The Charlotte News

Monday, June 12, 1939

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: Another fairly good prediction from Cash below, this time on golf, (a game he claimed to play, though in fair secrecy, handicap unknown); Mr. Heafner, who had a spotty career, known more for his fierce temper than his championship trophies, would nevertheless go on to tie for second with Sam Snead in the 1949 Open, missing a putt on the back nine, allowing Dr. Cary Middlecoff to win. Byron Nelson won the Open in 1939. Cash refers to Sam Snead's blown last hole on which he needed a par 5 to win and instead triple-bogeyed to finish fifth. Ah well.

Had Cash lived long enough, he would have seen one of his fellow alumnists of Wake Forest become a pretty fair golfer in the latter fifties and sixties, winning the Open in 1960.

The wienie roast to which Cash refers was the treat of Eleanor Roosevelt to the King and Queen at the Roosevelt estate in Hyde Park on their last day in the United States. Pass the chile, Mustard.

"Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?"

"Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack
and unbuttoning thee after supper and sleeping upon
benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to
demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know.
What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the
day? Unless hours were cups of sack and minutes
capons and clocks the tongues of bawds and dials the
signs of leaping-houses and the blessed sun himself
a fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta, I see no
reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand
the time of the day..."

"...Good morrow, sweet Hal. What says Monsieur Remorse?
what says Sir John Sack and Sugar? Jack! how
agrees the devil and thee about thy soul, that thou
soldest him on Good-Friday last for a cup of Madeira
and a cold capon's leg?"

"...Swearest thou, ungracious boy? henceforth ne'er look
on me. Thou art violently carried away from grace:
there is a devil haunts thee in the likeness of an
old fat man; a tun of man is thy companion. Why
dost thou converse with that trunk of humours, that
bolting-hutch of beastliness, that swollen parcel
of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed
cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with
the pudding in his belly, that reverend vice, that
grey iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in
years? Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and
drink it? wherein neat and cleanly, but to carve a
capon and eat it? wherein cunning, but in craft?
wherein crafty, but in villany? wherein villanous,
but in all things? wherein worthy, but in nothing?"

"...Hark, how hard he fetches breath. Search his pockets.
What hast thou found?"

"Nothing but papers, my lord."

"Let's see what they be: read them."

"Item, A capon,. . 2s. 2d.
Item, Sauce,. . . 4d.
Item, Sack, two gallons, 5s. 8d.
Item, Anchovies and sack after supper, 2s. 6d.
Item, Bread, ob."

"O monstrous! but one half-penny-worth of bread to
this intolerable deal of sack! What there is else,
keep close; we'll read it at more advantage: there
let him sleep till day. I'll to the court in the
morning. We must all to the wars, and thy place
shall be honourable. I'll procure this fat rogue a
charge of foot; and I know his death will be a
march of twelve-score. The money shall be paid
back again with advantage. Be with me betimes in
the morning; and so, good morrow, Peto."

Should you look for symbolism, alas, it is meant no more to be on this instance than a hot dog appeasing sauerkraut.

A Man Looks Over

And Comes Tumbling Down, But Not Without Achievement

Many a man has fought his way up to a pinnacle where the whole promised land was spread out for his delectation, only, through some mischance or inability, to come tumbling down the nether side. Something like that was the experience of Charlotte's Clayton Heafner in the National Open Saturday. A marvelous 66, after two good consistent rounds, had put him within one stroke of the low man and should have given him the momentum to go surging on through.

But, ah, masters, a round of golf is made up of a varied assortment of strokes, on every single one of which may hang a title. (Witness Sam Snead's shot out of the trap on the 72nd hole.) And for Clayton that last round, they simply weren't coming off. He wound up ingloriously with an 80, 14 strokes above his previous score.

Even so, there are plenty of consolations. He's young yet, and promising. This was the stiffest competition in the world that he faced, yet he turned in the most brilliant single performance of the tournament. There will be other tournaments, and he has served notice that he is to be reckoned with. And one of these days, we are confident, he will drop his putt in the final hole and turn away in jubilation.

Capons To Wienies

A Royal Passage Which May Have Its Vague Meaning

At the official dinner of welcome at the White House, King George and Queen Elizabeth dined on calf's head soup, terrapin, boned capon, and wine which, as though it had to be American, was presumably as good as the country can produce. In their last hours in the land, they ate hot dogs picnic fashion--well, more or less picnic fashion, anyhow--and drank beer. Probably the beer was hot. It always is at picnics.

It is a long passage. And one which is perhaps not without some vague symbolic significance. We Americans are generally a fairly stiff lot on first meeting people, despite the English conviction that we are likely to hail the King with "hiya pal." But let us like the strangers, and we hasten to doff formality, climb down to earth, and expand. The passage from capon and wine to hot dogs and beer is a sort of representation of the growth of American friendship. And so, though it was carefully prearranged of course, it was not unfitting that the King and Queen should make it.

For it is manifest that they made a hit over here, and what is more they seem to have liked us. Coming to Washington with the stage very badly set by Lady Lindsay and the isolationists glowering bitterly, they quickly got things straight again. So straight that churlish people like the Hon. Sweeney, Representative in Congress from Ohio, who wanted brashly to demand of the King what he intended to do about the war debts (as though he had something to do with it), were by common consent edged out of the picture. Altogether it was a pleasant interlude, marked by good feeling and unaffected courtesy on both sides, not to mention swell newspaper copy in an otherwise undistinguished week.

Hitler's Peace

Rumored Proposals Are Directed To Getting Him Off The Spot

The rumors that Mr. Hitler is drawing up proposals for a peace conference have some plausibility in them. For despite the triumphant cries of the kept press that the Wilhelmshaven speech had "destroyed Roosevelt," the fact remains that he (Hitler) is still on the spot where he was placed by the President's peace plea. He has been clearly and bluntly identified as the aggressor, and if war came now he would go into it already saddled with the whole burden of the guilt. Which would mean that he would go into it with the most of the Western world dead against him and resolved to do everything in its power to see that he didn't win. With the plain example before him of what happened to the Kaiser's Government when it got itself in the same fix with the submarine campaign, he cannot well risk that. And so it is very likely that he is planning to maneuver for position--try to create the impression that he was at least willing to talk things over before resorting to force.

But that he himself takes no stock in the notion that any peace conference he would propose would work is suggested by the news that Spain is to be brought into the Axis--a direct slap in the face for England. And the English themselves clearly have no faith in the possibility of the conference with him. How could they? The whole record shows that the peace Adolf Hitler will propose will be a peace bought at the price of giving him all that, at the given moment, he sees fit to demand--in return for which he will give his promise, not to make further demands, and keep it just long enough to get himself ready to make further demands.

Things That Go Up*

Homer Martin's Meteoric Rise Turns Earthward

It looks like the beginning of the end of Homer Martin and his AFL-affiliated United Automobile Workers. A previous schism disclosed that Martin represented a clear minority of the organized automobile workers, and now dissension within one of the Martin locals indicates a further split.

Fisher Body Plant No. 2 has two UAW unions, one allied with AFL and the other with CIO. Both have been clamoring for a closed shop, but naturally closed to all but their own members. The corporation, not knowing what was the "official" committee, has refused to bargain with either as such. Last week, Martin handed down to his men an order to strike for recognition. They refused, on the ground that there was no chance to win the strike and that they hadn't been consulted about the strike call.

Homer Martin's rise in the business of organized labor was rapid and spectacular. A one-time preacher, his gifts were more oratorical than administrative, and besides it is difficult to administer a riot in any case, which was what labor relations in the automobile industry most nearly represented with the advent of UAW. Even when he was in charge of the whole works, however, he was vulnerable to the charge that he was a poor disciplinarian. He couldn't restrain his locals from pulling "quickies" and unauthorized strikes.

Now a different shoe is on the same foot. Evidently he can compel his followers to strike when they don't want to. Worse still for Homer, they are going to meet and discuss the advisability of going over to CIO.

 


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