The Charlotte News
Monday, August 19, 1940
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: We note that it is mildly interesting that in "Thumbs Down" it is mentioned that the vice-president of S. S. Kresge sent a letter to employees of the company courting support for Wendell Willkie, not an action barred by the then new campaign reform called the Hatch Act. Two days prior to this date, Mr. Willkie had returned home to Elwood, Indiana in a triumphant victory parade and acceptance speech, even though his nomination had occurred on June 28. A famous photograph taken of him at the time shows a sign in the background for a store of Frank Winfield Woolworth. Mr. Willkie apparently had inspired some affinity among five and dimes or patrons thereof--it not escaping our notice also that in a recent speech by a gentleman at a contemporary Republican Convention, there was a moment's reminiscence on Mr. Willkie from when the gentleman speaker was himself an eight year old...
Which goes to show that as we get older, we always, too, get younger.
For your further edification, as an addendum to "Roll 'em, Boys!" we set forth a section of Pantagruel, of which Cash makes reference as a suggestion in lieu of the methodology utilized by the head of the Bituminous Coal Commission in offering up new price schedules.
Judge Bridlegoose is here on trial for having passed a too harsh sentence on the subsidy-assessor, Toucheronde.
His explanations, indeed, as Cash suggests, are worth consideration, as it could be ventured that such flights of certain justice occasionally take hold of some jurists, and lawyers, even to this day. As no doubt also do the tendencies for the Hon. Bridlegoose's allowing full time to pass in the passing of sentences...
Having explained to the tribunal at length his method of adjudication, he is said to have offered thusly his defense to the unusually harsh sentence pronounced:
...By reason of which infirmity he was not able so distinctly and clearly to discern the points and blots of the dice as formerly he had been accustomed to do; whence it might very well have happened, said he, as old dim-sighted Isaac took Jacob for Esau, that I after the same manner, at the decision of causes and controversies in law, should have been mistaken in taking a quatre for a cinque, or a trey for a deuce. This I beseech your worships, quoth he, to take into your serious consideration, and to have the more favourable opinion of my uprightness, notwithstanding the prevarication whereof I am accused in the matter of Toucheronde's sentence, that at the time of that decree's pronouncing I only had made use of my small dice; and your worships, said he, know very well how by the most authentic rules of the law it is provided that the imperfections of nature should never be imputed unto any for crimes and transgressions; as appeareth, ff. de re milit. l. qui cum uno. ff. de reg. Jur. l. fere. ff. de aedil. edict. Per totum. ff. de term. mod. l. Divus Adrianus, resolved by Lud. Rom. in l. si vero. ff. Sol. Matr. And who would offer to do otherwise, should not thereby accuse the man, but nature, and the all-seeing providence of God, as is evident in l. Maximum Vitium, c. de lib. Praeter...
Chapter 3, Section XL How Bridlegoose giveth reasons why he looked upon those law-actions which he decided by the chance of the dice.
Yea but, quoth Trinquamelle, my friend, seeing it is by the lot, chance, and throw of the dice that you award your judgments and sentences, why do not you livre up these fair throws and chances the very same day and hour, without any further procrastination or delay, that the controverting party-pleaders appear before you? To what use can those writings serve you, those papers and other procedures contained in the bags and pokes of the law-suitors? To the very same use, quoth Bridlegoose, that they serve your other worships. They are behooveful unto me, and serve my turn in three things very exquisite, requisite, and authentical. First, for formality sake, the omission whereof, that it maketh all, whatever is done, to be of no force nor value, is excellently well proved, by Spec. I. tit. de instr. edit. et tit. de rescript. praesent. Besides that, it is not unknown to you, who have had many more experiments thereof than I, how oftentimes, in judicial proceedings, the formalities utterly destroy the materialities and substances of the causes and matters agitated; for Forma mutata, mutatur substantia. ff. ad exhib. l. Julianus. ff. ad leg. Fal. l. si is qui quadraginta. Et extra de decim. c. ad audientiam, et de celebrat. miss. c. in quadam.
Secondly, they are useful and steadable to me, even as unto your other worships, in lieu of some other honest and healthful exercise. The late Master Othoman Vadet (Vadere), a prime physician, as you would say, Cod. De Comit. et Archi. lib. 12, hath frequently told me that the lack and default of bodily exercise is the chief, if not the sole and only cause of the little health and short lives of all officers of justice, such as your worships and I am. Which observation was singularly well before him noted and remarked by Bartholus in lib. I. c. de sent. quae pro eo quod. Therefore it is that the practice of such-like exercitations is appointed to be laid hold on by your other worships, and consequently not to be denied unto me, who am of the same profession; Quia accessorium naturam sequitur principalis. de reg. jur. l. 6. et l. cum principalis. et l. nihil dolo. ff. eod. tit. ff. de fide-juss. l. fide-juss. et extra de officio deleg. cap. I. Let certain honest and recreative sports and plays of corporeal exercises be allowed and approved of; and so far, (ff. de allus. et aleat. l. solent. et authent.) ut omnes obed. in princ. coll. 7. et ff. de praescript. verb. l. si gratuitam et l. I. cod. de spect. l. II. Such also is the opinion of D. Thom, in secunda, secundae Q. I. 168. Quoted in very good purpose by D. Albert de Rosa, who fuit magnus practicus, and a solemn doctor, as Barbatias attesteth in principiis consil. Wherefore the reason is evidently and clearly deduced and set down before us in gloss. In prooemio. ff. par. ne autem tertii.
Interpone tuis interdum gaudia curis.
In very deed, once, in the year a thousand four hundred fourscore and ninth, having a business concerning the portion and inheritance of a younger brother depending in the court and chamber of the four high treasurers of France, whereinto as soon as ever I got leave to enter by a pecuniary permission of the usher thereof,--as your other worships know very well, that Pecuniae obediunt omnia, and there says Baldus, in l. singularia. ff. si cert. pet. et Salic. in l. receptitia. Cod. de constit. pecuni. et Card. in Clem. I. de baptism.--I found them all recreating and diverting themselves at the play called muss, either before or after dinner; to me, truly, it is a thing altogether indifferent whether of the two it was, provided that hic not., that the game of the muss is honest, healthful, ancient, and lawful, a Muscho inventore, de quo cod. de petit. haered. l. si post mortem. et Muscarii. Such as play and sport it at the muss are excusable in and by law, lib. I. c. de excus. artific. lib. 10. And at the very same time was Master Tielman Picquet one of the players of that game of muss. There is nothing that I do better remember, for he laughed heartily when his fellow-members of the aforesaid judicial chamber spoiled their caps in swingeing of his shoulders. He, nevertheless, did even then say unto them, that the banging and flapping of him, to the waste and havoc of their caps, should not, at their return from the palace to their own houses, excuse them from their wives, Per. c. extra. De praesumpt. et ibi gloss. Now, resolutorie loquendo, I should say, according to the style and phrase of your other worships, that there is no exercise, sport, game, play, nor recreation in all this palatine, palatial, or parliamentary world, more aromatizing and fragrant than to empty and void bags and purses, turn over papers and writings, quote margins and backs of scrolls and rolls, fill panniers, and take inspection of causes, Ex. Bart. et Joan. de Pra. in l. falsa. de condit. et demonst. ff.
Thirdly, I consider, as your own worships use to do, that time ripeneth and bringeth all things to maturity, that by time everything cometh to be made manifest and patent, and that time is the father of truth and virtue. Gloss. in l. I. cod. de servit. authent. de restit. et ea quae pa. et spec. tit. de requisit. cons. Therefore is it that, after the manner and fashion of your other worships, I defer, protract, delay, prolong, intermit, surcease, pause, linger, suspend, prorogate, drive out, wire-draw, and shift off the time of giving a definitive sentence, to the end that the suit or process, being well fanned and winnowed, tossed and canvassed to and fro, narrowly, precisely, and nearly garbled, sifted, searched, and examined, and on all hands exactly argued, disputed, and debated, may, by succession of time, come at last to its full ripeness and maturity. By means whereof, when the fatal hazard of the dice ensueth thereupon, the parties cast or condemned by the said aleatory chance will with much greater patience, and more mildly and gently, endure and bear up the disastrous load of their misfortune, than if they had been sentenced at their first arrival unto the court, as not. gl. ff. de excus. tut. l. tria. onera.
Portatur leviter quod portat quisque libenter.
On the other part, to pass a decree or sentence when the action is raw, crude, green, unripe, unprepared, as at the beginning, a danger would ensue of a no less inconveniency than that which the physicians have been wont to say befalleth to him in whom an imposthume is pierced before it be ripe, or unto any other whose body is purged of a strong predominating humour before its digestion. For as it is written, in authent. haec constit. in Innoc. de constit. princip., so is the same repeated in gloss. in c. caeterum. extra. de juram. calumn. Quod medicamenta morbis exhibent, hoc jura negotiis. Nature furthermore admonisheth and teacheth us to gather and reap, eat and feed on fruits when they are ripe, and not before. Instit. de rer. div. paragr. is ad quem et ff. de action. empt. l. Julianus. To marry likewise our daughters when they are ripe, and no sooner, ff. De donation. inter vir. et uxor. l. cum hic status. paragr. si quis sponsam. et 27 qu. I. c. sicut dicit. gl.
Jam matura thoro plenis adoleverat annis Virginitas.
And, in a word, she instructeth us to do nothing of any considerable importance, but in a full maturity and ripeness, 23. q. para ult. et 23. De c. ultimo.
Roll 'em, Boys!
We Modestly Suggest How To Get a Coal Schedule
From the Washington report of the Associated Press we take the following:
President Roosevelt asked Congress today to appropriate an additional $137,000 for the bituminous coal division in connection with the fixing of new price schedules.
Which reminds us suddenly of old acquaintances, the Bituminous Coal Commission and Mr. John Carson, consumer's counsel to the commission.
It was in 1937 that the coal commission came into being, for the purpose of fixing prices, and it was in November of that year that the commission announced price schedules to go into effect, as we recall it, early in 1938. It was in November, too, that we began to receive missives from Mr. John inciting us to take up arms against the price schedules as subversive of our interests. (But all we ever did was to poke gentle fun at Mr. John for being in the position of having to represent the Government against the Government.)
Maybe we underestimated him, though. Certainly somebody has done something to those coal schedules. There must have been at least half a dozen announced since that November, but somehow none of them have ever gone into effect. And now it takes another $137,000 to draw another schedule which, by all the probabilities, will never go into effect either.
Is Mr. John by any chance the colossus who has wrecked those schedules? If so, he is beginning to run into money.
For our part, we think we know a better system--that of Judge Bridoie, which is to say Bridalgoose, in Rabelais' Pantagruel. When the judge's cases got to be too much for him, he settled them by throwing dice. Anyhow, it would be cheaper than the coal commission and Mr. John and we would probably get a coal price schedule as good as another.
A Suspicion
Could Election Have Had Anything To Do With This?
Maybe it is unjust to be too suspicious, and maybe it was all just a misunderstanding and Ambassador Cudahy really deserved vindication.
Nevertheless, the Roosevelt Administration has laid itself open to such suspicions abundant in the past--by its very appointment of so many fat cats as ambassadors sent to lie abroad for the commonwealth, by its cynical play with such gangs as those of Huey Long in Louisiana and Boss Hague in New Jersey, by the Democratic handbook racket, etc.
And Ambassador Cudahy is unmistakably one of the fat cat ambassadors. Nobody who is conversant with the facts supposes that he was sent to Belgium because of his remarkable and proven capacities as a diplomat. He was sent quite simply because he was an heir of the great packing house family and had kicked in large sums to the Roosevelt war chest in previous campaigns.
Furthermore, the evidence suggests to the layman that Secretary Welles' original judgment, that Cudahy had performed inexcusably for an ambassador, was better than his last, that Cudahy hadn't done a thing out of order. According to the Associated Press reports, which he himself has said were accurate, Cudahy did commit very grave diplomatic indiscretion by his remarks in London.
So, in common view of all that, is it too snide to suspect the possibility that somebody suddenly remembered that, after all, another election is at hand, that the democratic war chest is not as bad as it has been known to be, that there are difficulties about the handbook racket this time, and that Ambassador Cudahy still belongs to the packing family and has abundant jack at his disposal, and if treated with the proper consideration will probably come through again?
Thumbs Down
Smart Tricks and Coercion Are in Very Bad Odor
One thing the country is plainly in no humor for in the current campaign is monkey business designed to get around the Corrupt Practices Act, or to coerce anybody into voting or aiding any candidate.
Mr. Henry P. Fletcher, general counsel to the Republican Party, advised the boys triumphantly that it would be all right for the fat cats to kick in more than $5,000 to the state organizations, since they were not specifically covered by the Hatch Act. Promptly Attorney General Jackson ruled otherwise, and Mr. Willkie repudiated Mr. Fletcher's little ideas.
Mr. Flynn, the new Democratic Chairman, announced that the old handbook racket would be worked again this year for the shakedown of corporations. But Mr. Willkie roared. Senator Hatch warned, and Attorney General Jackson hastened to rule that it was illegal, at least in part.
Mr. C. B. Tuttle, vice-president of S. S. Kresge Co., sent out a form letter to all employees of his chain dime stores, asking them to kick in for Mr. Willkie. And that has prompted Senator Miller, Democrat, of Arkansas, to prepare a bill which would make it a violation of the corrupt practices act for any firm, corporation, or officer of a corporation, to solicit funds from employees for use in an election campaign.
It ought to be passed without ceremony. What Mr. Tuttle may have intended we cannot judge. But in general it is certainly true that the present condition opens the way for extorting contributions under the implied threat of the loss of the employee's job. That is quite as reprehensible in private employment as in public employment.
By Definition
Fascists Do Not Care for Their Own Medicine
Britain's planes bombed Turin and Milan, killing 22 persons and injuring more than 50 more. And Italian newspapers promptly cry that it is "a barbarous and cowardly attack."
Which enables us to come again at the definition of "barbarous and cowardly" in the new Nazi-Fascist dictionary.
Italian planes have done considerable bombing in their time. During the campaign to take over Ethiopia, they systematically bombed Ethiopian villages, killing men, women, and children indiscriminately. The Ethiopians cannot fight back, being armed only with spears. Once, after Ethiopia had been taken, several Ethiopian villages revolted, killed some Italian officers. For that, Italian bombers killed about 6,000--men, women, and children.
There was Spain, too. Spain was not at war with Italy. But day and night Italian bombers rained bombs into Madrid, until the city was a gaunt ruin. Day and night the wide streets and great plazas were filled and refilled with a grotesque, gaping corpses of those slain by the Italian bombers. From Almeria, a horde of civilians fled along the coast before the advance of Franco's armies. And over those also Italian bombers flew ceaselessly dropping their bombs, leaving the staring dead--old men, women, and children--to mark their passage. And over Barcelona they flew, too. Day after day, with the toll of the dead often mounting to 300 and more.
But none of this, you understand, was "barbarous and cowardly." On the contrary, Signor Mussolini has explicitly affirmed that it is the greatest glory of the Italian race. And Mussolini's son, Bruno, has written a book in which he expounds on the aesthetic delight afforded to a really sensitive Italian soul at the spectacle of the bodies of victims opening up under the impact of bombs, for all the world like a rose bursting into flower.
No, none of this is "barbarous or cowardly," what is "barbarous and cowardly" is to feed Fascists out of their own spoon.
Framed Edition
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