The Charlotte News

Friday, April 5, 1940

FIVE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: Well, see you then in 8113. If--if--if--, indeed.

Speaking of which, why is it that a film may appear in England depicting the Scums and Whips, and no apparent outbreak of violence precipitates from it, either there or in the United States in 1968, one of our more volatile years both domestically and internationally; yet, these bozos over the last several years become somehow all crookedly bent and upset beyond all reason over such obviously innocuous parodies of violence as contained in "Basketball Diaries" and "Natural Born Killers", and the lot of it? Bollocks to 'em! They only seek excuse for their psychosis, conveniently provided by the blabbermouths on the tv, in need of some grasp to reality, provided by phantasy, to alleviate the strain on their lack of gravity, probably because in or about 1968 and since they were and have been 'igh as a Kite.

You Name It

The Rule Against Profanity Binds Our Own Tongue

Of 25 buildings, mostly apartment houses, already inspected by the Fire Prevention Commission, five were found to be in "very bad condition." Only four were described as being all right. The remainder were in fair condition but with spotty hazards, such as--

"... bad places in wiring, furnished rooms not protected, inadequate exits, etc."

If these conditions come under "fair," the five buildings that are in very bad shape must be dangerous in the extreme to their occupants and perhaps should not be occupied another night without watchman service.

This town, as everybody knows, is exceedingly tight on morals. The people aren't allowed to go to baseball games or movies on Sunday, or to have the other comparatively innocuous diversions. Uplift is the word, and that might be all right.

But to be tight on morals and loose on human life would be--well, we'll let the little reader name it. Profanity is against the rule of this family newspaper.

First Thing

Money Must Be Spent For Votes, Not Mere Defense

The House appropriations committee, which is so enamored of farmers that it raises the farm appropriations asked for by President Roosevelt, slashed $67,357,000 off the army's supply bill for the next fiscal year. Then it turned around and added $25,000,000 for the War Department civil functions.

And if that sounds somewhat cockeyed, then we hasten to inform our little readers that it is not really so. That is, if you happen to be a Congressman.

This, masters, is an election year.

All the available evidence, indeed, suggests that the army genuinely and imperatively needs that $67,357,000 if it is to be worth anything as a defense unit. Just now, it is in the middle of reorganization. Its system of training has been made over with a view to the use of the Garrand semi-automatic rifle and complete mechanization. But only a fraction of the troops have actually been equipped with the rifle, and mechanization is so far merely skeletonized. But all that, of course, is a matter of national defense. And to spend the money this way would not contribute at all to the really pressing business of getting votes.

But when it comes to the civil functions of the War Department, there you have another story. The money will go for river and harbor projects and river and harbor projects are ideal pieces of pork to grab off for your district. Nothing is better calculated to make votes.

Time Capsule

Still, A Lot Of Things Can Happen In Sixty Centuries

At Oglethorpe University the Time Capsule idea with which the public has been familiarized by the New York World's Fair, is being carried out on a large scale. A vast amount of material illustrating American civilization is to be sealed into a gigantic crypt of steel and concrete beneath one of the buildings--not to be opened for 6,000 years.

It is an odd idea, which might have its practical uses for people 6,000 years hence--if--if--if--. But one may well doubt that the 6,000 years will be allowed to go by before the crypt is opened. Remember a man named Sherman? And even if the 6,000 years did pass without the crypt being molested, Atlanta may not be there by that time and the memory of it may be utterly gone from the earth.

Six thousand years ago, the First Dynasty had not yet begun in Egypt and the Pyramid of Cheops was still in the womb of time. About the shores of the Persian Gulf there were villages with names like Erech and Eridu, inhabited by strange little round-headed men called Sumerians. Babylon and the cities of the land of Ashur were far away in the future. Ur of the Chaldees had yet to be born. The beginnings of Greece were twice as far in front of the men of the time as they are behind us. And in all Europe men had just learned to polish stone, were just beginning to learn to plant seed in the ground, went about naked with their bellies painted blue, or in the skins of animals.

Rome and London and Paris and Berlin were forest and morass. And beyond the seas the vast American continents lay as primeval as they had been in Carboniferous times, inhabited only on the Western fringe by a stray band of skulking savages.

Six thousand years is a long time, masters. Georgia may be a desert, the ice cap may be returning, Atlanta may not be there. And archaeologists may all have died.

Above the Law

Dies Flouts A Court And Propounds Novel Doctrine

Yesterday a Federal judge in Philadelphia asked the Dies Committee that no use be made of certain Communist documents, including membership lists, seized in that city, until he can pass on a petition for an injunction and the return of the papers on the ground that their seizure constituted a violation of the Bill of Rights.

Immediately Martin Dies got busy, and in short order the committee proceeded to read the documents into the record. Then Mr. Dies coolly told reporters:

"It is a fait accompli. The matter is now academic. I don't see how we can give them up. It is out of our control."

He added "that he had never heard of an injunction 'against Congress.'"

There you have in a nutshell the reason that so many of the more intelligent people of the country--people who have no sympathy with the Reds--have remained doubtful of Martin Dies and his committee.

Confronted with the fact that you may be called for violating civil rights in your methods, you hasten to make sure that you accomplish your purpose just the same by reading the documents in question into the record. Then you complacently observe that your own act has put it out of your power to rectify the matter, and that the court order is now beside the point. And to cap the climax, you clearly suggest that Congress is totally outside and above the law, is not amenable to the courts.

Carry that doctrine through and Congress could become the greatest instrument of tyranny on earth, the Bill of Rights would be a laughing stock, and anybody's civil rights could be violated at will.

Thimble Storm

These Men Are Plainly Too Anxious To Rap England

The uproar over a remark of Canada's Attorney General Conant is a pretty reductio ad absurdum of the feverish demand of Ham Fish, Bennett Clark, Rush Holt, Robert Rice Reynolds & Co. for an investigation of "foreign propaganda" among us. What Conant said was that Canadians should "do everything within our power to enlist the active support of the United States in the cause of the Allies."

It was not propaganda at all but a somewhat indiscreet expression of a perfectly natural desire on the part of Canadians. Nor was it necessarily a proposal to get us into the war. Willy-nilly, we are going actively to aid the Nazis or the Allies; you cannot have power and avoid using it one way or the other, for we do not live in a vacuum. But Conant should have known that the British-baiters would grab it and start bellowing about a plot to get us into war.

In point of fact, an honest investigation of "foreign propaganda" might be a very good thing. But not an investigation in charge of this bloc. The evidence is strong that German propaganda is much more widely spread and much more effective in this country than Allied propaganda. But these men never cheep about that. On the contrary, they often lend themselves heartily to spreading the contentions of Nazi propagandists.

Rabid partisans, disgruntled Democratic politicoes, professional haters of Britain, they plainly do not want a disinterested inquiry. What they want is one which they can use to make capital for their own positions by frightening the country and enraging it against England, to the point of wrecking the policy of the present Administration.

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