The Charlotte News

Wednesday, August 13, 1941

FOUR EDITORIALS

The second piece sets forth some of the candid facts of life contained in Congressman Wright Patman's pamphlet regarding the passage generally of legislation--that the only real impulsion comes, not from the President, the people, or the practical necessity of the legislation, but rather from the same place it most often still comes, lobbying pressure groups with special interests. (We are reminded of a scene in "Fahrenheit 9-11" wherein Michael Moore has a chat about the similar facts of life in the present era with Congressman John Conyers of Michigan--at least in terms of the extent to which proposed legislation actually is read by legislators.)

No doubt, based on this legislative reality, the America Firsters and like groups had a strong impact on the closeness of the Congressional vote in August, 1941 on extension of the term of service for draftees, or "selectees" as they were euphemistically called in the press.

Mr. Patman, as we have pointed out before, was well-known in the country at the time for his strong opposition to chain stores, and was a primary sponsor of the antitrust legislation bearing his name.

Thirty-one years later, he also, shortly after the Watergate break-in, chaired the first committee to examine Watergate, the House Banking and Currency Committee, the only Congressional committee to do so before the 1972 election. The focus was to be on the fresh hundred dollar bills found on the burglars at the Watergate, with an attempt to trace them back to DECREPIT. In order to do that, he had to subpoena Maurice Stans, finance chairman of DECREPIT, former Attorney General John Mitchell, DECREPIT's chairman, and others of DECREPIT.

But, under pressure from the Administration, as well as internal House pressure exerted by Minority Leader Gerald Ford, the hearings were halted. Soon-to-be Vice-President Ford had lobbied members of the committee to defeat a vote affording the committee subpoena power; that vote proved successful by a 20-15 margin on October 3, 1972, a month before the election.

Nevertheless, Patman told the American public: "I predict that the facts will come out, and when they do I am convinced they will reveal why the White House was so anxious to kill the committee's investigation. The public will fully understand why this pressure was mounted." Few in the country at the time, however, outside the Beltway and the readership of the Washington Post, had scarcely more than heard with yawns anything anent Watergate. It was, bluntly, at the time a non-story in the country at large. Which in part is why George McGovern carried only the State of Massachusetts in the general election.

Nixon had stage-managed matters yet again, as with Checkers, as with the other crises, coinciding the end of the draft call-up with this October coup on haltering investigations into Watergate. Not even limited hangout.

End of story. Four more years. Nixon's the One.

Okay, Ron, get in there and give it to 'em. Yeah.

Well, not quite...

The Butterfield Blues Band had a few things to say eventually to Mr. Ervin and his committee the following broiling hot summer.

Did you say tapes?

And, of course, the summer after that, Mr. Conyers and his fellow members of the House Judiciary Committee had yet more things to say to Mr. Nixon and his back-up band, the Niyonians, over their Ebb and Flo program. The music the Niyonians produced could not even be termed dissonance; it was simply loud noyse, a bunch of racket. Yet, for awhile, they topped the charts.

Incidentally, should you have thought that we must have certainly read ahead today's page before writing the note for yesterday, you would be mistaken. We read each in their normal chronological order. Go figure. Life goes on.

As we have suggested before, whether of spirits or merely from unconscious thoughts meandering to the surface, it's all in your unawares.

And, there is a jocular short item on the page, which may or may not have had any profound significance with regard to events to come. The message was that sunspots, as well as the Hut-Sut Song, were creating problems with radio transmissions.

But note bene: it is not clear from history that such transmissions were in fact received, or, even if so, that there was thereby necessarily any fault to be placed on the Administration in not finding significance in this information among the many reports received in the previous weeks and months which turned out to be false alarums. The Pacific Ocean is a big place. Radar was primitive. Reconnaissance flights, routinely sent forth, could only surveil a limited area at a time. And the carriers were ordered by Admiral Yamamoto to maintain radio silence, both with the mainland and with each other.

Moreover, as we have also duly pointed out, the President had numerous opportunities to put forth a definitive case to the Congress and the people as to why the United States should declare war on either Germany or Japan, starting as far back as the bombing by the Japanese of the Panay on the Yangtze River in December, 1937, the sinking of the Athenia at the beginning of the war in September, 1939, and continuing into recent months with the sinking of the Zamzam in April and the Robin Moor in May by the Nazis, as well as the shelling of another American gunboat on the Yangtze just a few days before this date. Any one of these episodes could have been utilized as a casus belli. That they were not is testimony to the intent on the part of the Administration to keep the United States out of the war, to honor the 1940 campaign promise not to send fighting forces absent direct attack on United States soil, and, a fortiori, the need to buy as much time as possible to build the military machine to a viable force to compete with the eight-year head start of the Nazis and decade head start of the Japanese.

Too, the last thing the Administration wanted was a two-front war. And unless the Japanese could be wooed with appeasement, the mutual assistance pact they had with the Nazis and Italy assured such a war if it came.

In short, there was, logically, no reason to allow an attack on Pearl Harbor in December, especially one on an unprepared Pearl Harbor, with a military machine back home just beginning to build apace, in order merely to stimulate public opinion to war. It devolves to nonsense and was simply another device used by Republicans after the attack to lay fault on the Administration. It got going from there and has lingered around since, occasionally popping forth its head.

We don't accuse Mr. Stinnett of continuing that tactic, but his book, while interesting in its own right, does not advance the ball in the direction of "deceit". It simply does not take into account the contrary factors militating against any such conclusion.