The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1940-03-22
TheCherry
/" Where with our
roo Little Hatchet we
tell the truth
about many things, sometimes pro-
foundly. Sometimes flippantly,
sometimes recklessly.

Spring has, is or may be coming
all over the country. In some places,
like New England, just sending out
advance rumors of approach; in other
places, like the north central tier of
states, causing preparations for work;
in some places, like Alabama, Ole Miss
and the former Huey Long Empire,
well along, with all danger of amazing
frosts gone; in couple of spots like
southern Florida, with a fresh crop of
green stuff going into market and the
tourists going home.
And along the Western Front bring
ing wonderment of how soon, or if,
the wholesale slaughter will begin.
How soon will the continental puzzle
become continental holocaust? How
soon will Japan get worn out with
trying to lay blanket of domination
over the Giant China?
How soon will the wrecking crew
get through, that mankind may try
again to build, if building is still pos
sible?
What questions, as this spring
creeps along!
How soon will American labor get
tired of rebellion and come together
in the one great family that COULD
be more potent than any other in the
world for progress?
Who can answer that question?
Perhaps it could be partly answered
by John L. Lewis, who used to ridicule
the A. F. of L. executive council for
holding meetings in Miami, though
this winter he himself spent winter
vacation in Key West and Miami and
left Miami very peeved because re-
porters insisted on making his pres
ence known
Perhaps Sidney Hillman, who isn't
as thick with John as he once was,
could answer in part.
But peace is a subject about which
they remain generally silent, voluble
though they may be on other matters.
Peace-more important than any of
the questions about which they go out
to make the welkin ring. 1t is all too
strange.
Meanwhile politics gets thick with
the murk of trivial debating-most of
it trivial, by comparison with real is
sues.
But as long as there is democracy
and citizens run for Office they will
talk at the level of their intelligence
and on basis of what they think will
win the votes.
Quite often the voters have more
intelligence than is understood by can
didates, which is one reason why so
many candidates do not get elected.
So, too, Oman Hoover and Texas
Dies go slamming along, each doing
a job for which both get padded and
praised.
Dies has done more good work and
pulled more bonehead plays than al
most any other man in Congress.
Either he has lousy advisers or he
refuses to take advice. Many public
men have been that way, including
some Presidents.
A lot of good work can be ruined by
a few false plays. Some big union
chiefs could learn that same lesson,
with profit to themselves.
Be these things as they may, spring
is in the air-whether it be the still
over-chilling spring of the North, or
the balmy spring of the South where
spring is more a matter of turning
the calendar than of temperature and
changing greenery.
And as spring rolls along in this ma
tion at peace, it sees SO much of the
world turning in continuation of
agony, of treachery, of greed and
death.
A news report says the air over the
Western Front is not yet tainted with
the stencil of dead bodies. There
spring may be marked by the chang
ing smell of the air, from fairly clean
to an awful foulness.
So, America has to watch and guard
and stand by democracy and freedom.
For the coming two seasons may
well mark the fate of the world for
a century.
And America, as it happens, clings
to the same ball of mud that holds
Europe and Asia on it's fiimsy crust.
WAR BANISHES LIBERALISM
H