The Charlotte News

Tuesday, February 18, 1941

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: Now, Mr. Cash, we could not deport North Carolina's junior Senator, with or without trial. On the other hand, a sanity hearing might well prove another kettle of fish. On the other hand, maybe the Congressional stenographer misunderstood the Senator; perhaps the esteemed member said "britches".

In "Poor Bet", we get the interesting notion suggested by Cash that Stalin's camp enabled Hitler to come to power in Germany. One supposes that Cash means that it was because there was a desire to keep the Social Democrats from achieving power that the Kaiser and his men gave Hitler the chancellorship, though the Nazis controlled but a one-third plurality of the Bundestag. But perhaps there is more which was lost to history after the alliance with Stalin.

And speaking of Stalin and Hitler, isn't it interesting that when a Democrat is President and war clouds are on the horizon, many Republicans shout "dictator, "war-monger", or dog wagger? Always have. But let a mere breath of dissent arise against a Republican Administration waging war, even one for no apparent reason other than making hay, and the same Rushin' voices (not unlike Coughlin of old--ku-ku-cushew) call the dissenters "Commie", "anti-patriotic", and the like. Always have--and still do. Well, we don't need a weather-man to know which way the wind blows, now do we? Watch those parking meters.

Mr. Dewey was the Republican nominee for President in both 1944 and 1948--and of course in 1948, he won, at least until some of the nation's leading newspapers ran their afternoon editions.

Robert Fears FBI Will Rob Him of a Talking Point

The Department of Justice arrests Harry Bridges, the West Coast maritime union leader, under a deportation warrant. And immediately Robert Rice Reynolds rushes in to offer an amendment to the Lease-Lend Bill ordering the summary deportation of Bridges.

And that may well be true. We suspect that it is true. But the same thing can be said of a whole host of men, some of whom are undoubtedly a great deal more dangerous than Bridges. Coughlin, for instance--a man who is a citizen only by naturalization. And for that matter, who can doubt that we would have a better national defense without Burton Wheeler, Bennett Champ Clark, Hiram Johnson, or Ham Fish?

In any case, the method Robert proposes is a hundred times as dangerous to this Republic as 50,000 men like Bridges. It destroys the whole conception of the nation as one of laws applying equally to all men. If you can make a law deporting Bridges without trial, then you can make a law deporting anybody else without trial--including Robert Rice Reynolds himself (which suddenly almost reconciles us to it).

In point of fact, the FBI says flatly that it has evidence that Bridges has been a Communist. If so he will be deported under the present laws. And always, the general law can be tightened up.

Real reason behind this move of Robert's is plain enough. He has been supporting a bill to deport Bridges for many months by way of pleasing his fanatical Vindicator following, which likes such high-handed methods because at bottom it has more than a little Fascism in it.

And now he is desperately afraid that the FBI is going to rob them of the credit for getting Bridges. And that his following will be disappointed because he allowed it to be done by due process of law instead of by legalized lynching.

Jaypee System Needs Major Operation, Not a Skin Lotion

The proposal of the County Commissioners that the 29 Mecklenburg County justices of the peace be required to furnish a bond of $1,000 each would at least introduce some order and responsibility into their accounting for the fines they collect--perhaps in time somewhat improve the personnel.

But in regard to the jaypee situation in general, it is about like treating a cancer with applications of sweet-smelling herbs.

Why 29 magistrates at all?

We know the answer to that one, of course. It is simply that appointing magistrates is a cheap and easy way of paying off political debts, that it serves the purposes of the Democratic Party machine.

A $1,000 bond would provide a degree of financial responsibility, and that would be something. But it is only a minor alteration to a system whereunder a horde of men untrained in the law are commissioned magistrates and, without any semblance of supervision, set over the people as fee-earning arbiters of right and wrong, even unto the extent of depriving persons of their liberty.

Regardless of Bulgar Pact, Turks Unlikely To Fight

The British denial of the Turco-Bulgarian "non-aggression" pact means that Turkey has abandoned her determination to fight if Hitler invades Greece. And it has to be remembered that the original dispatches about this pact came from Bulgarian sources, under the influence of the Germans. Nor must it be lost sight of that eternal alarums designed to crumple British morale, are a part of Hitler's standard technique in the war of nerves.

Even so, the chances that Turkey will actually fight in defense of Greece or even of the Dardanelles seem none too good. The old dictum of Kemal Attaturk that Turkey must never offend Russia but must always stand with her seems to have been erected into a fetish by the present Turkish Government. There isn't much sense in that, seeing that the clear-eyed old dictator laid down the rule partly at least with regard to the fear of the reappearance of the menace of German domination. But there it is.

And there is probably not much enigma about the so-called Russian enigma. What Stalin would really like to see, no doubt, is a war of bloody stalemate with both sides ending in complete exhaustion. That is the only way he could really feel safe.

But Eugene Lyons, who knows Russia as well as anybody, has insisted all along that it is wish-thinking to suppose that Stalin prefers English victory over German victory. The Russian dictator, he says, undoubtedly feels that he can deal with another totalitarian government under the thumb of a dictator better than he can with democracy. Moreover, he hates democracy with unreasoning rage and has consistently insisted on treating it as the true enemy everywhere in the world. It was his deliberate machinations in Germany which made the rise of Hitler possible.

Mr. Dewey's New Turn Proves How Wind Blows

For a first-class study in cool opportunism we recommend the career of Thomas E. Dewey over the last year.

Early last Summer when France fell and the President's foreign policy of all possible aid to Britain began to take shape, Thomas put himself squarely on record as favoring that policy wholeheartedly.

But then it began to appear that the leaders of his party in general were taking the opposite tact and going in strongly for isolationism and the doctrine that Roosevelt was a "warmonger." It looked indeed, as though the Republican convention was certain to adopt a pretty strong isolationist plank--with only the slightest and most grudging aid to Britain as a sop to Republican voters who believed in that course.

So Thomas immediately executed a smooth reverse play and became the most isolationist isolationist of them all--roared across the country to proclaim the doctrine that the President's policy was certain to get us into war and ruin us.

When the Lend-Lease Bill was first proposed, Thomas was still at that stand. He said flatly that it was a proposition to set up a dictatorship and end democracy in America. But now he has suddenly done another reverse. The amendments, he says, remove the danger of dictatorship and he hopes it passes. But the only significant amendment in that connection is the one to limit the bill to two years--ample time to get a dictatorship going if the President really wanted.

Real reason for this is simple: Thomas plans to run for Governor of New York next year.

However, we take some comfort in it. A weather vane is the very best test of how the wind is really blowing.