The Charlotte News

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1938

FOUR EDITORIALS

Soliloquy

 

In the early morning marmota monax--the ground hog--came out, and observed his shadow very dimly cast upon the ground by the sunlight filtering palely through the clouds. Then he seated himself upon a stump, and shivering a little, observed it philosophically.

As I have heard, he ruminated, there is on this planet a very curious race of creatures who go about unreasonably on two legs, and who, quite unreasonably, too, pretend to believe that the question of you, my shadow, has something to do with the weather. Some of them, indeed, seem to believe it. But, of course, most of them, being by their own confession exceedingly wise, don't. Yet they go right on paying a great deal of attention to me and you, my dear shadow. An almost unprecedented attention, and inexplicable. I have heard that sometimes one of the odd creatures among them who spend their time bootlessly putting little mark's on paper and whom they call editors, sometimes forget to take cognizance of one of the days they quaintly invent to keep from working, say St. Valentine's or Thanksgiving.: But there never was an editor, as I understand it, who forgot February 2.

Ah, well, they are a foolish breed, plainly. And yet I must confess I do not find them altogether incomprehensible. After all, they, too, and for all their boasted wisdom, must eat and find shelter, even as I and the fox and the squirrel. And, after all, for them the question whether the rains shall be gentler and the sun kind and the winds soft, or whether the storms shalt come and the earth dry up is about as burning and as ineluctable as it is for us folk of the wood and the field. So, perhaps, in candor, I ought not too much to laugh at them and their funny little legends about me and you, my quite ordinary shadow. In, deed, we shall just humor them and now, shadow, if you will rise and display yourself, I shall scamper ahead of you into our den.

1914 and 1938  

 

Senator Borah said yesterday that the United States is risking war. Nobody will deny it. But then the Senator went on to say that the United States is risking war--

Because the world believes that it is in tacit alliance with Britain.

Because the belief that it is in tacit alliance with Britain has plunged the world into a mad armament race--

Like the one which led to the last war.

And that, we incline to think, is the chief masterpiece of large, loose, and dubious statement we have seen in a good while.

The record shows, in the first place, that Italy, Germany, and Japan are the nations which destroyed the naval pacts, and that they were already engaged in arming themselves for years before the United States and Britain, having exhausted argument and concession in an effort to stop it, reluctantly joined in.

The record shows, too, that one of the factors. in Germany's decision to strike France in 1914 was the confidence that the United States was not in tacit alliance with Britain and would not come to-her rescue, just as that same confidence inspired the decision for unrestricted submarine warfare in 1916.

Zog Finds a Wife  

His Majesty King Zog of Albania seems finally to have found a girl willing to marry him. Several years ago Zog posted $5,000 with the marriage brokers of Europe, to be paid when a suitable, willing bride could be found for His Majesty. But there were no takers. Last January there was some talk of a Hungarian Countess, but she hastily thought better of it. However, Countess Geraldine Nagyi-Apponyi, granddaughter of a tough old American millionaire named Peter S. Stewart, apparently has now made up her mind to be a queen even if it means marrying Zog.

Reasons for reluctance on the part of eligibles to marry this King are at least three. In the first place, he hasn't any money. Once, years ago, he ordered a golden dinner service from London, and the necessity of raising the funds to pay for that, they say, is how he got started on being what he now is--merely a stooge for Mussolini.

Next, his capital is Tirana, a town of 30,000 tucked away in the wildest part of the Balkans--a town where the women are all kept in Oriental seclusion, and life is so dull that Zog keeps a spy glass trained on the one hotel in order to miss no guest who might amuse him. Once they say he left the palace and came down to sit in a poker game with four traveling salesmen from the States.

And finally, there is an excellent chance that Zog's queen, along with Zog himself, maybe assassinated almost any day. Most of his subjects are Mohammedans, as he is himself, and surlily resent his marriage with a Christian rather than one of their number whom they have picked out for him, a lass named--believe it or not--Fatima. And on top of that, a great many of them don't like his taking of orders from Musso, and his somewhat futile efforts to modernize the country.

*The Hague's Immunity  

This fellow--The Hague Mayor Frank (I Am the Works) of Jersey City--is a sort of polite one-man Harlan County. That is, he and his well-heeled outfit run their bailiwick as though it were a principality unto itself instead of a component part of this democracy called the U. S. A. Why, in the last 24 hours, The Hague or his henchmen have--

1. Forcibly prevented labor organizers from distributing leaflets, ordering them to "get hopping;"

2. Forcibly prevented a committee of the State Legislature from recounting Hudson County's (Jersey City) vote for governor in the last election, which ran up a majority of 129,000 for The Hague's man Harry A.Moore.

But if The Hague is, as we have said he is in his overriding of' the Bill of Rights and his flouting of the authority of his State, a sort of one-man Harlan County, it does not follow, necessarily, that he is running the risk of' an investigation at the hands of the Senate Civil Liberties Committee, the same committee which spread out for public inspection lawless conditions prevailing in the Kentucky mining province. In fact, it follows that The Hague is investigation-proof, not for one but for two reasons. The first is, he is Vice-Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, one of the boys, so to speak. The second is that 1938 is a bi-election year, and it would be exceedingly poor politics for the Democrats to affront a vote-gatherer like The Hague when an important Congressional election is coming off.


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