Untitled

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIX, Issue 21971, 24 May 1941, Page 8

Nothing more deeply horrified me than the visible change in acquaintances and friends, men whom I thought I knew well, when they came under the spell of Nazi politics. Good men seemed to be attacked by new lusts, Dr. Hermann Rauschning writes in his new book, The Beast from the Abyss. They acquired new habits, made disreputable friendships, grew overbearing. They gambled, lived beyond their means, and became vile creatures who thought nothing of torturing and robbing and murdering those who were weaker than they. Nazism is the subtlest and most consistent attempt in history to make political capital out of the evil in men and out of evil men. In all countries there are creatures who take pleasure in torture, who enjoy brutality, and are ready to commit any cruelty. These people, hitherto kept in bounds by the forces of order, are now enticed from their dens by the new gospel of force, of the will to power and libertinism. They are enticed by honours, promotions, and every satisfaction of their particular lusts. Thus there rises up a sort of world conspiracy of all the criminal instincts and elements in man. Gangsters and men of ill-repute and criminals recognise one another at sight, and to-day there is a great international of the criminal world, now all in politics. We are perhaps only at the outset of a monstrous development. .

“Rumour in Shakespeare has to take the stage in a robe ‘painted full of tongues,’ ” said Mr Ivor Brown, the dramatic critic, in a recent broadcast talk. “Nowadays the garment should be painted full of microphones; and the part of Rumour, the continual slanderer and carrier of false reports, might well be played by Lord Haw-Haw himself. Mention of the name (an absurdly inaccurate one for that snarling, sneering voice which is neither aristocratic nor condescending) brings us immediately to consider the general, but wholly ■unjustified, unawareness of the microphone’s part in the present struggle. The average listener knows about and occasionally switches on Lord Haw-Haw until he switches off in disgust; he is vaguely aware that we are launching our own attacks. But the extent and importance of this mental volleying across the ether are vastly and dangerously under rated.” • • • * • We cannot preserve the American way unless we preserve also the British way, the Chinese way, the Norwegian way and the way of other free peoples.— Mr Wendell L. Willkic. • • • * • The woman who remains unconquered amidst the wreckage of her home wins a victory.— Mr C. R. Attlee. • • • • • It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers.— Mr James Thurber.