Prime Minister Churchill, it was abundantly clear that they are all most deeply interested in the resumption of peaceful progress by their own peoples—progress toward a better life. All our allies want freedom to develop their lands and resources, to build up industry, to increase education and individual opportunity, and to raise standards of living.

All our allies have learned by bitter experience that real development will not be possible if they are to be diverted from their purpose by repeated wars—or even threats of war.

China and Russia are truly united with Britain and America in recognition of this essential fact:

The best interests of each Nation, large and small, demand that all freedom-loving Nations shall join together in a just and durable system of peace. In the present world situation, evidenced by the actions of Germany, Italy, and Japan, unquestioned military control over disturbers of the peace is as necessary among Nations as it is among citizens in a community. And an equally basic essential to peace is a decent standard of living for all individual men and women and children in all Nations. Freedom from fear is eternally linked with freedom from want.

There are people who burrow through our Nation like unseeing moles, and attempt to spread the suspicion that if other Nations are encouraged to raise their standards of living, our own American standard of living must of necessity be depressed.

The fact is the very contrary. It has been shown time and again that if the standard of living of any country goes up, so does its purchasing power--and that such a rise encourages a better standard of living in neighboring countries with whom it trades. That is just plain common sense—and it is the kind of plain common sense that provided the basis for our discussions at Moscow, Cairo, and Teheran.

Returning from my journeyings, I must confess to a sense of "let-down" when I found many evidences of faulty perspective here in Washington. The faulty perspective consists in overemphasizing lesser problems and thereby underemphasizing the first and greatest problem.

The overwhelming majority of our people have met the demands of this war with magnificent courage and understanding. They have accepted inconveniences; they have accepted hardships; they have accepted tragic sacrifices. And they are ready and eager to make whatever further contributions are needed to win the war as quickly as possible--if only they are given the chance to know what is required of them.

However, while the majority goes on about its great work without complaint, a noisy minority maintains an uproar of demands for special favors for special groups. There are pests who swarm through the lobbies of the Congress and the cocktail bars of Washington, representing these special groups as opposed to the basic interests of the Nation as a whole. They have come to look upon the war primarily as a chance to make profits for themselves at the expense of their neighbors--profits in money or in terms of political or social preferment.

Such selfish agitation can be highly dangerous in wartime. It creates confusion. It damages morale. It hampers our national effort. It muddies the waters and therefore prolongs the war.

If we analyze American history impartially, we cannot escape the fact that in our past we have not always forgotten individual and selfish and partisan interests in time of war—we have not always been united in purpose and direction. We cannot overlook the serious dissensions and the lack of unity in our war of the Revolution, in our War of 1812, or in our War Between the States, when the survival of the Union itself was at stake.

In the first World War we came closer to national unity than in any previous war. But that war lasted only a year and a half, and increasing signs of disunity began to appear during the final months of the conflict.

In this war, we have been compelled to learn how interdependent upon each other are all groups and sections of the population of America.

Increased food costs, for example, will bring new demands for wage increases from all war workers, which will in turn raise all prices of all things including those things which the farmers themselves have to buy. Increased wages or prices will each in turn produce the same results. They all have a particularly disastrous result on all fixed income groups.

And I hope you will remember that all of us in this Government represent the fixed income group just as much as we represent business owners, workers, and farmers. This group of fixed income people includes: teachers, clergy, policemen, firemen, widows and minors on fixed incomes, wives and dependents of our soldiers and sailors, and old-age pensioners. They and their families add up to one-quarter of our one hundred and thirty million people. They have few or no high pressure representatives at the Capitol. In a period of gross inflation they would be the worst sufferers.

If ever there was a time to subordinate individual or group selfishness to the national good, that time is now. Disunity at home—bickerings, self-seeking partisanship, stoppages of work, inflation, business as usual, politics as usual, luxury as usual these are the influences which can undermine the morale of the brave men ready to die at the front for us here.

Those who are doing most of the complaining are not deliberately striving to sabotage the national war effort. They are laboring under the delusion that the time is past when we must make prodigious sacrifices--that the war is already won and we can begin to slacken off. But the dangerous folly of that point of view can be measured by the distance that separates our troops from their ultimate objectives in Berlin and Tokyo—and by the sum of all the perils that lie along the way.

Overconfidence and complacency are among our deadliest enemies. Last spring—after notable victories at Stalingrad and in Tunisia and against the U-boats on the high seas—overconfidence became so pronounced that war production fell off. In two months, June and July, 1943, more than a thousand airplanes that could have been made and should have been made were not made. Those who failed to make them were not on strike. They were merely saying, "The war's in the bag--so let's relax."

That attitude on the part of anyone—Government or management or labor—can lengthen this war. It can kill American boys.

Let us remember the lessons of 1918. In the summer of that year the tide turned in favor of the allies. But this Government did not relax. In fact, our national effort was stepped up. In August, 1918, the draft age limits were broadened from 21-31 to 18-45. The President called for "force to the utmost," and his call was heeded. And in November, only three months later, Germany surrendered.

That is the way to fight and win a war—all out—and not with half-an-eye on the battlefronts abroad and the other eye-and-a-half on personal, selfish, or political interests here at home.

Therefore, in order to concentrate all our energies and resources on winning the war, and to maintain a fair and stable economy at home, I recommend that the Congress adopt:

(1) A realistic tax law—which will tax all unreasonable profits, both individual and corporate, and reduce the ultimate cost of the war to our sons and daughters. The tax bill now under consideration by the Congress does not begin to meet this test.

(2) A continuation of the law for the renegotiation of war contracts—which will prevent exorbitant profits and assure fair prices to the Government. For two long years I have pleaded with the Congress to take undue profits out of war.

(3) A cost of food law—which will enable the Government (a) to place a reasonable floor under the prices the farmer may expect for his production; and (b) to place a ceiling on the prices a consumer will have to pay for the food he buys. This should apply to necessities only; and will require public funds to carry out. It will cost in appropriations about one percent of the present annual cost of the war.

(4) Early reenactment of the stabilization statute of October, 1942. This expires June 30, 1944, and if it is not extended well in advance, the country might just as well expect price chaos by summer.

We cannot have stabilization by wishful thinking. We must take positive action to maintain the integrity of the American dollar.

(5) A national service law--which, for the duration of the war, will prevent strikes, and, with certain appropriate exceptions, will make available for war production or for any other essential services every able-bodied adult in this Nation.

These five measures together form a just and equitable whole. I would not recommend a national service law unless the other laws were passed to keep down the cost of living, to share equitably the burdens of taxation, to hold the stabilization line, and to prevent undue profits.

The Federal Government already has the basic power to draft capital and property of all kinds for war purposes on a basis of just compensation.

As you know, I have for three years hesitated to recommend a national service act. Today, however, I am convinced of its necessity. Although I believe that we and our allies can win the war without such a measure, I am certain that nothing less than total mobilization of all our resources of manpower and capital will guarantee an earlier victory, and reduce the toll of suffering and sorrow and blood.

I have received a joint recommendation for this law from the heads of the War Department, the Navy Department, and the Maritime Commission. These are the men who bear responsibility for the procurement of the necessary arms and equipment, and for the successful prosecution of the war in the field. They say:

"When the very life of the Nation is in peril the responsibility for service is common to all men and women. In such a time there can be no discrimination between the men and women who are assigned by the Government to its defense at the battlefront and the men and women assigned to producing the vital materials essential to successful military operations. A prompt enactment of a National Service Law would be merely an expression of the universality of this responsibility."

I believe the country will agree that those statements are the solemn truth.

National service is the most democratic way to wage a war. Like selective service for the armed forces, it rests on the obligation of each citizen to serve his Nation to his utmost where he is best qualified.

It does not mean reduction in wages. It does not mean loss of retirement and seniority rights and benefits. It does not mean that any substantial numbers of war workers will be disturbed in their present jobs. Let these facts be wholly clear.

Experience in other democratic Nations at war—Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand- has shown that the very existence of national service makes unnecessary the widespread use of compulsory power. National service has proven to be a unifying moral force based on an equal and comprehensive legal obligation of all people in a Nation at war.

There are millions of American men and women who are not in this war at all. It is not because they do not want to be in it. But they want to know where they can best do their share. National service provides that direction. It will be a means by which every man and woman can find that inner satisfaction which comes from making the fullest possible contribution to victory.

I know that all civilian war workers will be glad to be able to say many years hence to their grandchildren: "Yes, I, too, was in service in the great war. I was on duty in an airplane factory, and I helped make hundreds of fighting planes. The Government told me that in doing that I was performing my most useful work in the service of my country."

It is argued that we have passed the stage in the war where national service is necessary. But our soldiers and sailors know that this is not true. We are going forward on a long, rough road--and, in all journeys, the last miles are the hardest. And it is for that final effort—-for the total defeat of our enemies--that we must mobilize our total resources. The national war program calls for the employment of more people in 1944 than in 1943.

It is my conviction that the American people will welcome this win-the-war measure which is based on the eternally just principle of "fair for one, fair for all."

It will give our people at home the assurance that they are standing four-square behind our soldiers and sailors. And it will give our enemies demoralizing assurance that we mean business--that we, 130,000,000 Americans, are on the march to Rome, Berlin, and Tokyo.

I hope that the Congress will recognize that, although this is a political year, national service is an issue which transcends politics. Great power must be used for great purposes.

As to the machinery for this measure, the Congress itself should determine its nature—but it should be wholly nonpartisan in its make-up.

Our armed forces are valiantly fulfilling their responsibilities to our country and our people. Now the Congress faces the responsibility for taking those measures which are essential to national security in this the most decisive phase of the Nation's greatest war.

Several alleged reasons have prevented the enactment of legislation which would preserve for our soldiers and sailors and marines the fundamental prerogative of citizenship—the right to vote. No amount of legalistic argument can becloud this issue in the eyes of these ten million American citizens. Surely the signers of the Constitution did not intend a document which, even in wartime, would be construed to take away the franchise of any of those who are fighting to preserve the Constitution itself.

Our soldiers and sailors and marines know that the overwhelming majority of them will be deprived of the opportunity to vote, if the voting machinery is left exclusively to the States under existing State laws—and that there is no likelihood of these laws being changed in time to enable them to vote at the next election. The Army and Navy have reported that it will be impossible effectively to administer forty-eight different soldier voting laws. It is the duty of the Congress to remove this unjustifiable discrimination against the men and women in our armed forces--and to do it as quickly as possible.

It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth--is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill housed, and insecure.

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our Nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. "Necessitous men are not free men." People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

America's own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.

One of the great American industrialists of our day—a man who has rendered yeoman service to his country in this crisis--recently emphasized the grave dangers of "rightist reaction" in this Nation. All clear-thinking businessmen share his concern. Indeed, if such reaction should develop—if history were to repeat itself and we were to return to the so-called "normalcy" of the 1920's—then it is certain that even though we shall have conquered our enemies on the battlefields abroad, we shall have yielded to the spirit of Fascism here at home.

I ask the Congress to explore the means for implementing this economic bill of rights--for it is definitely the responsibility of the Congress so to do. Many of these problems are already before committees of the Congress in the form of proposed legislation. I shall from time to time communicate with the Congress with respect to these and further proposals. In the event that no adequate program of progress is evolved, I am certain that the Nation will be conscious of the fact.

Our fighting men abroad--and their families at home--expect such a program and have the right to insist upon it. It is to their demands that this Government should pay heed rather than to the whining demands of selfish pressure groups who seek to feather their nests while young Americans are dying.

The foreign policy that we have been following—the policy that guided us at Moscow, Cairo, and Teheran—is based on the common sense principle which was best expressed by Benjamin Franklin on July 4, 1776: "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

I have often said that there are no two fronts for America in this war. There is only one front. There is one line of unity which extends from the hearts of the people at home to the men of our attacking forces in our farthest outposts. When we speak of our total effort, we speak of the factory and the field, and the mine as well as of the battleground--we speak of the soldier and the civilian, the citizen and his Government.

Each and every one of us has a solemn obligation under God to serve this Nation in its most critical hour—to keep this Nation great--to make this Nation greater in a better world.

The full quote, incidentally, and its context, referenced by the President without attribution, come from Lord Henley, the Lord Chancellor, later Earl of Northington, from a case decided in 1762, Vernon v. Bethell, 28 English Reports 838:

This court, as a court of conscience, is very jealous of persons taking securities for a loan, and converting such securities into purchases. And therefore I take it to be an established rule, that a mortgagee [the Bank] can never provide at the time of making the loan for any event or condition on which the equity of redemption [the amount necessary to pay off the mortgage] shall be discharged, and the conveyance absolute. And there is great reason and justice in this rule, for necessitous men are not, truly speaking, free men, but, to answer a present exigency, will submit to any terms that the crafty may impose upon them.

The case arose from the fact that a borrower pledged his estate in Antigua to obtain over time a loan which eventuated in the sum owed of 9,541 pounds. The lender then wrote the borrower that because the debt had so swelled, he must have possession of the estate "in order to save something for your family". The borrower agreed and conveyed possession of the estate to the lender, who then took possession and enjoyed its profits of about 1,000 pounds per annum, the amount originally consigned to the lender to pay off the debt. Consideration for the conveyance was only five guineas.

The borrower subsequently asked for an accounting by which he could redeem the property, that is pay off the mortgage. Shortly thereafter, the lender died, leaving a note in which he stated that the borrower made false pretences of being able to redeem the property to which he had provided full possessory right to the lender by conveyance of its possession. To settle his estate without embarrassment to his legatee to whom he left the land in Antigua, however, he ordered that 6,000 pounds be provided the borrower, provided the borrower would release his claim on the Antigua estate.

Letters, as well as parol evidence, that is oral statements, were introduced into evidence by which the lender had admitted that he promised the borrower reconveyance of the estate at time the pay-off was made.

Two issues arose, whether the borrower still could redeem his estate by paying an amount determined to be owed under an accounting, as the value of land in Antigua had risen steeply since the debt was originally incurred, and whether, if not, he had right to the 6,000 pounds directed in the lender's Will to him in consideration for his release of claims on the property.

The Court decided that, based on the statements of the lender, the insignificant amount of the consideration for the conveyance, the lender's statement to the borrower that he wanted the property in his possession that there might be something left for the borrower and his family, that the lender never made release of the underlying debt a part of the consideration for the transfer, all combined to establish that the lender never intended to have permanent possession of the property but only took that possessory right ordinarily accorded by a mortgage, thus enabling full right of redemption to persist notwithstanding the conveyance of possession by the borrower. The 6,000 pounds would be paid to the borrower had he, instead of pursuing his rights to the property as he did, renounced his right. But, if he pursued the right to the property and failed by not redeeming it, he would not be entitled to the 6,000 pounds.

As English common law is recognized in most courts of the United States as valid, if not overruled by statute, we wish crooked banks and other crooked lenders the Best of Luck, should anyone resort to this particular case and seek, after the fact of foreclosure and even subsequent to possession and sale, under certain circumstances, the right of redemption. Creative use of this case might afford the opportunity to get your property back, Abused Mortgagor.

The ultimate rule seems to be that where there is evidence of deceit in the process of obtaining possession of the property--for instance, where a Peacock decides to suborn perjury of an estate administrator, plainly and without question in a written affidavit, to obtain possession--at any time, the wrongfully dispossessed may come back, cure the mortgage, and obtain clear title, even from an ostensibly bona fide subsequent purchaser, on the theory that no proper title ever passed to convey legal possession, subjecting the lender to damages from the bona fide purchaser as well.

There are several cases to which the Court cites as being ones to which the reader might Vide. We recommend that you, Deceiving, Abusive Mortgagee, vide "A Clockwork Orange". Things can happen, thereat, when you are bad.

Want some more wine?

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