Wednesday, October 11, 1939

TWO EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: "A Man Afraid" gives forecast as to why by the late fall of 1941 Hitler had little choice but to insure that the Japanese would attack the U.S. Fleet at Pearl Harbor and thereby make available to the Axis large reserves of oil in the South Pacific. Otherwise, his tanks and machinery of war were on the verge of being stranded in the Russian mud and north African deserts by spring, 1942.

Even Louisiana Will Not Stand For Everything

The mass indignation which is sweeping New Orleans is the most encouraging phenomenon which has appeared in Louisiana since the Long gang first succeeded in setting up its dictatorship.

Immediate reason for this indignation is the action of a Long judge, one George P. Platt. In his court Monday appeared two grand jurors to complain that District Attorney Charles A. Byrne, so far from aiding them in investigating the Long gang and its crimes, had been doing its level best to block them. This Byrne is a member of the Long gang, who was appointed by Huey Long himself in defiance of the procedure prescribed by law, to fill the place of Eugene Stanley, who was ousted for fighting tooth and nail against the gang's purpose to loot the State and turn the courts into stooges for that end.

These grand jurymen were entirely within their rights as such. Indeed, it ought to be plain that any attempt of an officer of the courts to obstruct the law is peculiarly and especially the business of grand jurymen; for such officers are not immune to the law, though there is a growing tendency in many parts of America for them to claim as much.

Nevertheless, the jurymen were not allowed to make their charge. Instead, Long-Judge Platt threw them into custody for "contempt" (increasingly an instrument of tyranny in the nation) and dismiss them from the jury.

It perfectly bears out what was freely and openly predicted before this investigation began--that justice cannot be had in Louisiana courts, packed with Long men, as against the Long gang.

And that, at last, apparently has the population of New Orleans angry enough to be determined to clean house. There are rumors, however, that Earl Long may attempt to imitate his brother to stop that by the use of National Guard bayonets. If so, then it will be time for the United States Government to come to the people's aid--either by commanding the surrender of the bayonets (U.S. property) and the demobilization of the Guard (ultimately subject to Army orders) or by direct intervention to restore "a republican form of government," a thing which it is Constitutionally bound to maintain in all the states, and which the government of the Long gang certainly is not.

Mr. A Hitler Has His Reasons To Want Peace

It becomes increasingly clear that Adolf Hitler is telling the truth when he says he wants no war in the West--for the very good reason that he is afraid of it and its outcome. The little man told us last Friday that he had said his last word--that the choice was up to England and Francis as to whether there should be war or no war. But yesterday he forgot and broke over again, once more to warn and plead in that curious and certain way which has now become his.

And no other reason wil quite explain this save that of fear. When he talks of humanity controlling him, he is of course talking nonsense, in view of Guernica, Almeria, and Poland. He would not like, certainly, to see the Germans uselessly mowed down by the millions, for the Germans are the instruments through which he hopes to achieve his dream of power over the whole western world. But if the death of half the German population would assure him victory over England and France and the seizure of their empires, it is as certain as anything can be that he would cheerfully order them forward.

Beyond reasonable doubt, the destruction of France and England has all along been his ultimate objective. Of France, he himself has told us as much in "Mein Kampf." And ever since the formation of the Axis, it has been more and more plain that he shared Mussolini's conviction that their dreams were quite unrealizable so long as Great Britain continued to exist.

And this is necessarily far more the case since he entered into partnership with Russia. For the latter has now moved into positions which make his dream of the March to the East an impossibility. He started out to take Poland, not because he particularly cared about Poland but because it was a necessary base for operations in the Balkans and in the Ukraine. Stalin has cunningly checkmated all that, and turned his victory into ashes. And today it is manifest that if there is ever to be a great Hitler empire, it must be carved out of the holdings of the western lands.

Hence, if he does not go forward, it is because he is far from certain that he can win. He has reason.

The French and British plan of operation, dull as it looks and much criticized as it as it has been, begins to appear one of the most brilliant ever devised by military men. England's blockade has Germany tied by the throat. The submarine has apparently failed. And as for surface raiders--it is over a week since the Admiral Scheer was reported as destroying her single ship to date.

Yet the blockade must be broken, or Germany is certainly doomed, probably within the next two years; for not all the possible supplies she can get from Russia and the Balkans can prevent her slow starvation if she cannot open up her sea commerce.

And to open it up, she has only two possible ways. The first is by destruction of the British sea power from the air. And there is little prospect of that. She may be able to damage the navy, certainly, but there is nothing today to suggest that she may be able even to cripple it. For the evidence gathers that the German airplanes are by no means so formidable as we were told before the war began. For instance, American military men are saying now that the Messerschmidt, supposed to be overwhelmingly the most terrible of pursuit planes, is actually much inferior to the American Curtis and the British ships--that instead of making 375 miles an hour it will make only about 275, and is a particularly stiff and unmaneuverable plane.

But if she cannot raise the blockade by attack from the air, then she must raise it--and at the same time push the French off German soil and recover the use of one of her most valuable industrial districts--by taking the offensive on land. And that is precisely what the French and British are working for, for the loss of manpower for the attacker is invariably at least three to one, and there is almost no chance that the German army can ever really penetrate the French land defenses.

The little man talks little of victory. All he says is that Germany can never be defeated and brought to her knees. But a long stalemate is apt to be quite as fatal to her, and above all to his own regime and precious hide, as a total defeat.