The Charlotte News

Thursday, February 13, 1941

FOUR EDITORIALS

Without Case Histories Diagnoses May Be Faulty

A gang of Negroes, charged with 30-odd jobs of breaking into locked automobiles, were arrested by the police this week. At least two of them, it appeared, had court records with recent entries.

One of them according to Chief Littlejohn, had been up on numerous counts, including larceny and arson. Another was tried and found guilty only a few weeks ago for the theft of a tray of ring mountings from a local jewelry store. Despite his having appeared on police dockets "with monotonous regularity," he was handed a suspended sentence and told, trustingly, to go and sin no more.

The immediate return of these two Negroes to their careers in petty crime puts the court in a doltish light. But as a matter of fact, it may not be altogether the court's fault.

Superior Court judges rotate, and for that reason they do not acquire the familiarity with the names and faces which enables the judges of City and County lower courts to mete out a more discerning punishment. And it is not the practice in Superior Court, for some unknown reason (probably indifference), to look into the records of the persons who come before it to be tried.

Solicitor Carpenter usually asks, "Boy, you ever been in court before?" And lets the question go with the "Nawsuh" that he usually receives as an answer. But as for having a written record, a sort of case history to help with the law's diagnoses, it just isn't done.

Whether this neglect is chargeable to the police or to court officials, we don't know. But as long as the court doesn't know the records of those who come before it, it will continue to make doltish mistakes in judgment and the cops will have to cope with the crimes of repeaters.

Forced Citizenship Won't Make Disloyal Loyal

Federal Judge William C. Coleman, of Baltimore, thinks that the United States ought to adopt a policy of compulsory citizenship for all aliens here. We need loyalty, he says, as we have never needed it before.

But it seems to us that the judge has put the cart before the horse.

Citizenship is no guarantee of loyalty. On the contrary, it is a favorite dodge of Fifth Columnists operating in the country to become citizens--both to claim the immunities of citizens, and to foil suspicion. Fritz Kuhn was a naturalized American citizen. So is Kunze, his successor as chief of the Nazi Bund. Coughlin is naturalized. Earl Browder is a native-born citizen of old American stock. The same thing holds for Gerald Smith, George Deatherage, MacAdams of the Christian Front, and various other Fascist leaders in the country. And the Ku Klux, by far the most truly dangerous Fascist organization ever to raise its head in the country, has always been almost completely led by natives.

You can make out a case for the moral obligation of loyal aliens to become citizens in times like these. But it is also possible to see that some of them would be reluctant for sentimental reasons. In any case, forcing the privilege of American citizenship upon them is not calculated to make them suddenly any more loyal than they already were--is certainly not going to breed loyalty in the disloyal.

Congress Can End Internal Tariff If It Wants To

One important result of the decision of the Supreme Court on the Wage-Hour Act is that it clearly opens the way for Congress to sweep out the whole mass of inter-state tariffs which have been growing up in the nation for the last twenty years.

The Court did not say that it thought the Wage-Hour Act a good one. It simply laid down the doctrine that the Constitution had given Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce without any restrictions, and that therefore Congress was within its rights in passing such a law, unless, of course, it clearly conflicted with the rights reserved to the states and to the citizens by the Constitution.

If that is so, and it seems tenable from a reading of the Constitution, then with reference to this interstate commerce clause, at least, the Court is manifestly returning to strict interpretation. As late as two years ago it was still clinging to loose construction and finding what it wanted to find in the Constitution--actually upheld one of the many laws designed to keep products of other states from competing with those of one particular state.

But if we are to have strict construction on this clause, that plainly won't stand up. The Constitution gives the states only one right in the connection: to levy such import duties as are strictly necessary to the enforcement of their inspection laws. But Congress is given the right to revise and control even these laws. And it is obvious that the inspection laws are bound to be honestly such and not mere devices to other ends, like the Wisconsin laws which actually bar margarine as a competition for butter.

If the Court is to be consistent with itself, the way, as we say, is now open to sweep away this menace which threatens eventually to Balkanize the United States. However, the Congress has hitherto shown no stomach for tackling the problem.

Entry Into War Would Be a Desperate Risk for Franco

Some of the dispatches suggest that the real reason for Francisco Franco's visit to Italy is that he wants to keep Spain out of the war and felt it necessary to explain his grounds for the decision to Mussolini in person.

Whatever the truth about that, it is plain that Franco will be very rash if he does enter the war. Spain's port cities are all poorly defended or not defended at all. In 1937 the German pocket battleship, Deutschland, pounded Almeria unmercifully at close range, without the city being able to offer any effective resistance. And if Spain enters the war, all the ports are likely to come in for heavy bombardment by the British Navy.

By air, too, the attack will probably be fierce. The northern cities at least are in easy flying distance from England and have very sketchy anti-aircraft defenses. And the southern cities can all be reached from Gibraltar.

Moreover, Spain is already on starvation. And the land is still full of the bitter enmities bred by the civil war. Millions of Spaniards hate Francisco Franco and his Fascist regime with passionate hatred. And the moment he enters the war arms will necessarily fall into the hands of many of these.

The stage is perfectly set for another civil outbreak, and entry into the war will almost certainly bring it on unless victory is prompt and complete.