“GUTTER FIGHTER”

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21196, 20 August 1940, Page 7

“GUTTER FIGHTER”

HITLER’S FANATICISM AMERICAN PAPER SUMS UP STRONG EDITORIAL COMMENT Recently an American newspaper, the Boston Traveller, published a leading article in which it gave forthright views on Adolf Hitler and his methods o£ fighting a war. Headed, “Let Us Be Realistic,” the article lived up to its name. Naturally, the paper came before the notice of the German Consul and, in the words of the Americans, “he couldn’t take it.” Without delay the Consul wrote to the newspaper expressing his strong objection to the opinions expressed in the editorial, and the journal was

good enough to print his letter. However, at the same time, it reprinted the offending article, ostensibly to show the public the grounds for the complaint, and thus had two bites at the cherry. The text of the article to which exception was taken was as follows: “This creature Hitler will never be beaten by the ‘rules of civilised warfare.’ Somebody has got to get right down in the gutter with him and fight the way he fights, only more cruelly. Don’t get an idea we ‘have got to get into it,’ but above all else, don’t get an idea we do not need to defend ourselves. A Wild Beast “This is no time to prate about humanitarian ideals. The Allies are dealing with a wild beast. Yes, worse; dealing with a monster utterly lacking in principle. His word is no good, his methods are satanic. In the night he murdered Belgium and Holland while the good people of those countries believed no state of war existed. “You will, be told that Hitler is a genius and a mystic. He is no such thing. Hitler is merely an ex-gutter-snipe, a mediocre little man with a mediocre mind, acting just as any fanatical sub-standard person would act if given unrestricted use of modern instruments of science such as the microphone, the gasoline engine and the chemical laboratory. The fool cannot even see that he is destroying himself and his people, that he is bringing the temple of civilisation crashing down upon himself. “Hitler is just a dirty gutter fighter. Hitler and his bullies stop at nothing to destroy their victims. We Americans are potential victims. Then let us step at nothing in preparing our defences. Let us get over our squeamishness and get tough. Hitler and his banditti try to torture their victims with threats of terrifying ‘new and secret weapons.’ So what in the name of common sense should we do? Most Hellish Instruments “We should set American science to work devising the most hellish instruments of defence the mind can conceive. Let us make it clear—instruments of defence. “Would we thus drag ourselves down to the level of the infamous beast of Berlin? Would we thus be acting as pious hypocrites? Would we thus be damning ourselves in the eyes of God? We don’t know. “But we do know that there is loose upon the face of the earth a force that scorns every principle that in conscience we believe to be divine. This ma.d force must be restrained.

“Plainly it is man’s duty to defend the eternal verities, to meet any diabolical challenge to the dignity of the human soul. The instruments of defence are available. If a beneficent God, as we believe, cast an archangel into eternal fire, why should we be choosey about what we may to do to Hitler the Horrible and his horde?”