The Charlotte News

Wednesday, February 15, 1939

SIX EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: So said Mr. Hoover, according to "A Definition", the Republican Party is the party of true liberalism.

We rather think the Cash-take on things better suits reality, perhaps.

That is, until one considers that this Libby leak of Hoover produced many a boy on a Scooter, standing on the tracks, longing for that train, or that boat by which to catch. Standing on the tracks, floating on the sea, heading off to the distance with Skipping Sadie.

Incidentally, did we hear correctly that over the weekend the Vice-President, while hunting for a former Vice-President, shot somebody, leaving in his wake yet another former Vice-President?

Ah well, at least it wasn't in a duel.

As we heard a couple of Republican Angry Male Whites, (RAMW's), say yesterday, "So what? Why are they making such a big deal of this? Accidents happen, Dude." What us worry that one of them bore a cap which read on its back, "Phishing Caught Me".

What we should like to know is whether before he shot, he called out the proper warning: Pull--Ramzi Yousef!

Regardless, all is forgiven as it all took place near Corpus Christi.

Not Hitler's Nazi Germany, said General Smedley ("Old Gimlet-Eye") Butler in an interview with The News yesterday, but Great Britain herself will start the next war. Prime Minister Chamberlain will postpone it as long "as he has somebody else's land to give away," but in the end will set off hostilities; and with that in the cards, the General cautions the American people against getting hooked up in advance with Britain and against Germany.

This is something to think about, at least, and we promise to lay out a quarter of an hour in which to go to the mat with it. But, meanwhile, there is this consolation. If Britain does start a war, it won't be against the United States or even against the interests of the United States. Whereas if Herr Adolf takes the field, we can never be anywhere near sure.

Introduction in the Legislature of the mail-order liquor bill, a favorite of ours, impelled Senators Gardner of Cleveland--O. Max's boy (and a bright one)--and Prince of Henderson to issue a statement that they were prepared to "take such steps as may be necessary" to protect counties in their districts. To protect 'em from what? we'd like to know. From liquor? They're too close to wet territory for that, and too well served, if they are like the most of North Carolina's dry counties, with well-organized and well-heeled bootlegging outfits. From the temptation of ordering liquor illegally and having it delivered openly? It's a whole lot easier, but somewhat more expensive and wholly against the law, simply to pick up the phone and call a number. This way they'd have to write off for it.

As for protecting the people of Cleveland and Henderson Counties against liquor, Prohibition long ago failed to do that or to come anywhere near doing it. About the only thing they can still be protected against is the admission of that failure. Perhaps that is what the two Senators had in mind.

The police and firemen had good reason to be concerned over the provision in the proposed new City Charter which provides that promotions in their departments can be made only by permission of the City Council. But the general public has even more reason to be alert. For the police and firemen, it is at least in part a question of who'll get the best jobs, but for the public it is a question of the efficiency of the police and fire services.

The plan could turn out in practice to make promotions a matter of wallet-rolling. Councilman A would agree to permit the promotion of Councilman B's friend and political backer, Cop A, in return for Councilman's B's vote to advance Councilman A's pal and understrapper, Fireman Y. Or worse still, a majority faction in the Council would be able to fill all the better jobs with its own runners and scouts. In either case, the fitness of the cops and firemen will cease to matter, and police and fire work will become a mere means to the real end of rounding up votes.

The heads of both the police and fire departments should be made wholly responsible for their forces, and have the making of all promotions--subject only to the power of the Civil Service Commission to remove them if they fail to make good.

There is an old saying, somewhat vitiated by the number of round pegs in square holes, that the office seeks the man, and the case of Hampden-Sydney College and Dr. Gammon is an excellent case in point.

Hampton-Sydney, one of the oldest colleges in America and one of the most distinctive denominational schools, sought a president. Dr. Gammon, it may be assumed, sought nothing so much as the opportunity to continue with his resultful and stimulating pastorship of the Myers Park Presbyterian Church here in Charlotte. But the search for the college president narrowed until finally it found its man in Dr. Gammon, and the choice was both unerring and superlative.

Dr. Gammon has not yet wholly made up his mind. His residence here has been pleasant, as the affection and esteem the community has for him will testify. And yet, it is likely that he will go, for to one of such youthfulness of outlook and vigor of activities, association with the self-renewing youth and vigor of a college is a prospect that will be almost irresistible. And then, too, it is plain to those who know him best that he possesses superb equipment for the job, not the least of which is a marvelously undignified nickname acquired probably in his undergraduate days of the college that now calls him to be its president. Show us a man to whom, in full maturity and with a record of service behind him, such an appellation still clings, and you will have indicated one in whom college students are bound to have an abiding confidence.

The young buds of Republicanism like Henry Cabot Lodge and Robert Taft, may wax a little apologetic when they look at the GOP as is, and confess candidly that the party is going to need a great deal of revamping before it is entitled to much confidence from the country. But not so old Dr. Hoover. Monday night in his address at New York, the Doc came right out and flatfootedly proclaimed that the Republican Party had "always been the party of true liberalism." That has a fine militant ring to it, and in fact has only one thing wrong with it: it just can't be made to jibe with the established facts of history. Unless--unless you mean by true "liberalism":

1--A long series of scandals beginning with the Credit Mobilier and Black Friday under Grant, through the railroad frauds of the 'Eighties and the 'Nineties, right on down to Teapot Dome under Harding.

2--A kindly complacency toward developing monopoly in all Republican reigns since Lincoln's, save only that of Theodore Roosevelt.

3--A constant beguiling of the common man through fraudulent claims concerning "full dinner pails" and "two chickens in every pot."

4--The imposition of always higher and higher "protective" tariffs, which benefited principally a handful of selected manufacturers, and which harried the South into deeper and deeper poverty, and largely created what is now called "the farm problem."

The charges of the French Socialists that Daladier and his Foreign Minister, Georges Bonnet, are negotiating secret agreements with Italy and Germany for the satisfaction of their territorial demands upon France, may be only Socialist politics or a last desperate effort to prevent the inevitable recognition of Franco as the master of Spain. But it may also very well be that they are true.

After all, the French people haven't the slightest reason to trust Daladier. He has repeatedly promised that he will not give up an inch of French territory or sacrifice a single French interest. Throughout August and September of last year, he continually vociferated that he hadn't the slightest intention of betraying Czechoslovakia. Yet it looks now as though he meant to do just that all along. And there has been a curious synchronization between the Italian uproars and Daladier's own political needs at home, which seems to go beyond mere coincidence. So, it may really be that he is working hand in glove with the dictators and setting the stage to confront the French people with the awful necessity of choosing between concessions or war, just as he did in the case of Munich.

But, granting that such is the truth, it is still hard to know whether or not to blame him. The desperate need of France and England is plainly to stave off war for at least another year, so that they can build up their air power to something like fighting terms with that of the Axis. And the choice immediately before them seems to be that of making concessions that strengthen the dictators constantly or risking sudden war.