The Charlotte News
Thursday, September 7, 1939
THREE EDITORIALS
Americanism
A Great Many Crimes Are Committed In Its Name
The 100-per cent Americans are after the scalp of Maury Maverick, San Antonio's Mayor and former New Deal Congressman. The petition for his recall is being circulated, and the principal reasons set forth for his recall are:
1. That he gave "aid and comfort to the enemies of our free institutions" by allowing Communists to hold a meeting in the municipal auditorium contrary to the wishes of a majority of the citizens.
2. That "after being warned of the danger," he gratuitously cut the rental to $10, and that the "un-American meeting resulted to injury to many (23) citizens, damage to public property as well as uncalled for shame and disgrace" to San Antonio.
3. That at the taxpayers' expense he "caused policemen and firemen to throw poison gas and high-pressure streams of water into the faces of their fellow citizens."
What happened is plain to see. The Communists (unlovely persons as a rule, but nonetheless entitled to their civil liberties, including freedom of opinion, of assembly and worship, and the right to be punished for no crime until tried and convicted by a jury), held their foolish meeting. The 100-per cent Americans, acting more like 100-per cent thugs and plug-uglies, tried to break it up. The police let them have tear gas and firemen the hose.
And as to who between Maury, the Communists and the San Antonio rough-toughs were the more un-American, we shall let the little reader decide for himself.
He's Cried For Deportation, Now Let Him Officiate
The word "alien" produces, especially at times like these, visions of an unpleasant, long-haired fellow with a cardboard box under his arm, probably with a home-made bomb in it. And, it is with such undesirables in mind, that Congress writes laws calling for the deportation of aliens here illegally, very much to the satisfaction of 100-per cent Americans. But the word covers a multitude of personalities. Take, for instance, the case of Ernest Greenwood, whom the immigration authorities have deported. His name, at least, hath a comforting, familiar sound. So has his record.
A Canadian, he came to the United States (quite illegally) as long ago as 1911. He enlisted for the World War, worked up to sergeant in an AEF company. Just before his discharge, he married an American girl, who thereby lost her American citizenship and later had to be naturalized all over again.
They moved to Canada in 1928 and back to the United States again in 1932, and again quite illegally. During all this time they had four children, three of whom were born in this country, one, a daughter now nine years old, was born in Canada.
And so the father and the daughter are deportable, and have been ordered removed. But the mother and the other three children are Americans, and subject to the immigration laws of other countries.
Nevertheless, aliens are aliens and laws are laws. And since Bob Reynolds has fought his one great fight in the cause of ridding America of undesirable aliens, we suggest the fitness of his attending in person to this family separation.
But It Does Not Prove Allied Lack Of Energy
Adolf Hitler is waging the strangest war ever invented by man--so far as the Western Front is concerned, a war of propaganda addressed to the nerves of the people of England and France.
The propaganda has it: (1) that this is a silly war waged to prevent Germany from taking two inconsequential pieces of territory over which Poles and Germans have warred since the thirteenth century; (2) that Germany will take it anyway and shortly; (3) that England and France will then have no choice but to accept Hitler's terms or face an endless war which they are bound to lose; (4) that Hitler plans to be very "generous" and especially to France, with whom he has no quarrel; and (5) that England and France know this to be the case and are playing ping-pong instead of striking home so that the arrangement will be easy.
To back this up, he sends his planes to roam eerily above dark Paris and off the fogbound English coast, but carefully refrains from hurting a hair of an English or French non-combatant. He has his news agencies to insist that not a single shot has been fired on the Western Front, that the French communiques are pure propaganda designed to befool the English and French peoples, and that in fact French soldiers and German soldiers are fraternizing across the border, the former shouting to the latter, "we won't shoot if you don't!" And with the air of Napoleon dividing up the kingdoms of Europe, he announces that when he has disposed of Poland he will present England and France with his minimum demands for colonies and for their disarmament.
Whether this is having any effect on the English and French peoples we don't know, but it is having plenty of it on this side. And especially the claims that if Poland is taken, England and France are doomed to defeat, and that they are in fact deliberately making no real effort to help Poland and are planning an ignominious peace. Many Americans are already bitterly proclaiming their belief that it is another sell-out.
With the causes of this war and the case of Poland we mean to deal later. But just now it is as well to rid ourselves of the notion that the English and French are not proceeding with the requisite energy and dispatch.
The way to dispose of that is to look into some such book as Liddell Hart's "Outline of the World War," and observe the progress of the last war in its early stages. Germany declared war on France on August 3, 1914. On August 4, England declared war. On August 5, Germany moved out some advance troops to Liege in Belgium. That night they succeeded in passing the forts and entering the city of Liege. But--it was ten days before the main body of the troops finally came up and succeeded in taking the forts, old and outdated though they were.
Meantime what had the French been doing? Had they sent troops to back up the Belgians and head off the Germans? Not so. Joffre had struck with his full force at the Lorraine frontier of Germany, had fallen into a trap and been defeated--that on the 14th. Then, observing the German advance into Belgium, he leaped to the conclusion that the German center must be weak, on the 21st attempted to strike through Luxembourg, blundered slantwise into the advancing Germans in the Ardennes, took another beating, fell back. Then, and only then, when the Germans were already pouring into France, did he realize that the enemy had intended to come through Belgium all the time, and had not merely been feinting!
War is always at best a confused business, as you may read magnificently in Tolstoi's "War and Peace." And at the beginning it is especially so. Moreover, however much we like to think of 2,000,000 Frenchmen charging splendidly upon the Siegfried Line and breaking it by resistless weight, modern wars are not fought so. Joffre tried that sort of thing over and over on the Marne and the Somme, and the Germans tried it tremendously at Verdun, but all it got anybody was useless and terrible slaughter. The English and French plainly remember the lessons of that war, and are going about the present one with more sense. Far from being a bad sign, their unspectacular movements to date indicate that they know their business.
Framed Edition
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