The Charlotte News

Monday, May 15, 1939

THREE EDITORIALS

Shall It Be We Or They?
Shall The Ring, That Is, Or The People Control Our Public Institutions?

Chief Littlejohn, in his statement yesterday, had one sentence which engaged us in long thought. That was when he declared:

We disagree with this in the sense that Frank N. Littlejohn, as much as any strictly private citizen, has the right to have the accusations against him brought out into the open. Indeed, since he is a police officer, it is the bounden duty of his superiors, which is to say the Chief of Police and the Civil Service Commission, and his employers, the City Government, to take cognizance of the attack made upon him and to drag it out into the open. In no other way will those behind it be compelled to disclose their identities and to state their charges, for it is to be noticed that they have remained as mum as oysters to the invitation to step forward and complain. It will take a summons to do the trick.

But more than a hearing on the Littlejohn case is necessary to assure the enforcement of and respect for the criminal laws in Charlotte. The task is well-nigh insuperable so long as some of those laws are manifestly unenforceable and can never command the entire respect of all the people. Taking them as they are, however, an upheaval is going to have to be brought about before we can hope for any improvement at all.

In Mecklenburg Superior Court, for instance: the seat of the law in the community. That court, as we have repeated time and time again without being challenged for it, is a chief impediment to law enforcement and an immediate cause of disrespect for the law. It is, as we have called it, and can show, a haven for drunken drivers who command any influence at all. Furthermore, its inability to cope with the volume of crime results in jammed dockets which makes swiftness and certainty of punishment impossible. At intervals it wipes the slate clean by a wholesale nollepros procedure, which means that it calls off the dogs and starts over again.

Another local custom which needs correction before respect for the law is re-created is the retaining of attorneys, who are supposed to be agents of the court, for the obvious purpose of enabling rackets to function in spite of the law, to "spring" their minions when they get caught, to influence public officials. A man accused of a crime has the right to counsel, but we seriously question the ethics of certain lawyers who serve year in and year out virtually as legal departments for the bootlegging ring, the butter 'n' eggs monopoly and other enterprises such as organized prostitution.

Nor is that all. The tie-up between officials of the Mecklenburg County Government is a matter of common gossip and cries for investigation, just as the whispers about Chief Littlejohn. It is to be noted, however, that the officials concerned, unlike the Chief, have asked for no public hearing. Nor is that all. The potency of these illegal interests in influencing elections ought to trouble the people at large, whose expressions may thus be nullified.

The City Police Department badly needs reorganization, and it is a good sign that Councilman Sides and others have expressed, publicly and privately, interest in the proposal to assign some exceptional man to the task. Chief Littlejohn deserves the right to be confronted by his accusers and make public the pertinent information he has accumulated in months of counter-investigation, since it has an intimate bearing on law enforcement and respect for law in the community.

But we tell you, messires, that the trouble goes deeper than Chief Littlejohn and the police department. Apathy has brought us to the verge of a dangerous situation in Mecklenburg County. Our agencies are in peril. The wrong crowd is in the saddle. Corruption is almost open, and inefficiency is taking its toll.

If the people want to restore the integrity of their public agencies, they must make their voices heard and their indignation felt. They are powerful enough, if they should arise, but as long as they sit placidly upon their backsides they may confidently expect nothing more than periodic outbreaks like this and the gradual deterioration of their institutions.

Who Might Have Sat For An Ellen Glasgow Heroine

Miss Laura Orr spent her life in the conventional round of a maiden lady in the South during the years from 1849 to 1939--a long span, indeed. A quiet girlhood amidst the Sturm und Drang of the Civil War and Reconstruction, schooling at the Charlotte Female Institute, at the hands of private tutors, and at the University (an unusual note for that time), a long period as a teacher in the public schools of the city, a longer period as church worker and DAR leader. A quiet and uneventful life altogether.

But that was only the outer form. She was in fact a remarkable personality--a sort of incarnation of Ellen Glasgow's "vein of iron," which was once the heritage of all the Scotch-Irish in Dixie, but which in these complex times is rapidly passing away. She believed profoundly that life is likely to be too much for humanity, and that only the finest courage and the most determined will are adequate for meeting it--that fixed standards rigidly held to at whatever cost of the individual are absolutely necessary if the race is not simply to collapse into a chaos of sensation and instinct. And what is more remarkable in these days, she lived entirely up to her creed, with great dignity and sincerity. Merely to encounter her was immediately to think that here at least was one human being who was incapable of cheapness, of a mean deed or thought.

And withal, she remained both kind and tolerant. Respecting the human personality in herself, she never lost respect and understanding of it in others, even when they were at poles opposite from her in their beliefs. In fine, a rare and notable woman--a great lady in the highest sense of that somewhat abused word.

The Doctors Here Give Robert's Appeal The Score It Deserves

It is a pleasure though not a surprise to note that the doctors here are cold to the efforts of the Hon. Robert Rice Reynolds, alien-baiter, to stir them into a rage over the "menace" of competition from alien doctors who are fleeing to this country as refugees, mainly from Nazi Germany. The Hon. Reynolds' appeal is carefully calculated to give the impression that they are coming over in great hordes and throngs, to eat up the bread of the native doctors. But as a matter-of-fact, according to the Boston Committee on Medical Emigrés, there are only about 1,200 already here, and the total number will probably never exceed 2,500--which is an almost negligible figure when set against the fact that there are 170,000 practicing physicians in the country.

Unfortunately, most of the emigrés have tended to concentrate in New York, because of lack of knowledge of the country and, in the case of Hitler's victims, of funds--and this has created some difficulty. But the Boston Committee, made up of leading doctors of that city, is trying to work out a more humane plan than complete disbarment of such doctors--that of scattering them throughout the nation. One great difficulty in the way is that most of the states, like North Carolina, have hastily adopted legal provisions that only citizens are eligible for a license to practice medicine. But in some states the committee has succeeded in getting this suspended. Wisconsin doctors have agreed to find a placement for as many as 50 of the emigrés. The committee says that if every state would take even a smaller quota, the problem would be solved.

These men are represented as being anxious not to compete with native doctors, some of them are able and distinguished, and in no case will the incompetent be allowed to practice. Certainly there are plenty of openings for them. In this day, for instance, there are many rural areas not adequately served by physicians. And in the light of that and the small numbers it would be ashamed to pay any attention to such professional menace-mongers as Robert and refuse to give them a chance.