The Charlotte News

Sunday, October 29, 1939

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: Speaking of pretty fair predictions:

United Nations, make a chain,
Every link is freedom's name,
Keep your hand on that gun, hold on.

Hold on, Franklin D., hold on, Winston C.,
Hold on, Chiang Kai-Shek, hold on, Joseph Stalin,
Keep your hand on that gun, hold on.

Now, freedom's name is mighty sweet,
Black and white is gonna meet.
Keep your hand on that gun, hold on.

Hold on, Franklin D., hold on, Winston C.,
Hold on, Chiang Kai-Shek, hold on, Joseph Stalin,
Keep your hand on that gun, hold on.

Now, Hirohito, he's a son of a gun,
Kickin' my back to the risin' sun.
Keep your hand on that gun, hold on.

Now Hirohito thinks he's slick,
We've got to show him one more trick.
Keep your hand on that gun, hold on.

Hold on, Franklin D., hold on, Winston C.,
Hold on, Chiang Kai-Shek, hold on, Joseph Stalin,
Keep your hand on that gun, hold on.

Well, after this war is over and done,
Gonna catch my bunt and have some fun.
Keep your hand on that gun, hold on.

Gonna get me a gal who sure can twist,
Who ain't isolationist.
Keep your hand on that gun, hold on.

Hold on, Franklin D., hold on, Winston C.,
Hold on, Chiang Kai-Shek, hold on, Joseph Stalin,
Keep your hand on that gun, hold on.

Now, United Nations make a chain,
Every link is freedom's name,
Keep your hand on that gun, hold on.

Hold on, Franklin D., hold on, Winston C.,
Hold on, Chiang Kai-Shek, hold on, Joseph Stalin,
Keep your hand on that gun, hold on.

--Lyric by The Union Boys, Josh White, Pete Seeger, Burl Ives, Tom Glazer, Brownie McGhee, and Alan Lomax, recorded March 11, 1944; altered traditional "Gospel Plow"; a later version substituted for the chorus: "Keep your hand on that vote, hold on."

Omission

For Which The Pope Had Good Ground, Despite The Nazis

The Nazis, it appears, are very much irritated about the encyclical of Pope Pius XII, are quoted by the Associated Press as saying:

"That the Pope appeals for brotherly sympathy for the Poles is not surprising in view of the affection which Polish Catholics always have enjoyed from the Vatican.

"Without doubt, however, it would have made a good impression if the Pope had thought not only of the Poles but also the thousands of German nationals--men, aged women, children--among them also thousands of Catholics, who were butchered by the Poles in the cruelest manner."

No doubt, it would have made a good impression--on the Nazis. But if the Pope didn't do it, it was for the very good reason, we may be sure, that he knew nothing of any such butchered Germans. Not a single instance of such a "butchered German" was ever reported by any disinterested observer before Germany began her gratuitous murdering and burning in Poland. Those tales are pure inventions of the Nazi propaganda department, for the purpose of trumping up an excuse for the rape of the land--and the world, remembering Czechoslovakia, was never for a moment taken in by any of them.

A German or two was killed in border fighting, deliberately incited by the Nazis. But that was all. No doubt not a few Polish Germans were executed in the war itself, for giving aid and comfort to the enemy. But that would have happened to them anywhere.

On Both Sides

Mr. Stalin Seems To Be Up To His Tricks In East, Too

While we have our eyes fastened on Europe, more things are happening in China and the East than speeches by Ambassador Grew.

In Shanghai, two cops, a Chinese and a Sikh, have been killed, in a brush with men in Chinese dress, and the British are taking defense precautions, while the Americans on the settlement council are talking of sending out the Marines to defend Americans in areas beyond the settlement roads. Japanese spokesmen blame it on Chiang Kai-Shek, charge that it is a deliberate effort to stir up trouble between the Japs and whites in the settlement. It sounds fishy. But just possibly, in might be true.

For the evidence grows that Russia is taking a more active hand in supporting the Chinese Government, despite the truce with Japan. Reports from Hong Kong have it that large numbers of new British planes and Russian technicians are in evidence there. And the Chinese themselves say that, under trade agreements with Russia, they are to get military supplies worth from $30,000,000 to $100,000,000. What is puzzling about that is how China is to pay for them, seeing that most of her raw materials are pledged to cover debts to the United States. But rumor has it that the Chinese have given Russia rights in Sinkiang, unexploited territory believed to be rich in gold, oil, etc. The Japanese, quaintly enough, are very indignant about this alleged signing away of Chinese rights by the Chinese.

What the ultimate truth of all this may be it is hard to say at this distance. But the stealthy encroachment of Russia into China, under the guise of aiding Kai-Shek, would certainly be in the true Soviet vein as we have seen it displayed in Spain, Poland, etc. So it is fairly safe to assume that Stalin is doing in Asia the same thing he is doing in Europe: taking advantage of the absorption of Japan and China in their own private war to grab off everything he can in the way of territory and influence, without actually going far enough to risk getting embroiled in the war on his own account.

Bob Stands

Right Or Wrong, He Held To His Known Convictions

"Our Bob"--oh, ironic name--Reynolds was damned if he did and damned if he didn't vote to repeal the arms embargo. Being an expert sounder of public opinion and good predictor of Senatorial action, he knew to a certainty that the embargo was going to be repealed by popular demand. And if there's one thing Bob likes, it is to take the popular, winning side.

By doing that in this instance he would've run the risk, of course, of being called an opportunist, a man of facile convictions. But votes of record stand a whole lot longer than the motives behind those votes and by 1944 they would have remained only the statistic that Bob had stuck by the President in helping Britain and France to win the war. But he stuck instead by his own position of pro-Germanism.

We are distressed, now that the war is on, to see how ugly it looks. It was written dispassionately, but the facts seem to testify indisputably, not that Robert loves the Nazis more, but that he loves the democracies less.

In any case, he had the courage to utter his negative. Perhaps a switch would've been unthinkable, but he can always have run out. Instead, he answered to his name and spoke his piece, and consistency and independence at least we all esteem.

Weak Fight

Some Reasons Why Senate Isolationists Failed

The advocates of the arms embargo in the Senate failed to put up anything like so good a fight as they were expected in the beginning--lost by the same margin that the Administration estimated in the first place.

But it is not very wonderful. Their heaviest guns, Borah and Johnson, are aging and are no longer capable of the tremendous exertions in 1919. Moreover, these were in the position of having no good logical argument--and stubbornly insisting on an unreal distinction which no contraband list of either side recognizes. Only one man in the whole group, Nye, had the courage to follow their logic through it to its obvious conclusion, and propose forthrightly to wreck our foreign trade completely by refusing to sell anything to the belligerents.

Furthermore, they were in the position of having to maintain an obviously false thesis: that it makes no difference to us which side wins in Europe. The American people have made up their minds about that long before the war itself began, and no amount of argument could change any but the excessively suggestible.

Perhaps the greatest weakness of all in this group was that the position of many of its members were sadly compromised by considerations of politics and personal spite. Arthur Vandenberg, for instance, was notoriously trying to execute a move to put himself into position to grab off the Republican Presidential nomination in 1940. And on the personal side, they were such men as Burton Wheeler and Bennett Champ Clark. The two hate the President more rabidly than any other members of Congress, and Wheeler comes from a state which has a heavy German population, has long been a baiter of England. As for Clark, he inherits his father's venomous hatred for Woodrow Wilson for having beaten him to the Presidential nomination in 1912--a hatred which naturally enough, turned itself into pro-Germanism when Wilson entered the war in 1917, and which persists in the son.

 


Framed Edition
[Return to Links-Page by Subject] [Return to Links-Page by Date] [Return to News--Framed Edition]
Links-Date -- Links-Subj.