The Charlotte News

Friday, June 10, 1938

SIX EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: "But so long as the body of sensible people is immune to the poison of imagining that Americanism is the sum of their private prejudices, we need not be too greatly worried about the fate of civil liberties."

That, in "Newark Shrives Itself", sums very nicely the case for counteracting that which beset Jersey City for decades, both during and after the reign of Boss Hague, as well that which besets any group professing patriotism and nationalism while only squelching the rights of other citizens entitled to the same profession and only exercising in the process the very first hallmark in fact of Americanism. Argue, yea. Shout down, nay. (Why are we reminded suddenly of the way it went during the waning days of the 1968 campaign for the Presidency when Hubert Humphrey had to be shrill to be heard over the din of Ni-yonians stalking him with bilious taunts on the last suns setting on the trail, claiming the while that they were only doing what the "Left" had done to their Lord Defender of the Faith, His Highness? Precisely when that was, however, we couldn't say. Perhaps they had their conventions confused. Anyway...)

Honi soit qui mal y pense.

Senator Byrd has an article in this month's issue of the Manufacturers Record, entitled Pump Priming A Failure While Deficits Mount, which we may reprint when we can find space. Meanwhile, the Senator gives some figures in his article which are an eloquent composition unto themselves and say more than he or we or anybody else can say in so many words. These are they--a record of Federal expenditures for the ten fiscal years between 1930 and 1940:

Do you get from this table, as we do, the feeling of standing on the edge of a precipice looking down into an abyss that, like all true abysses, is bottomless?

    *(RFC's $500,000,000 not included)
  **($1,700,000,000 bonus not included)
***($556,000,000 bonus not included)

It sounds somehow odd--that petition of Canadian farmers to the Canadian Government, asking that it annex a part of Maine. As a nation we have been the busiest acquirer of territory ever heard of, with the exception of England and Russia. But as for giving up anything, that is something we haven't had much practice in. President Polk did give ground on "Fifty-four Forty or Fight" in the Oregon case, but the compromise on the 49th parallel as the boundary line was no great bargain for England. That and the Philippine case are the only times we ever got around to giving up anything, and the Philippine case is perhaps mainly explained by something else than generosity.

However, there isn't going to be any quarrel about this proposal even if the Canadian Government should take it up seriously with Washington--which it quite possibly won't. The fur trade of the Vancouver country was so valuable to the rich and powerful Hudson Bay Company that Britain was prepared to go to war over it. But the territory at question here is the little thumb sticking up on the northwest corner of Maine into Quebec. And it has nothing to make anybody covet it much. A quiet backwater, cut off from the rest of Maine by forests and inhabited only by small farmers, most of them of French-Canadian origin. If it is true that the farmers sell their products in Canada exclusively and that customs duties afflict them, we might very well, for that matter, give the area to Canada. But if we refused, nobody would mind particularly, unless it were the farmers themselves.

Site Ed. Note: For the well-known photograph of Norman Thomas being pelted with eggs, see the front page of June 6.

Norman Thomas went back to Newark, and what transpired there this time was heartening for all honest friends of civil liberty. A capacity crowd packed the City Commission chamber, and there were no rotten eggs or tomatoes or hoodlums there. On the contrary, that crowd cheered Thomas and his defense of the right of free speech and assembly. And the city fathers told Mr. Thomas, too, that they were in favor of free speech and assembly, and by way of proving it, promised to remove Deputy Police Chief Bebold as chief investigator of the conduct of himself and his 400 cops at the riot last Saturday night.

More than that, Michael Breitkopf, spokesman for the war veterans who had previously tried to have the permit for the Socialist meeting canceled, told Thomas earnestly and apparently in good faith that his group had not plotted violence and had no part in the riot.

In short, there seems to be a good deal of intelligence and decency in Newark in spite of the bad showing Saturday night. The prospect looks to be very fair that that intelligence and decency will save the town from going the way of Mayor Hague's pocket borough of Jersey City. Hoodlums are likely occasionally to get out of hand anywhere. But so long as the body of sensible people is immune to the poison of imagining that Americanism is the sum of their private prejudices, we need not be too greatly worried about the fate of civil liberties.

The best argument that can be made against the fixing of rigid minimum wages and for a differential in favor of the South is that otherwise the pending law would be likely to throw a great many people out of employment. For in the South, many jobs exist simply because labor is cheap--jobs which could, and very probably would, be dispensed with under a rigid minimum wage-and-hour law.

But the eighteen Southern Senators who are threatening a filibuster against the bill are not content with having a provision inserted which would suspend the minimum requirements if their application was to result in unemployment. They say that living costs are lower in the South, and demand that this enter into the differential, too.

We commonly assume, indeed, that living costs are cheaper in the South than in the North. And it undoubtedly is true that the Southern workman spends on average less for food and housing and clothes than the Yankee workman. But it has been argued that this only means that the Southern workman has a lower living standard than that which prevails in the North, and that the average cost of these necessities is really lower. And nobody can actually say which contention is true, for no general and dispassionate survey of the case has ever been made.

If there's anything that this town likes, it's a winner. And a winner the town seems to have, at least an early season winner, in its baseball team. The Hornets started out jostling the Winston-Salem team in a race backwards for the cellar. They lost their first series intact. They won only three or four of their first dozen games. In the course, by main strength and persistence, they were eking out a half and half existence.

But about a month ago these Hornets--young chaps, every one of them, with a boy manager--found themselves, and what they have been doing since is to win ball games. They contrive usually to win 'em the hard way, by coming from behind, and they have had a number of close calls. But there they sit on top of the heap.

Well, we have an idea that our sports editor, Mr. Burke Davis, has somehow had something to do with it. He has plugged these boys into believing that they can lick all comers. Anyhow, he has talked us into believing it, so that we have a sort of proprietary interest in the team and an abiding confidence in its ability to take care of itself under all circumstances. And the town--the town, we say, likes a winner, and is beginning to show that it likes its baseball team.

"George the Sixth by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the seas King Defender of the Faith" celebrated his 43rd birthday Wednesday by creating two new viscounts, two barons, a privy councillor, six baronets and 35 knights bachelor.

England's peerage is composed of five ranks, of which the highest is that of duke. A marquess comes second, an earl third, a viscount fourth, and a baron last. With the exception of a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, all titles are hereditary and passed down to the eldest son. Every peer is entitled to the designation, "Lord," and, at state and informal social occasions, takes precedent over everybody but royalty, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Prime Minister, various other officials of the royal household and the government, and peers of higher rank than himself. He is entitled to a seat in the House of Lords, and cannot be tried for a felony or treason save by his peers; i.e., by the House of Lords or a court selected therefrom by the crown. His children rank as commoners, but those of dukes, marquesses, and earls are entitled to be called "Lord" and "Lady," those of viscounts and barons to be called "Honorable," and the eldest son of an earl, marquess or duke is ordinarily given the courtesy title of the rank next below his fathers.

A baronet is not a member of the peerage and so does not sit in the House of Lords, but his title is hereditary. He is entitled to be called "Sir" and to write "Bnrt." after his name. And at social and state functions he takes precedence over all knights save only Knights of the Garter.

A knight holds his title only for life and, like the baronet, ranks as a commoner. He is entitled to be called "Sir," and to write the initials of his order of chivalry, if any, after his name. At state and social functions, he outranks all untitled commoners and other knights according to their orders of chivalry. The knight bachelor is the oldest but lowest rank of knighthood, and its holders belong to none of the orders of chivalry.

A privy councillor is a purely titular person without duties. He holds for life of the sovereign and six months after, is addressed as "Right Honorable," and takes precedence over all persons below a
Knight of the Garter, including the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Lord Chief Justice of England.

No grants of land, estates or money go with the bestowal of any of these titles, and haven't since the reign of William and Mary.

Framed Edition

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