The Charlotte News

Sunday, April 7, 1940

FIVE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: "Early Models" is probably not by Cash, but it is interesting nevertheless and so we include it. My, how things have evoluted even so much farther in these 67 years. In just the past 25 years, for instance, we have female jet pilots, female Shuttle astronauts.

And those hats they wear.

But, perhaps the time has not yet arrived for the Lemans endurance run, the results exhibited at the end of the 900 mile uninterrupted road trip still having left a little to be desired in the way of stability even among those normally trained for the long haul.

Mr. Dies of Texas, as pointed out below, showed them the way of the trick: use the law, the power of Congressional subpoena and Congressional immunity, to abuse the rights of anyone a given Congressman decides he doesn’t like, and, with it, circumvent the Constitution, that shabby obstructer and officious intermeddler to the fancies of every boy and girl wishing to be made king and chief commander of the land, or at least of his or her own fiefdom.

But then, all of that was a long time ago. Not to worry.

What's that?

But they were first declared by the Commander to be enemy combatants from the Evil Ones in the War on Terrorism which will end when the Commander says so and not until it is safe.

Santee-Cooper Authority Sounds Like An Easy Mark

On the strength of what has come out so far in the internal flare-up in South Carolina's Santee-Cooper Authority it is unsafe to make any deductions or to form any opinions. A number of reputable men, notably Governor Maybank, vouch for the Authority's integrity and efficiency, and that testimony carries weight with us.

At the same time, General Manager Cooper, made an admission before the Legislature's subcommittee that seemed to point an accusing finger at the wastefulness of public works in general, if not to this one in particular. The hearing had swung around to appraisals of condemned land. Yes, it was true, said Mr. Cooper in reply to a question, that the Authority had taken a loss of $455,000 on the resale of some timber it had bought from a company for $1,074,000.

A 42 per cent loss on a million-dollar deal is more than most private enterprises could stand, and still stay in business. It may have been justified and unavoidable in this instance, but nevertheless $455,000 is $455,000,even if it is the taxpayers' money.

A Lady Changes Airplanes But Not Her Hats

There were a couple of pictures side by side in Friday's News under the caption, "First Woman To Fly Flies Again." A third of a century had gone by between the two shots of Mrs. Edith Ogilvy Druce, the one as a buxom young woman with a funny hat seated out front with Wilbur Wright on one of those rickety contraptions that somehow managed to get off the ground and fly.

That was 1908. The other photograph showed Mrs. Druce--excuse us; Mrs. Edith Ogilvy Druce--still in a funny hat and still buxom, though naturally not so young, in a 21-passenger plane flying along comfortably at 200 miles an hour and having her picture took [sic].

The most unbelievably [sic] part in the development of the airplane is not the speed and safety of modern ships but the home-made flying machines from which they evoluted. Not much more than elaborate chicken crates or box kites, with an electric fan pushing them along, wings held together by glue and piano wire, they were a tribute not so much to man's inventiveness as to his daring. Imagine invading a foreign element in a thing like that.

This first lady to fly had her nerve to go up in it. And as she compared the sensation of that first flight in 1908 with a lack of sensation in these modern airliners, she must have marveled at the progress man has made in almost every particular save that of doing something about women's hats. For hats, m'dears, are back where they were when the pilot and passenger sat out front.

Mr. Dies Is Impatient With The Checks Of The Law

Martin Dies makes no bones about his impatience with guarantees of the Bill of Rights and with the courts.

His committee agents and Philadelphia cops raided Communist headquarters in the City of Brotherly Boodle, seized Communist Party lists and other documents. Federal Judge Welsh of Philadelphia asked Dies not to use these documents until he had passed on an injunction sought by the Communists. But to head off any possible ban by the courts Dies immediately had them spread on the record of his committee.

The judge couldn't jail him for contempt because of Congressional immunity to arrest--one Constitutional guarantee which Dies takes to mean what it says. But the judge could and did issue warrants for two of the Dies workers and a Philadelphia cop on charges that they had violated the civil rights of the Communists.

The judge explained that he thought that the activities of the Dies Committee ought to be examined by the higher courts, with regard to their bearing on the Bill of Rights.

In Washington Dies noted that, promptly "appealed to the people."

"I think," he said, "that the entire question ... must be immediately decided by the people of the country."

That is to say, the people should sweep the courts and the Bill of Rights aside and decide the matter while they are in a mood of angry exasperation, in order to have the satisfaction of getting the Communists at any price.

It was precisely to prevent action in such a mood that the Bill of Rights and the right of review by the courts were instituted by the sober better sense of the people in the first place.

But It Does Not Justify Junking Basic Rights

However (see above), there is something to be said for Martin Dies in this argument, beyond question.

The Communist Party, in one of its aspects, is a political party like another. And if you can force Communists to reveal their affiliations with a political party, then you can also force Republicans or Democrats or Socialists or Farmer-Laborites to do the same thing. Also there is no doubt that a man has a right to hold, profess, and teach Communist opinions, to work for a Communist order in the United States. Else free speech is a mere hoax. The right to say only what the majority agrees with is no right at all.

On the other hand, there is no real doubt that the Communist Party in the United States is an organized and highly active conspiracy against the American Government and against the way of life which has the loyalty of the overwhelming body of the American people--a conspiracy directed by a foreign government or two foreign governments.

It is a nice question as to what ought to be done in such a case. The natural reaction of the people is to want to put it down instanter.

But one thing is certain. If it is to be put down, it ought to be put down by law and not by disregard of law. And the law ought to be drawn so as to safeguard the Bill of Rights at every step. Perhaps that is a contradiction of terms and an impossibility. If it is, then it is best to suffer the Communists as the Lord suffers knaves and fools in general. The Communists at worst are an infernal nuisance and breeders of local strife and crime. It is far better to endure that than to breach the Bill of Rights. Once it is breached it is breached not merely for the Communists but, in all probability, for any of us who may disagree with the crowd in power.

But Norway Is Probably Trying To Soothe Hitler

The declaration of Foreign Minister Koht to the Norwegian Parliament that Norway will go to war against Britain if she attempts to block German ships from carrying ore through the "covered way," probably represents an attempt to frighten off the English made under the pressure of threat from Hitler.

Certainly, Norway would get no sympathy from any quarter if she attempted to follow such a proposition through. Ever since the outbreak of the war, Nazi submarines have been systematically sinking Norwegian vessels without warning and drowning Norwegian sailors and passengers, in the flattest contempt of Norway's most clearly established rights under international law. Only Friday, a Norwegian passenger liner limped into Oslo, after being almost incessantly bombed in the course of a voyage from England--with several of the passengers wounded. Today, more than a hundred Norwegian citizens have been murdered in this fashion.

Hence when Norway creates a great rumpus about the possibility of British ships entering the arbitrarily claimed limit of six miles (international law fixes it at three) off her coast in order to intercept German ore ships, and roars that she will tolerate no interference with shipping which gives one belligerent advantage over the other, she hasn't a leg to stand on. It is to say that her claims regarding territorial waters are more important than the lives of her people, and that it is all right for her to tolerate violations of her rights which damage Britain but all wrong to tolerate violations which damage Germany. However, it is probable that Norway herself knows just how nonsensical it is, and is only trying desperately to avoid Hitler's menace.