The Charlotte News

Thursday, October 12, 1939

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: "[D]eadly, chauvinistic nonsense", indeed… A lesson worth keeping in 2003.

GBS Rides Again

Vegetarian Orders Up Flesh In A Hurry

George Bernard Shaw for all his 744 years, sounds like a man in a hurry. Like American newspaper readers (and editors), he wants this war to get going. Enough of this cautious sparring! "Let the blood flow! Extra! Big Battle On! Forward, the Light Brigade!

And so he puts it concisely up to Chamberlain to declare instanter--

"... whether he is going to bomb Berlin or not. If he does the consequences will go far beyond our maddest intentions... If not, the sooner we stop the war and arrange for the tabling of our respective grievances and those of the little states we have destroyed, the better."

Neville Chamberlain has been confronted with some unhappy choices in his long-awaited term as Britain's Prime Minister, but none so miserable as this. For a vegetarian, G.B.S. emits a remarkably blood thirsty roar.

Slaughter, he demands--slaughter of the German civilians, women and babies; slaughter of English families in retaliation. Slaughter of manhood; haste, waste. That or surrender. Capitulation. But something, anything, in a hurry.

For unless the action begins and ends within a reasonable time, a man 744 years old may not live to see the end of it. And that would be cruel.

Strong Words

Which Move Us To Examine A Man And His Claims

"Idiotic, moronic, and unpatriotic"--these were the harsh words Bennett Champ Clark, Senator from Missouri, used yesterday to describe Under Secretary of War Johnson's declaration that if we were invaded, we would be as badly off as Poland.

Johnson is no pet of ours. Nevertheless, fair play is fair play. And since the Hon. Clark has stripped away politeness, it is interesting to have a close look at his own case.

The prevailing emotion in his tantrum of yesterday seems to have been rage against the thought that repeal of the arms embargo would help England and France. That is understandable. He comes from the state with the largest proportion of Germans in the United States. And he himself has made many quite definitely pro-German and anti-British speeches in the Senate, as readers of the Congressional Record are painfully aware.

As for Johnson's statement being idiotic, let's see. We have one strong defense, the Navy. But not even it is adequate to the defense of both American coasts. And if ever a foe landed in Canada or Mexico--well, we have much less equipment, far fewer trained soldiers, twenty times as much territory to defend as Poland. How could we be in a better position to defend it than Poland?

Ah, we know--the manhood of the nation would spring to arms, take down the trusty old squirrel gun from the mantel and march right out and eat the machine guns and the tanks up. But that, masters, does not seem to us to be patriotism, but deadly chauvinistic nonsense.

Illogical

Ban On Bombers Would Make Horror More Likely

It is a curious position Mr. Herbert Hoover has taken up on the sale of arms. He is willing to see the embargo repealed save in respect of bombing planes, poison gas, and submarines.

Why he listed the last is not clear. Nobody is likely to be able to buy submarines here for a long time, for the good reason that the shipyards are going to be occupied with building ships for our own navy.

It is easy, however, to sympathize with Mr. Hoover's sentiments. The weapons he mentions are horror weapons, and it is not pleasant to think of American machines being used to kill women and children. Nevertheless, is it quite reasonable to expect that Mr. Hoover's proposal would really serve to keep down horror in this war?

It is not probable that England and France are going to initiate the bombing of open towns and the murder of civilians, for, wholly apart from their humane sentiments, they are too anxious to retain the good opinion and sympathy of the United States. And they are afraid of the inevitable retaliation. If the thing begins in the West, it will be the Nazis who will be to blame. But to date they haven't begun it. Why? Perhaps because of the hope of making peace. But also perhaps because they know well that once they begin, the case will be quite different from that of Poland--that when bombs begin to fall in Paris and London they will begin to fall in Berlin and Munich and all the Rhine towns. And if they do eventually begin it, it will be because they hold the preponderance in air power and think they can cause more damage and terror in England and France than these two can cause in Germany.

If England and France held the greater air power, the thing would almost certainly never come about. And the best guarantee that it won't come about or that, if it does, it won't last long, lies precisely in allowing England and France to buy planes here to build their air forces up to equality with or superiority over Hitler's.

Words For Guns

One Way To Have Them Cancel The British Navy

The remarkable faith of the Nazis in the power of the word is the most interesting and curious thing developed by this war. Apparently, they not only count on it far more than they count on their arms but also actually expect it to serve as surrogate for arms.

Thus, the German Admiralty's solemn assurances that its air attacks have conclusively destroyed the British Navy's control of the North Sea. There is not the slightest evidence that this, or any part of it, is true. The evidence, indeed, is all the other way about. According to the Germans' own reports, no wholesale attempt against the British sea power has yet been made, all the expeditions have been small and tentative wins. And that such efforts could possibly have broken the British naval power, with its hundreds of ships, is nonsense on the face of it.

Do the Nazis really believe, then, that words can nevertheless somehow overwhelm the ships? Not directly, no. What this really testifies to is that the war of nerves still goes merrily on. And in spite of Mr. Hitler's flat statement in his last speech that the Nazi ideology derives from war and it was now about to show the enemy what it could do in that direction. And what he hopes by all this is probably still to confuse and terrify the British and French, not to say the American peoples.

Into an immediate demand for peace? Perhaps not. At the moment Hitler is obviously maneuvering desperately to keep from having to play the cards as his foes have cunningly dealt them and take the offensive in the West. What he wants above all things is to reverse the case and force the Allies to attack. And the terror that the British Navy may be destroyed or about to be destroyed might well have the effect of setting up a popular clamor among the Allied peoples for a headlong offensive on land. And if it did, that would probably be so costly and disastrous that, taken with the incessant Nazi war words, he could get the "peace"--i.e. surrender--he wants.


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