The Charlotte News

Monday, April 14, 1941

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The other part of the page this date continues the debate over exhibition of local morals on Sunday, with a piece by the associate editor of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot describing the absence of rape, pillage and plunder in the wake of Sunday movies and baseball in that predominantly naval town, historically, he says, a waterfront cesspool of sin--now, of course, among other things, and for decades, the home of the 700 Club, just as Charlotte in the 1970's, until its virtual end in the scandal of 1987, became the home site for the PTL Club. We leave it to you to ponder as to the relative significance or insignificance of those coincidental locales in the grand scheme of things.

But, candidly, just as it obviously would have made not an iota of difference in the ultimate outcome, other than contributing to some degree additional advantage perhaps to the elements of unpreparedness and surprise, and also the equally countervailing tendencies to general outrage to spiritual invasion of the sanctity of the Sabbath on top of the general outrage of the invasion itself, that the attack on Pearl Harbor was on a sleepy Sunday morning as opposed to a Saturday or Friday, we see little difference in attending a movie on Saturday or Friday night from that on Sunday afternoon or evening. For, if you are of a bent to watch a movie shoot-'em-up and go out and vicariously enter the realm of the characterizations, projecting yourself among the characters of the drama or comedy and thus shoot-'em up in reality, then you will undoubtedly do so, and regardless of the evening the shoot-'em-up is presented to you, for you were nuts to begin with, and long before you ever saw the projection which afforded you the immediate mental excuse to do so from viewing some movie. For far more people than that who would so use it as an excuse, the presentation is mere escape, or, for still others, a release from the tension, via the mental playing out of the vicarious role, which might otherwise erupt in some form of violence, and within virtually any age group. The bomber pilots, insured of the likelihood of death and consequent joinder with their ancestors in Nirvana, drank cheerfully of saké to prepare their way, not, by the reports, generous quaffs of the movie "Wings", or several innings of carrier-deck baseball even, before firing their pistons and streaking the abbreviated runways to head off to Mamala Bay in the yellow-bright enchantment of that glorious Pacific sunrise, one of Sunday on the Western side of the dateline.

So, more generally, does the movie, or the baseball game or what have you, really cause the pernicious evil, the culminant fulminant act resultant from a belief system that arguments, instead of through discussion, no matter how fiery, the fiery the better sometimes, ought be settled at the bloody end of a gun or club, under the fallacious theory of history, post hoc, ergo propter hoc? Or is the evil, such as it be, there already, merely awaiting a trigger from something as unpredictable as the viewing of a leaf falling from an oak tree onto a twig perched as a bridge between two lily-pads on a rainy day in August, precipitant in other words within the mind only of the actor, not from stimulus external to any original or legal provocation at all? Do movies stimulate violence by provoking either memories or the imagination or both in ways that might not otherwise be stimulated by other things, a Sunday morning sermonette, for instance, on the wages of sin? Thus, should we either seek to ban the sermonette or try to limit its content either?

Well, the answer to these ponderable but largely unanswerable questions probably, if it lies at all, is discerned most thoroughly in the fact that violence beset man and in far more pervasive and profligate fashion long before the coming of feature movies in 1915, though certainly certain types of media, such as that first feature film, "Birth of a Nation", might stimulate certain aberrant behavior laying for the moment, but only for the moment, dormant otherwise. But at base, and always, any triggering belief patterns were there long before the audience member entered the theater, and certainly regardless of whether it was on a Friday, Monday, Sunday or any other day.

Did Booth's derringer, 76 years before this date, enter the theater that night perched at the ready in the hip pocket of its owner to be withdrawn and triggered by the comic phrase "sockdologizing man-trap", and thus, the theater, the play, not the war over slavery and the fanatical ideas which it bred in its hosts which preceded it for four years and were steadily built up for decades before Sumter, the ultimate culprit, as profaning Good Friday?

"Tiny Rabbit", below, may convey from within its four corners an understanding of the complexities which led ultimately to Pearl Harbor less than eight months afterward. At this time of the signing of the Russo-Japanese neutrality pact, the Japanese had already aligned themselves within the Triple Alliance mutual assistance pact with Germany and Italy, that if any then neutral nation, primarily the United States, engaged in an act of belligerence against any member of the pact, then the others would come to the aid of the thusly offended. Germany had also, Zarathustra-like, signed the non-aggression pact with Russia just days before the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939 to start the war, a pact which had made Japan nervous for their historical fear of Russia and the persisting belief that Russia would come to the aid of China in Japan's increasing war of aggression there.

The next major event of course would be the June 22 invasion by Germany of Russia. That invasion, while immediately appearing to be one which Russia was ill-equipped to resist, bogged down against the citizen armies of Stalingrad and Leningrad, combined with the early snows of October. Nevertheless, with the initial thrust of the poniard, Russia had its hands full afterward and Japan knew therefore it had little to fear from them in the Pacific.

Perhaps that explains then the seemingly non-sensical move by Hitler of withdrawing forces from the persistent bombing of England, thus kept at bay from September to May in the west, to the eastern front to fight Stalin, thus not only relieving for the nonce the besieged island on the other side of the Channel but also cutting off the final avenue of a valuable, if cumbersome and by then relatively meager, oil resource via the Trans-Siberian railway fed by Japanese merchant ships, including not only oil from Mexico but some as well from the west coast of the United States. But Hitler had more to fear from Stalin, as also explained by the piece below, than this oil supply route counter-balanced.

Stalin was a threat to the Nazis' continued advance through the Balkans and Greece into the Dardanelles and Turkey, thereby gaining control of the eastern Mediterranean and the Suez Canal, into the Red Sea and around to the Persian Gulf and the rich oil reserves of Iran and Iraq. And the Dardanelles afforded a sea route to Rumania and the oil fields there as well. But the Black Sea of course had on its other side the Ukraine and Russia, ever imperiling these various sea routes to acquire and distribute oil and other resources around the various stations of battle and occupation, effectively in the hope of establishing the greater Germania. Thus, the invasion of Russia.

Yet, when that invasion took place, it was a great gamble as Hitler's oil reserves at the time were calculated to be somewhere between six and eight months duration, and because of its becoming seized in frozen mud and siege, down to about three months by late November. War could not continue to be waged with no oil reserve available. The house of cards would crumble in rapid order as the territory gained thus far could not be maintained, and especially spread across so vast a tenuous frontier in Europe as Poland and Scandinavia in the north, France and the Low Countries in the west, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the Balkans in the south and east, growing larger and thus that much harder to maintain in subjugation with any acquisition of territory beyond Europe. And each acquisition absorbed with it the complexities of mutual threats from neighboring countries and consequent potential alliances with Britain, should those neighbors also not be conquered and at once. Thus, the invasion of Russia.

And with Russia no longer a threat of the moment to Japan, the attack in the Pacific by Japan to move forward their Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was made inevitable, and, not coincidentally, as an Axis-allied aid to the quest for that much needed sustaining materiel of war, tin, rubber, mercury, and, most of all, oil. The only threat was the United States, and thus the necessity to take that threat from the equation with a sweeping blow to cripple its fleet, and keep it out of the fight. Thus, the go-ahead by the warlords in Japan on July 2, the same day, on the Mexican side of the dateline, on which Cash would die, for the Pacific invasion which led inevitably to the attack on Pearl Harbor that Sunday morning in December, one which of course proved a grave error in the end of megalomaniacal arrogance--even if perhaps postponed from an earlier time, say, in August or September, for reasons which are in the realm, as battle plans of the type always are, of curiosity down a well.

As "Tiny Rabbit" summed it aptly in foresight: "If Hitler's victories grow great enough, Mr. Matsuoka may attempt an attack in the Pacific. If not, he'll probably restrain himself. Stalin almost certainly isn't going to do anything--might not do anything even if the Ukraine is attacked."

Magic and Purple mountains majestic. East Wind Rain of Jonah. Time and times of the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days of Daniel.

Meanwhile on the home front, a Harlow-kissing idiot bordering on being, if not in fact, a traitor, was in the process of elevation to the chairmanship of the Senate Military Affairs Committee while the other isolationists, led by Burton Wheeler, were hamstringing the President's efforts at Lend-Lease. Is it any wonder that President Roosevelt would die at age 62 of a stroke, now two days less than four years subsequent?

Weather and time, however, the indomitable forces of nature inherent as a check on man's otherwise illimitable obstructive and dark empirical fancies, would ultimately prevent the worst--which almost, at present, seemed, judging by acquisition of territory and movement of armies and accumulation of vast potential for amassing materiel to build an ever-dominant war machine, an inexorable force to conclusion to empress at the behest of that machine the rest of both man and nature to the enslaving will of the wolf howls of the slavering jowls of megalomaniacs.

The Seniority Rule in Senate Works Crime Against Nation

The longer we look at it the more absolutely appalled we are that in a time like this the United States Senate is calmly preparing to elevate a man like Robert Rice Reynolds to one of the most crucially important posts in the nation--the chairmanship of the Senate Military Affairs Committee.

The ground on which this is being done is that of seniority, Reynolds, that is, has been on the committee longer than any other Democrat member.

The seniority rule is frequently an idiotic one. It takes no account of merit or anything save time served. And in the Senate it is now about to allow the elevation to this key post of a man whose qualifications for the job consist of: (1) having resigned a National Guard cavalry commission when danger of war arose, (2) having kissed an actress in public and, as a Senator, endorsed a cigarette for money, (3) having returned from Germany in 1938 to praise Hitler enthusiastically, (4) having consistently attacked Britain and obstructed the national defense, and (5) having organized a gang of ignoramuses on Fascist lines to preach racial hatred and division among us. A thoroughly trivial-minded man, full of dangerous ambitions.

Seniority has done much vicious harm in the Congress before. Our present disarmed state is at least partly due to its elevation of incompetents. Even so, a rich and fat and unthreatened republic could still afford it for a while. But the time has clearly passed for such dangerous luxuries.

Lend-Lease and Neutrality Acts Look Different Ways

It goes without saying that the President will be trounced by Wheeler & Co. for opening up the Red Sea to American ships, in order to get supplies to the Balkan and African areas under the guise of shipping them to neutrals. And it may as well be admitted at once that it does violate the spirit of the so-called Neutrality Act.

The Red Sea unquestionably is a war zone, and when our ships enter it they will run almost as much risk of being sunk as if they entered the Mediterranean or had gone directly to English ports.

But the simple fact of the matter is that the Neutrality Act is wholly incompatible with the Lend-Lease Act. The Neutrality Act is an expression of the now thoroughly exploded philosophy that (1) we had no real interest in the outcome of the war, (2) all we had to do to stay out of it was to abandon our traditional position about the freedom of the seas and keep our ships out of "war zones."

Long ago we began to realize the unreality of that and attempted to amend the Neutrality Act to allow for the realization. But with the passage of the Lend-Lease Bill we explicitly recognized that it is of the most vital importance of us to see that Britain wins the war--in diametrical opposition to the original postulate of the Neutrality Act.

The incompatibility of the two laws is so glaring that it is probable that the President could get the Neutrality Act repealed by appealing to the people and Congress in frankness. But, from what we know about the history of the Lend-Lease Bill, it seems altogether likely that such a course would result in Wheeler & Co. delaying the repeal for weeks or even months. It appears likely now that these weeks or months may well be the decisive ones in this war.

Whether to be somewhat high-handed, and try to insure that the British win, or to be strictly legal and take the chance that Wheeler & Co. will insure Hitler's victory--something like that is the dilemma the President genuinely faces. It is one of the most devilish any head of a nation ever faced.

To Which Is Added a Problem For the Song-Writers

To British General O'Connor and his five fellow generals goes, we think, the fur-lined ash-tray for something or other. Riding in from a Libyan desert station to Derna in a staff car, they came upon a halted British convoy in the moonlight, proceeded to try to twist their way through and past it. Appeared a lone Nazi on a motorcycle, with a tommy-gun. And just like that, the six doughty generals were prisoners. For supposedly valuable generals to go riding around in dangerous country without a bodyguard is, we suppose, good old-school-tie, but it doesn't really add up to sense.

Another thing which is heavily on our mind is that that Marine song plainly needs revision. "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli" sounds all right but it is in fact gross understatement. What is wanted now is at least another verse beginning "From Greenland's icy mountains..." Literally, we suppose, you couldn't end the line with "to India's coral strand," though that may not be as far away as you think. But you could get in something good there about the rivers or the cities of Cathay. We recommend the problem to the poets and the song-writers.

Indeed, It Is Probable He Is An Optical Illusion

It was a puny and microscopic Easter rabbit the Axis pulled out of the hat yesterday in the "neutrality pact" between Russia and Japan.

If there ever was a treaty that meant nearly nothing, it is this one.

Nobody in his senses has ever supposed it probable that Russia would attack Japan if she carried her operations to the Pacific so far as to get involved in war with the United States. The thing Joseph Stalin fears above all things is a war, which, if it lasted long, might well set off a new Russian Revolution with Joseph functioning as exhibit A on the gallows. It may be said with considerable confidence that he is not going to attack anybody bigger than Finland.

As for Japan, she long ago fastened her eyes on bigger and fatter game in the South Pacific and forgot about the lean prize of Manchuria. In any case, with her hands already pretty well full in China, she simply couldn't afford to risk taking on Britain, the United States, and Russia all at once.

The probable motives of the various participants in this pact are almost comically mixed. Japan appears wistfully to hope that it will somehow frighten the United States into acquiescing in the Japanese dream of grabbing Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, and eventually Australia. But it is not really likely that Mr. Matsuoka has the slightest idea that the game will work. The United States has already refused to be bluffed by his trump play in joining the Axis in the first place.

As for Russia, Stalin seems to be playing both ends against the middle, as usual. On the one hand he is giving proof of his great and loving "friendship" for Mr. Hitler and his gang. And on the other, he is probably trying to persuade Mr. Hitler that he (Stalin) now has his hands free for the West, and so that the Nazis had better not monkey with the Dardanelles or the Ukraine.

And as for Hitler himself, he plainly hopes to scare the United States into a decision that it is necessary to keep the vast part of its fleet in the Pacific and cannot undertake convoy to England.

But if there were still any doubt that this treaty comes to practically nothing, it would only be necessary to recall that the dominant trait of the two parties to the pact is treachery in international dealings. Does anybody suppose that, if they thought it would pay them to attack, either Stalin or Matsuoka would be restrained by this scrap of paper? If so, he is a ripe candidate for the booby-hatch.

Things, in short, are left exactly as they were in the first place. And this piece of hocus-pocus is destined to fall as dead as the Nazi attempt to persuade the Greeks that they are being "rescued from the British" and at the same time that they had better take what terms they can get because the British are about to abandon them.

If Hitler's victories grow great enough, Mr. Matsuoka may attempt an attack in the Pacific. If not, he'll probably restrain himself. Stalin almost certainly isn't going to do anything--might not do anything even if the Ukraine is attacked.

The only real significance of this pact is that it reveals that Mr. Hitler is now nearly out of ammunition for the war of nerves.