The Charlotte News

Friday, October 10, 1941

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: Today's page is particularly intriguing, both for "Interception", re the President's letter to Stalin being published by the Nazis in Berlin before official release, indicative of either Nazi spies in Washington or in Moscow, and, more, "Decision"--a piece almost worthy of Nostradamus for it prescience. It says that war with Japan over oil is inevitable, and in the coming weeks, the question posed by the piece being whether to strike offensively while the advantage of some surprise lay with the United States and the Allies, the Dutch, the British, the Russians--that is if the Russians were to be able, in face of their task resisting Hitler on the western front of Russia, to spare enough planes to bomb Tokyo from Vladivostok--or to wait and risk surprise attack by the Japanese. The Japanese, it says, were now cut off finally from oil by the Allies, and had hit the "stone wall" with respect to negotiations with the Administration to enable oil shipments from the ABC powers in South America (though it does not mention the oil which Japan had been getting from Mexico as well), to continue the war in China, and also extend, by virtue of its having gained the foothold in July in French Indochina, that which we know as Vietnam, through the acquiescence of the Nazi puppets in Vichy, further into the Pacific region, the Dutch East Indies, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

Meanwhile, "'Hold Fast'" quotes Mussolini's exhortation to his beleaguered troops and countrymen, the weak link, or as the piece terms it "Achilles heel" of the Axis.

Hugh Johnson tells of the combat zone controversy, already referenced several times by the page, that is Roosevelt's continuing change of description, by virtue of his authority under the Lend-Lease Act, even if in contravention to the outmoded Neutrality Act, of what constituted a "combat zone", to enable convoy of supplies to Britain.

And, finally of note, are the letters to the editor: as we have pointed out previously, Mr. Nixon referenced in the first one was not the one of later smoking-gun fame, but rather Chester, of whom we have yet to have final full identity, but who, by previous interpolation, we assume, though perhaps incorrectly, despite his being described here primarily as a hay farmer, to have been Charlotte's replacement City Attorney, presumptively therefore leading the letter writer to carp over his open support of open Sundays, a major issue in Cash's latter days with The News, resolved by the City Council shortly after his departure for Mexico, coming out in favor of allowing at least some businesses to remain open and baseball games to be played on Sundays, abandoning the old Blue Laws for the nonce, the letter concluding with a rather illogical notion therefore that Mr. Nixon was also an advocate of Charles "Lindenburg", whoever he was; then the rather moving poem, perhaps about the wooden ships or the sounds of silence, as you please; concluding then with the letter pleading for Mecklenburgers to take into their hearts and homes the soldiers forced to sleep during the weekend maneuvers thus far in the parks, the fields and the rain, in their tent cities.

Well, we suggest that you read it thoroughly, take note of where you are in history, where they were, where we've been, and where we're going, and give it a little thought during this October day of the 13th in 2008.

And consider also the words of Wordsworth.

The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls...sometimes even in letters to the editor.

Poetry. It has an odd and preserving effect on the human psyche. So, hold on. Every day is a ride around the world.

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