The Charlotte News

Monday, November 25, 1940

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: My, my... How do things change, at least in reverse. That is, we know of some friend of ours who had experiences, for comparison purposes only, with both police departments discussed in "Blueprint", below. Did you ever? So we will, if you've the time and inclination, to ride this little journey with us across the vast space of months and years between November 25, 1940 and sometime later, long about 1999, the year our previous President got impeached--(you do remember that, don't you?)--well, we will hopefully give you some nationwide, maybe even transworld, insight.

Now, we stress, that this be only hearsay, so take not a whit from it which you could not take otherwise than by reliance on pure hearsay...

But we hear tell that the police department in Winston town is more likely than not to arrest someone after an automobile accident for not providing their insurance information even though they were driving a car at the time which did notice that the lights had not changed and which was registered in another state, (maybe even in another state of mind), to wit, California--that being made amply clear as not being subject thereto by NCGS 20-313, for you of the Show-Mes. Well, once done, that is the non-observance by one and the observance by the other that the lights had not changed, and the driver noticing not being a member of the House of Lords, (or for that matter, even from the House of Lairds), and despite that a crowd of people did stand and stare (for a couple minutes, anyway, until they left), well our friend did not possess any proof of insurance, (or witnesses, save himself, that is). And so, an officer of Winston town, while not having any duty under North Carolina law, (NCGS 166.1(e) for you sticklers), to so inquire about it, did nevertheless inquire as to whether our friend had his insurance. And, there being no way to get at it, without our friend returning to California, where he wasn't at that time--having just traversed the entire nation wide in 41 hours by automobile alone, (a pleasant enough way to view our country coast to coast, we hear, at least heading east and on Christmas Eve and morn--from California's Bay Area all the way to Winston town alone in 41 hours, mmmmm-mmmmm--lots of coffee, ceegars and music by which to remain wakeful along I-5, highway 58, and I-40, also known part ways as Route 66, (where we all get our kicks), more hours than it did take Mr. Lindbergh to traverse the whole Atlantic Ocean (which Mrs. Partington couldn’t even hold back with a broom))--well, and since the officer was nice enough to say that our friend did not have to return to California to get at it, his insurance, then our friend did not.

But then awhile later, upon discovering that the officer of Winston town did change the accident report to say our friend must have run that light because after all two other people said he did, and since the officer only had a duty to investigate insurance of someone at fault, under North Carolina law, that is, then our friend later on, some three months later did write the police department of Winston town to find out why in the world the officer of Winston town did change the report to make him the apparently at fault party, (at least one would at first assume, but hold that thought), (especially since he had traversed the whole nation wide in 41 hours without mishap, though our friend had the discretion not to throw that in there--we just embellish), a question seeming to be appropriate enough seeing as the officer of Winston town had told our friend that he could not find fault in the accident at all, ever, period, right after the accident--reason being that the other folks who stepped forward with information on the accident all knew each other, two of three of them being the driver and passenger of the other vehicle and the third being known to them, two of three of whom danged for sure said they saw that 'twas the other driver, a laird to be sure, had the green light, not our friend, (passenger apparently remained quietly and cautiously optimistic as the officer of Winston town never bothered to ask him his opinion as the officer of Winston town concluded this passenger wasn't a witness, though wide awake he certainly appeared to be and even had his eyes open to boot). So our friend wanted just to know why the laird got the nod, and not he, a mere pauper from California, traversing the countryside like some wild Santa Claus on 'twas the night before Christmas, after all, in a mere 41 hours, departing the Bay Area of California at 8:30 p.m., in the evening, on December 23 and getting to Winston town at 3:30 p.m, adjusted three hours between PST and EST, on December 25, in the afternoon of Christmas day. But now, suddenly, a mere two weeks after the accident, the officer, after talking to the insurance company of the other fellow, an insurance company with nationwide offices, we hear--that is, of the fellow who knew the second and third persons there at the accident scene--gave the nod to the laird and left our friend in the cold, without even bothering to tell our friend he had or why he had, our friend finding it out subsequently from the insurance company with nationwide offices, they finding out directly from the police officer from Winston town who made a special effort to tell them, but not our friend. Huh. And thereupon, that is, after our friend wrote this letter three months later, inquiring of the officer's sergeant why that be the case, he suddenly managed to get himself arrested by the officer of Winston town five days subsequent to the letter exercising some limited freedom of speech that even King George might have recognized and a mere 113 days after the accident. Huh.

Sounds like a rotten Denmark to us, especially this being of the same burg where they prosecute college students for getting pigs drunk and sunburned.

But now, take Charlotte, in modern times. Chief Littlejohn is no longer there. But our same friend, even though he knows much of Robin Hood, having grown up near Robin Hood in Winston town, did go to the airport in Charlotte, (in fact on the return flight from having stood trial for this earlier offense on which he was provided a prayer for judgment, continued), named for Mayor Douglas, mayor of Charlotte, coincidentally, when these editorials of this date were written, to return to his home near San Francisco. Now, our friend simply wanted to go to San Francisco and already had his ticket bought, punched, and paid for to do same, it having been a return ticket on a round-trip. So he put his ticket on the counter but then the lady there at the counter told him he must pay 50 smackers to get back for the reason that he was carrying three bags on a two-bagger flight, not a three-bagger, (three bag limits obviously being reserved for deer hunting season--hallooo). Our friend protested that since he had brought the same three bags this way, for which he still had his proof in the form of three claim checks, he should be able to return with his three bags the same way he came in, three bags, two carry-ons in hand, as he had a roundtrip ticket which is the same thing, you see, as a contract. And a contract is formed regardless of what may be printed in some hidden "company policy" not printed anywhere on the ticket, but obviously kept locked in a special security vault somewhere deeply hidden in a mountainside in Colorado, no doubt--or maybe even, prior to about 1993-1994 anyway, in some parklands in California, astride the fault lines, set on failsafe, at least up to about the equivalent of a 7.5er. (Our friend didn't say that latter stuff; neither did the taker lady--as she hadn’t a clue, we feel certain. We embellish.) Well, the ticket taker disagreed and walked away.

(As an aside, can you figure out how in mid-September, (may have been September 11), 1991, someone, after a few eight-mile runs through a park, could trek back and forth and find the following: "Wilbur saw a sign on the field: 'When Brother Samuel's Tilled end be nixed to a Rougher ford be-hazed, the ward of park land's spirit's fault will be untended but named in stolen voting college kook days. Wildcats spit on the Lookout, Tenn. Peace Groves which will one day incinerate the railing mass in droves. And it shall then seal the vault of eyes nixed and knifed until by shakingsphere, the foul fleet o' foot be freed. And there could be then still; not strife. But when unleashed by Nature, if no bold restraint, Omega then could come to faint and return all to cosmos seed' "? Well, we haven’t the foggiest as we live in Sleepy Hollow-Nod, or in Nottingham, as the case may be. Just thought you might.)

Back to our play--Someone, we assume the ticket taker, then summoned the police of Charlotte town. Our friend explained his problem and he was told to proceed to the gate with his three bags, which was a bit cumbersome because he already had those two carry-on bags and he knew from past experience two bags carry-on was the limit. So, having explained to the police the problem, they allowed him graciously to place his unchecked three bags, exceeding the two-bag limit by one, behind the counter. Our friend proceeded to the gate whereupon he noticed something very peculiar. The ticket taker who had tried to hold him up, (that is, charge him the extra 50 smacks), had proceeded all the way around the whole airport to the gate and there she was plopped right next to another ticket taker at the boarding area. "Ach oh," thought our friend.

Thereupon he decided to take the bypass, go on and board the plane and, to that end, gave the stewardess his boarding pass, which he had been given graciously by the ticket taker already--though not any claim checks for his three bags, the ones exceeding by one the two-bag limit. (Dang it all.) Yet, no--and no again, he having thought to himself that since his bags were parked at the front of the airport, behind the counter of this airline, (which shall remain nameless because they are now nameless, having shortly after this incident gone the way of the Confederacy, though they were the first commercial airline ever and are mentioned anyway already at this website, so why be redundant?), well, he decided, having had problems before with this same airline losing his bags, (bags bound for N.C. somehow winding up in Tampa, Fla., being left also in St. Louis thrice without compensation overnight because the airline now out of business, named elsewhere at this website, had failed to meet its connecting flight from St. Louis to Charlotte causing a whole planeload of Fools foolish enough to fly with this nameless airline founded by Howard Hughes, (the Spruce Goose wouldn’t fly neither), to be stranded overnight in the Gateway to the West without proper accommodations heading east, all within 20 months earlier), that he had better get his bags checked.

Ach oh. For the new ticket taker, next to the original ticket taker, had been clued as to the problem, obviously, and refused our friend his spot on the plane lest he pay the 50 smacks--all perfectly consistent with the company's new policy, (which had never been suggested in some 15 flights our friend previously took with the unnamed airline in the previous six years, including one in 1993 with the former mayor of Charlotte in the eighties before he narrowly missed beating a Senator who was and is not). Well, our friend, not being easily deterred, he being of the state in which being a "tar heel" (you know, from the tar down yonder in the heel of the Pilgrim's shoe around Lumberton) is (or was at one time) thought by some to be something usually good, again stated that he had this contract... The second ticket taker was unimpressed and insisted...

Now, by now, our friend was aware that two policemen of Charlotte town were standing about 50 feet astride him on either side. Feeling amply protected against false accusation, therefore, our friend explained the dilemma, that he had his claim checks for the three bags from the inbound and so... Nothing doing, said the second ticket-taker. (The first one was by now all smiley-smiling faces.) Finally, our friend gave in and provided his credit card right there, right smack dab, there on the counter for all 200 or so people in the terminal to see and said he would pay the 50 smacks--but that he would sue the unnamed airline in the bargain. Well, that was not to the liking of the second taker. (der Taker?--If you don't know what that means, see the picture in Life of Mr. Willkie, August, 1940, as he came home triumphantly to Ellwood, Indiana, and look at it closely.) So anyway, der Taker lady snatched from the hand of our friend his ticket, proclaimed our friend 'tweren't going at all on that train, that is the plane--nor the boat neither--and whooshed around the barrier there behind her, careered over to the stewardess, who appeared herself to be a little non-plussed by der Taker lady, (proving that not all the unnamed airline's employees were bound for the unemployment line just a few months later when the unnamed airline went the way of the Titanic, that is the Confederacy), announced loudly that this passenger was not going on the flight at all, and ordered her to give his boarding pass back to her, that is to der Taker. Our friend, having had his ticket snatched by der Taker (and forecasting properly that this airline would seek to prevent him from going on any other flights later for his having not a ticket) took his ticket back from the hand of der Taker lady. The lady then did protest that our friend had taken the unnamed airline's property and urged the Charlotte gendarmes to stop him. Now, showing the best restraint of Charlotteans, the gendarmes did nothing. Our friend turned around and explained why they did nothing, that is, that the ticket was his, he having paid for it many weeks afore with hard-earned cash (which our friend had been perspicacious enough to explain to the gendarmes back up at the front gate already, you see). But the lady still protested, still, in fact.

So, so that she would not protest too much, our friend placed the ticket on the counter, turned around, and, then seeing red, and being mad enough to swear, and being a howling jay, anyway, did say, "You're a bunch of dammed [word which our present President used in the campaign of 2000, less than a year hence from this episode, and did so in public without arrest]". (Our friend, however, not being a laird, had little of the same luck.) After this pronouncement, our friend realized his ride instructed by his elderly dad, circling the parking lot until flight time to avoid receiving a parking ticket from the Charlotte gendarmerie, started a slow jog up the concourse to catch up with his ride which he knew was about to leave, for it was quite by then, after all this talk of yesterday, today, and to Morrow, nearly flight time--though the plane was not yet an hour on its way, it not having quite left yet, but he having already anyway been barred from the flight by der Taker, at least for today.

Thereupon, after a short jog, our friend did hear footsteps behind him and looked around to see about three Charlotte policemen giving chase of him and even though he never owned a Chevy in his life, as his father had worked only for Ford. So, being a little astonished at this turn of events, as they had witnessed the whole of the aforesaid after all and therefore had to know that our friend had done nothing but utter these words, he stopped, was handcuffed and was told he was under arrest for cussing at the airport and for resisting arrest by running away, (believe it or not--if not, you're in good company with the very pleasant, elderly African-American gentleman sitting next to our friend later at the police department who told our friend, having asked him quizzically what it was they had arrested him for, and having received the reply that it was for cussing and running at the airport, "Naaaaah, they didn't arrest you for that," whereupon a deputy told them both sternly, "No talking"). Our friend told the Charlotte policemen of course that he was only seeking his ride and had no idea why he was being sought for arrest anyway. Of course, as stated, they clarified that he was running and had cussed at the airport... (Our friend did refrain luckily, at least at the moment of arrest, though later he didn't, from saying to them that the airport deserved cussing at right then for its obvious greater concern over getting 50 smacks for a third bag than getting its passengers safely to and fro the other coast. He could have said something else to them 25 months later by mid-September, 2001, if this had happened in Boston, but that was later and involved a different airport in a different place and passengers who were very polite, even had printed instructions among them telling them, "Be very polite and they won't bother you." That way, they got their box-cutters onboard. You recall that, don't you? Different story... Royals are always polite and never cuss. Didn’t they tell you silly bas-teds that in gramma' school?)

The whole thing was summed the following day--after our friend was released from the gendarmery in Charlotte later that previous night and walked 10 miles across town in the pouring rain to a motel on Independence Boulevard to spend the night and wait for his elderly dad to return for him next day so that he could go back to Douglas Airport and pick up from a locker, where the police graciously locked them up, his three bags, one over the two-bag limit--when no sooner than he walked into the airport he heard a fellow speaking in a good Southern accent and smoking a big cigar, saying, "You know, that's the best dam_ed cigar I've ever had and that's no bull[droppings, with fewer letters],"--all said in front of at least two of Charlotte's policemen standing near enough by to hear but who did show remarkable restraint and did not rush up to him, (as he no doubt was a proper laird), handcuff him and place him for two hours in a little office, as was our friend, handcuffed to a chair talking to the gendarmes of Charlotte town about lots of things, including the United States Constitution, W.J. Cash, and Mayberry, (as a little Mayberry living goes along way, as does listening to Sun Green...so says someone of Greendale, not of Alabama, though not even a proper Southern Man).

Now, some may say that Charlotte therefore has not changed in all that intervening time of nearly 60 years--or even since 1960 when we all watched Mayberry, which is some 75 miles from Charlotte town, 50 from Winston town, at least so we are told by Mayberry's creator--that they are still as lenient as ever on such reprobate conduct as cussing at the airport and jogging up the concourse to catch one's elderly ride before it left; while Winston town knows its stuff, that they will prosecute, by gum, for such reprobate conduct as not having proof of insurance after an automobile accident not the fault of the driver without the proof, when no statute provides that such is a crime for an out of state vehicle, because the gendarmes of Winston town will find a way anyway to get such rapscallions by writing its own Law at the police department even though three months after and even though it was really in response to our friend's letter to the police asking why that officer changed the report to make our friend at fault when the officer had originally said he couldn't do that--until he found out that our friend was no laird, at least. (And we have since learned, to cap it all, that the officer, by his own subsequent admission, never even found fault anyway, (as merely indicating in a supplemental report that our friend ran the light is not finding fault, you see), and so our friend was certainly taught a lesson by that. He had no reason to write that letter anyhow and so there was no reason for any of all of this comparison of towns and what not, as he could have simply kept his mouth shut and been just fine--as would, no doubt, the nationwide. Why, our friend, then, and no doubt the nationwide, too, would have been just like all the other folks there in Winston town who live under the Laws of the place which won't tolerate getting pigs drunk. And where Jack and Jill Cade have a proper, high old time with all the lairds and ladees in farthingales, tobaccca-laced farthingales of old, now supported instead by prescription drug benefits offered large drug companies to support the two large hospitals in town, now the largest employer, not tobacca, dispensing wildly drugs killing the elderly with pills to produce the painless demise, to support the habit of those of Winston town needing a new world order and lots more time on the golf course, the doctors, lairds and ladees, not the elderly. That is, one poison having been substituted for another...a reactionary reaction to "them" having taken away the first poison, typical enough of snakes who have become accustomed to surviving by poison through which to fend off the perceived predatory outside world--but snakes, we hear, can't listen.)

Well, we say instead that indubitably there is hope for both places yet, we think. For that notion is amply and succinctly gleaned from one of the pieces below of this date in 1940--not as you might guess in "Greek Victory", (as in "it's all....to me"), or even in "Easy Marks", indicating a very forward looking judge there in Charlotte who thought it might be good to have daycare centers for working mothers, no--what we are referring to is the fourth editorial, "Look, Justitia", (probably by Dowd, not by Cash, by gum), wherein we have it described that a certain lenient judge in the burg of Charlotte on this week of 1940 had been especially coddling of the crooks by applying the Constitution of the United States to squash, we mean, quash, some warrants, he being known later to all as certainly a coddler of crooks, he being Sam J. Ervin, Jr., the same, we recall from history, who later became a United States Senator in 1954 when Clyde R. Hoey of Shelby died and was interred just 13 feet from the grave of W.J. Cash in Sunset Cemetery, and whom later was chair of a committee, a select committee in 1973 set up to investigate something called "Wawtagate", being an apartment complex or hotel, as you wish, positioned there on the Potomac, right near the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, right across the Potomac from the Lee Mansion in Arlington, and housing for awhile the office of Larry O'Brien, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, which was one night in June, 1972 invaded by some Creeps, leading to some other things.

Well, all to go to show that people can and do change.

So perhaps there is hope yet for these two burgs. For if Judge Ervin, a Harvard yard-educated country lawyer, from Morganton, N. C., not that far from Shelby, who no doubt studied some at the Harry Elkins Widener (who died on the Titanic in April, 1912) Library right there on the Harvard yard, could change from a coddler of crooks in 1940 in Charlotte to Chairman of the aforementioned United States Senate Select Committee in 1973, a committee known by most who followed it, to be not very much hospitable to eleemosynary notions toward any crooks coming before it stonewalling or involving themselves in limited hang-out, (at least on matters relevant to the subject matter of the proceeding at hand), but rather putting up a rather remarkable notion that the plain English language of the United States Constitution applies to everyone of us citizens of the United States of America, even all the President's men, and the President himself, (who must a' times stand naked, too)--well, if all of that can happen so remarkably, then there is probably hope even for these two burgs--Charlotte town, where Sam J. Ervin, Jr. was periodically, while riding his circuit, a judge in the late 1930's through the early 1940's, and Winston town, where he passed away in 1985 in what used to be called the Baptist Hospital--at least, as time goes by...

"…As we marched through the bonny streets of Fyve-io."

Winston's Police Department Offers Model for Charlotte

We hope that every member of the City Council read Dick Young's thoroughgoing story in Sunday's News about Chief Walter Anderson and the Winston-Salem Police Department. It was a peach of a story, a straight news account. But all through it could be detected a note of downright envy and injured civic pride that Winston-Salem so far outshone Dick's native burg in this highly important respect.

But contrast was there and had to be drawn. And that was the story. As in the murder rate, for example.

In 1934, the year before Anderson was made chief, Winston-Salem had 26 homicides. So far this year the record shows only seven. (For Charlotte this year, 45.)

As in stolen property. In October, property to the value of $2,092.18 was reported stolen in Winston-Salem. Value of stolen goods recovered by the police was $1,022.25. (For Charlotte the figures were $12,156.06 and $6,161.37.)

But the chief difference Dick found was intangible. It lay in the respect which Winston-Salem people of all kinds hold for their police chief and his department. Testimonials came from everybody Dick saw, whereas the sad fact is that in Charlotte--well, the kindest way to put it is that everybody knows the department here has many good men in it and on the whole functions about as well as could be expected under the circumstances. Those circumstances, however, are indefensible.

And from this examination of a neighboring police department, two obvious suggestions for home use appear. One is that the City Council will not be true to its responsibility until it places the department in the hands of "a capable, honest and efficient" police chief on the order of Winston-Salem's Anderson.

The other is that, having put him in charge, the Council keep hands off and let him run the department without interference or political hindrance.

No Caporetto Yet, It Is Still Very Serious for Italy

The great capture of Koritza and its successes on the southern front which have almost brought the armies to the Ionian Sea, may not be exaggerated into a new Caporetto. As things stand at present, these advances do not add up to as much as that.

Nevertheless, there is a possibility that they may turn into that. Any army which is in retreat, and in which the morale is as bad as it appears to be in the Italian army, is in danger of turning suddenly into a scared mob scrambling desperately for safety.

In any case it is a signal an astonishing victory the Greeks have achieved. To have any chance of carrying out his attempt at the conquest of Greece now, the Italian bully-boy must reinforce and reorganize his armies, then retake Caporetto (a more difficult job from the Albanian side than from the Greek side) or invade Jugoslavia and strike at Greece along the long joint frontier of the two nations.

But it is by no means certain that he can successfully reinforce his armies in Albania. British bombers have already badly damaged his chief debarkation points, Durrazo, Kavala, and Port Edda. And British ships and bombers are undoubtedly interfering with his lines of communication to these points.

Moreover, the capture of Koritza brings the British planes within about sixty miles of the Adriatic, and if Port Edda falls, as is not improbable, they'll be practically on top of all the debarkation ports. More still, with the bombers on the Adriatic, the British navy might be able fully to force its way through the Strait of Otranto and take command of the sea. If it did, the game would be up for Italy.

Judge Redd Surmounts Tower Defenses, Signs Up Recruits

Judge Marion Redd is by nature an enthusiastic, persuasive man. And so when, breathing from the climb up to the Ivory Tower (the elevator was in one of its periodic declines), he sank into the overstuffed chair reserved for distinguished visitors and began with manifest feeling to broach his and Mrs. Neikirk's project about the day nurseries for Negro children, instinctively the editors deployed into the two-two-one defense that they use against a double wingback formation.

But as Judge Redd warmed up to his subject, they crowded closer to hear the better, and before long they were chipping in with proprietary notions of their own.

For, truly, this is one of the most appealing proposals that has ever been made to the people of the city. A great many Negro mothers, you see, are in domestic service or otherwise employed. All day they are gone from their children, with the result that their children under school-age are left to the care of the neighborhood generally or to the hazards of the street.

With the result that they get no proper raising. With the result that they go rapidly from toddlers into urchins, self-sufficient but prematurely tough. It's a hard kindergarten. And there is an old saying--As the twig is bent...

For hearty and unreserved endorsement of it, to the extent of wanting to have some share in the effort to bring it into being, this is a commitment.

You Had Better Remove That Blindfold & Watch Your Step

Justitia's blindfold is to symbolize impartiality, not helplessness. The idea, you see, is that Justice refuses to be influenced by anything other than the actual evidence, is guided solely by truth or falsity.

The occurrences in Mecklenburg Superior Court within the last few weeks seem to indicate that Justicia had best remove that blindfold. She is stumbling and fumbling all over the place, and persons accused of crimes are walking out of court right under Justitia's nose.

Some 30 or so were turned loose when Judge Sam Ervin ruled that the warrants for their arrest had been improperly drawn. The charge against a third of them was drunken driving, while the rest were Nebel strike cases. It was said at the time that warrants would be redrawn according to the law.

That has not been done, nor do we suggest that it should be done. So many people escape retribution in this court for one reason or several others that there would be small point in making an example of these whose release was on a technicality. At least they pulled no strings.

And Friday the court had turned loose a man who was first booked on a charge of conspiring to kill and whose alleged trigger-man is doing time for assault with a deadly weapon, to wit, a shotgun loaded with buckshot. The judge on the bench in the conspiracy case yielded to the persuasion of defense lawyers and accepted a plea of malicious injury to property--a misdemeanor, whereas the original charge was a felony. Sentence: nine months on the chaingang.

And what did these lawyers do but turn around and win their clients outright freedom by showing that the court had failed to draw a bill of indictment for the lesser offense. They argued, successfully, that he had been convicted without due process of law.

Judge Johnson, the trial judge, protested that this was welshing on an agreement, and if that is a way of it, the State Bar, Inc., should prick up its ears. But as for Justitia, she should take off that blindfold. She should look where she's going.