The Wilmington morning star., 1940-09-28
Fair Enough
BY wEsTBROOK PEGLER

WIN 1tS pOS1toA'- AA'oA'
CHICAGO, Sept. T.-1n Chicago,
where the greedy labor skate col
laborates with common gangsters
and brothel-keepers in the govern
ment of labor unions, portions OF
the speech which Franklin D.
Roosevelt delivered to the team
sters' union in Washington still
ring with a sound of the most bale
full hypocrisy. l refuse tc labor
the question whether Mr.. Rocse-
welt spoke as President OF the
United States or as leader and
nominee of the Social-Democratic
party. He lis President of the ma
ton, and it cannot be asked that
his remarks 60 unchallenged mere
ly because the challenge might re-
veal his insincerity and thus tend
to impair the dignity Of the office
which he occupies. BY that rule
any president would always bel
above criticism by his political op'
ponents.
President Roosevelt said to the
teamsters, You can remember
when it was the common practice
to discharge any worker who
Joined union"
Other Side
As to whether this ever vas the
common practice of employers l
do not know. have hearsay inn
preston that it was, but l am be-
coming more and more leary of
hearsay. But, for the sake of ar
gument, will concede that this
was so, because I want to hurry on
to the other side of the situation
which has been created by the
Wagner act and Ar. Roosevelts
policy toward union.
It is now the common practice
of unions to compel the discharge
of any worker who refuses to join,
and this practice-as bad a viola
ton of the citizens rights as the
one which the President, in these
few words, so scornfully condemns
is upheld by the Labor Relations
beard. In other words, the gov
ernment requires that the Ameri-
can citizen submit himself to the
irresponsible, arbitrary and often
larcenous and murderous rule of
private groups, some Of which,
moreover, are very exclu:ive and
debar vast numbers of citizens
from lawful occupations. Now, if
by joining a union, even involun-
tarily and at a sacrifice of princi-
pie and his rights, the citizen were
assured some economic gain, that
would be something. But in thou
sands Of cases membership in the
union. accepted under compulsion
and threats Of discharge, injury or
death, results in a net financial
loss to men and women in the
poorest brackets.
Exploited
It has been shown that such un-
ions, grown arrogant under the en-
couragement of Mr.. hoosevelts
government, are exploited for fab
ulous graft by labor takers Of his
own following, who do not hesitate
to exact from the poorest toiler
the money to freight these crooks
to Florida and maintain them in
luxury amid the criminal scum
from which many of them are So
cially and morally indistinguish-
able. The Lake Michigan shore
near Chicago is adorned by many
lovely homes of union thieves
bought with tithes of the little peo-
pie and money extorted from en-
ployers under threats to call the
workers out on strike.
But whether the unions be rack.
cts of Communist auxiliaries, as
many are, including the newspaper
guild, controlling factions and GER
tain transport and dockside unions,
and even though a union be honest,
the right to to join is still funda-
mental and inalienable.
These unions profess to be vol
untary associations. They derive
many legal privileges from that
classification, but they use COM
pulsion, and Mr.. Roosevelt sup
ports that compulsion.
The right not to join has not
been abolished by clamor or by
law. 1t is still the citizens right,
and Mr.. Roosevelt's administration
has been conniving at wholesale
violation of that right.
It is the right to deal individual
ly as free man, the right to the
rewards of ones toll and not to
share that reward with any unof-
ficial, irresponsible taxing and
grating authority.
1t Is the right, also, to withhold
financial or moral support from
any nominee, such as Mr.. Roose-
velt himself, to whom majority
OF a union might wish to give
cash contribution and an indorse-
ment made unanimous by IA
miliar parliamentary trick in vio-
lation Of the wishes of the minority.
This right has not been abol-
ished, but it has been violated dis
gracefully with the connivance of
the President of the United States,
who has said nothing about the
merest existence of such a right in
his address to the teamsters'
union. II
The Indian population of the
nited States was 294,574 !. 1866;
In 1880 it was 332, ,397,