The Charlotte News
Wednesday, July 16, 1941
FIVE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: "Whew!" is another in a long series of pieces spanning back at least as far as late 1937, condemning the unregulated use of city streets by gasoline trucks, "rolling bombs" as the column often referred to them. The piece proves that not all, maybe none, of these pieces were authored by Cash, as we had assumed. (See, e.g., "Let Us Pray!" April 25, 1940, and "Rip!" March 26, 1941, plus the links from the note associated with the latter piece.) The use of "messires" to address the reader was characteristic of Cash who, we know from some of his by-lined pieces, sometimes used "masters" likewise. Perhaps, by writing a piece on a subject about which Cash had written and in a similar style, it was J. E. Dowd's way of expressing honor to the fallen writer. But again, it is difficult to say. All of the pieces on gasoline trucks may have been from the ribbon of Dowd instead. Read a few and make your own determination. We had thought it more likely by Cash, not only based on style, but also given his aversion to traffic.
"Fight or Die" discusses a New York Daily News poll of New York residents indicating 2 to 1 opposition against America's entry to the war. In June, however, Raymond Clapper had discussed a national Gallup poll which showed 2 to 1 national approval of aid to Great Britain as long as it did not involve the country in a shooting war. When it came to a shooting war, the poll showed virtually an even split in opinion on American involvement. As Clapper had suggested, the way the question was framed, however, as in all such polling, likely predetermined the outcome. Most people, when asked, after all, whether they think their country ought to become involved in some foreign conflict 3,000 and more miles away from their shores, would likely answer in the negative, unless the country were to be directly attacked. As the piece goes on to explain, however, in this instance the question was not so simple, as the conflict, in fact, was not 3,000 miles and more away, but rather potentially, and soon, right in the country's own backyard. Indeed, insofar as undermining morale from within, the war had already begun. The Lindbergh crowd had seen to it.
Installment 39 of Out of the Night has Jan convincing his former torturer of the 101 days, Inspector Kraus, that he has reformed, has embraced Nazism for all its wonderful achievements for the formerly depressed Germany--full employment, employers who pay less than minimum wage sent to jail, welfare for the hungry, fast superhighways for moving cars and panzers from front to front, new sleek housing replacing tenements and slums, former slum children now happy and bright serving in the Hitler Youth. He proclaims to have renounced the cruel oppressors of the working man, the Comintern. Kraus is impressed, gives him a gift of a book on geopolitics by Hitler's original guru on the subject, Professor Karl Haushofer, plus a new edition of Mein Kampf, (to which Haushofer's theories contributed large segments, set down practically verbatim), finally offers Jan a position working for the Gestapo, spying on his former bosses in the Communist movement. Jan, feigning the need to ponder the proposition, accepts the following day on conditions that Firelie be freed from jail and that he not be asked to spy on rank and file workers. His life as a double agent begins, working for the Gestapo to spy on his former comrades, while obtaining information for them on the inner workings of the Gestapo, meanwhile undermining its virulence and vigilance. It is now 1937. The annexation of Austria, the move to annex the Sudeten Germans, Munich, are not far away.
Framed Edition
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