The Charlotte News

Wednesday, October 26, 1938

FOUR EDITORIALS

"The Democrats Win" bears a curious and candid admission by Cash of his life-long membership in the Democratic Party, curious for willingness to admit party membership on an editorial page, yet not so surprising, as North Carolina, as with most Southern states after the Civil War, was almost entirely Democratically run, if, sometimes and in some places, hardly at all democratically run.

Perhaps, one would have had to have grown of age in the South before circa 1970 fully to appreciate this notion, and the genuine schizoid aspect of it when it came to the dividing line between national politics and state politics, most divisively prevalent in the election of 1960, at least the most divisive probably since the election of 1928. And probably for similar reasons, though by 1960, with television in our midst prominently, most had become sufficiently circumspect not to go around openly discussing a man's religion. Rather, it became a matter of "liberalism", "soft on communism", "young and inexperienced" (never minding that the opponent was only four years his senior and scarcely more experienced in political life), and other such euphemisms tacked to the youngish looking Senator from Massachusetts, of course not just limited to the South. Yet, one could and did counter that the lantern-jawed other fellow seemed never to shave--and, when you considered it, he did mightily resemble Duke Mantee, and certainly, even more, Ed Sullivan. Which, other than perhaps deep in the Duke Forest, over by the toolshed, didn't play so well, at least as to the resemblance to Duke, though Ed probably unwittingly endeared him to millions, especially in 1964 and beyond.

Anyhow, we mustn't be mean. Like we say, we never much understood the comic strips. So we had to find something at which to laugh amid the print in the newspaper every morning, you see. And, candidly, it got harder and harder and harder to find, as time went on in the 1960's and early 70's--though nowadays, for the most part, well, it's a riot.

So here is the hairstyle piece, so you won't miss any of the comics:

If there linger any doubt that Messer Harry Hopkins, the big relief man, means it when he says that WPAers may vote as they jolly well please, the order now posted in all WPA offices and at the site of every project should dispel it:

There! That's plain enough, isn't it? Persons on WPA won't lose their jobs if they vote against the New Deal--and, besides, the very nature of voting makes it almost impossible to put the finger on the renegades.

But Messer Harry is less than the practical fellow we think he is if he doesn't know that the chief abuse of relief lies not in compelling its recipients to vote the right way but, rather, in making it more difficult for them to become recipients unless they are affiliated with the right crowd. Not that relief is confined exclusively to the Democrats; no, not that. Simply that all the local administrators are Democrats, that most of the supervisory jobs must go through political clearance, that these petty officials are not above inquiring significantly into the politics of applicants for relief, and that a recommendation from some politico will get a chap on ahead of those who have no recommendation.

Messer Harry, to do him justice, probably would prevent all this if he could. But he can't. Politics in relief is inherent in the manner of its organization.

Old Chiang Kai-Shek is in a bad way. Canton is gone. Hankow is gone. And now to cap his troubles, British Ambassador Sir Archibald Clark Kerr is going to fly from Hong Kong to see him in the interior of China and "seek to mediate in the Chinese-Japanese war."

And that would seem to about settle the hash of the Chinese cause. Whenever a British diplomat goes anywhere these days "in the interest of peace," it is a foregone conclusion that some small or weak nation is going to pay the price of that "peace." Viscount Runciman went to Prague to "mediate" and a month later Czechoslovakia found herself being handed over hoofs, tail, and horns, to Adolf Hitler. And now the Defense Minister of the Union of South Africa is flying to Berlin, at the instance of the peace-loving Mr. Bumble, to make a deal with Adolf Hitler about his colonial demands. And who do you suppose is going to pay the price of that deal? England or South Africa? Not at all. They plan to give up not one inch of territory. Instead they plan to give Mr. Hitler Angola, which belongs to the little nation of Portugal, and a part of the Belgian Congo, which, as you may guess, belongs to the little nation of Belgium! Or so the rumor is.

So Kai-Shek may as well prepare for the worst. Sir Archie is certainly going to demand that he make "peace" at once, under penalty of having the markets of Europe closed tightly against him. Since it is England and not Chiang who is so hot for "peace," it might seem only reasonable that she could pay a part of the price--say, by giving Japan Hong Kong, Singapore, the Straits Settlements, and British Boroco. But, of course, Bumble isn't going to do any such thing. He never does. Kai-Shek, like Czechoslovakia, will have to pay the whole price. And that price will be simply the surrender to Japan of everything in sight, including quite possibly his own neck.

Just as we suspected it was going to, the decision went for the Democrats.

We hold no brief for Mr. Deane, and none against Mr. Burgin. But, on the basis of logic and equity, it is quite impossible to understand how in the world the board of referees arrived at the decision that Mr. Burgin should get the Congressional nomination in the Eighth District. The State Board had refused to certify the returns of the Davidson County Board, and had demanded a recount of the ballot with a view to eliminating absentee ballots illegally cast. The Supreme Court had said quite plainly, though somewhat timorously, that the State Board did have the right to go behind the returns of a county board and force a recount. And a new Davidson board had found that, while there were illegal votes cast on both sides, the count, with those votes eliminated, made Mr. Deane the winner.

What the decision does is to reverse the decision of the Supreme Court, and to say that a county board's certification must be accepted regardless of the question of illegal ballots. Which is to say that it leaves the status quo ante untouched--with the way still perfectly wide open to the practice of absentee ballot fraud.

But the status quo ante, of course, is what, by the record, the Democrats, or rather the job-holding hierarchy of the party, wants. It is these Democrats who created that status quo ante, who most commonly benefit by it, who have resolutely refused down to date to do anything about changing it, and who, according to the reports out of Raleigh, are already making up their minds now not to do anything drastic about the absentee ballot in the next Legislature, despite the many scandals uncovered this year.

There is this, however. Mr. Burgin has but two weeks in which to campaign, and his Republican opponent has been mighty busy the last three months. Moreover, there must be a lot of people who are angry about this business--particularly in Richmond County. And so it is not impossible that the election of a Republican may be the outcome of the whole mess. As we have said before, it would serve the Democrats right. And, speaking as lifelong Democrats, we even think it would be a very good thing all around. For, it seems about the only way to convince the politicians that it is time to clean up the State's election laws.

Fashion has decreed that the femmes must put their hair up high on their heads and show their ears, like grandma used to do, in order to wear the new "doll" hats. But not many of them have been doing it. Which shows, maybe, that they are getting cannier than they used to be. A frail gal with classic features, a little round head, a swan's neck, and shell ears, can get away with it. But when the rest of them put their hair up like that, they somehow look like Nora the house-maid got up for work, or those unfortunate young chickens which, along in late Spring, get their feathers pecked off by their mates and have to go about practically in the altogether.

But we bet that the thing that is going to kill off this horrid fashion for good is the coming cold. What above all distinguishes the modern gal from grandma is her will to comfort. To that end she has divested herself of the old iron corset, the three petticoats once held de rigueur, and, as we have heard, various other engines of torture, and got her clothing down to a few comfortable ounces. She still hangs on to the high heel, indeed, but that seems all for the best, seeing that there is nothing more calculated to grieve the judicious than to walk behind a dame on low heels. For the rest, she is probably the most uncomfortable human creature that ever lived. Even in Winter, when she keeps warm by the simple device of putting on coats and furs when she goes out. But exposing her ears and neck to the cold is going to be vastly uncomfortable, after all these years of keeping them decently hidden. Besides, they'll chap and get red and urgly. So we bet that will be the end of this fashion. And the doll hat? Alas, it promises to be with us for the duration of the Winter at least. Perhaps on top of a Garbo haircut, it will probably look like nothing so much as the tin-can hat Happy Hooligan used to wear in the comics. But that's probably the way it is going to be. And, anyhow, there isn't a blessed thing we can do about it.

Also, from the prints today:

(Zoe Kincaid Brockman, Gastonia Gazette)

A printer's careless twist of the wrist can throw practically the whole village in a dither. Consider, for instance, the innocent (anyway it started out to be innocent) item concerning the arrival of Dot Sawyer's mother from Massachusetts. To be sure, the item as it appeared in print, said nothing at all about Dot's mother. Instead it made the terrifying statement that "Mass. arrived Thursday night for an extended visit to Mr. and Mrs. Richard M. Sawyer." Hence the dither. For Mass. is quite a large state, unless Hitler has changed its boundaries since last I peered into a geography book. And Massachusetts-born guys and gals who've since removed to Gastonia thought they should help the young Sawyers out. Consequently, offers of bed linen, provender and such poured into Dot and Dick from members of the New England colony and it was all very funny.

Except to the society editor, who likes for her page to be as near right as possible. So she rushed out to the foreman of the composing room who is some kind of a strong armed, hard bottled guy. "I'll give him hell," he promised, said hell to be dished out to the luckless wight who threw away the first line of the item.

By Loraine Lashley

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