The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1940-10-10
The Cherry Tree
Where We Hutchet OO'
The Truth

THE GREAT CROUCH
Q GOOD POLICE REPORTER
POOR PHILOSOPHER
What's the matter with this guy
Westbrook Pegler?
The Saturday Evening Post says
he's against everything-a steady go
ing sourpuss who never takes the
Eyes" side of any argument.
Pegler has rung the bell on some
labor racketeers, but the poor boy has
been as wide of the mark as he could
possibly be in a lot of cases.
Pegler's worst offense-lousy
would be a good words in his
rather regular habit of digging up
stencil in some spot and declar-
ing that this is typical of the
whole show.
When Pegler sticks to provable
facts he does a service, but when he
cuts loose and seeks to spread the
inference that everything is smeared
with crookedness and graft and
gangsterism, then he is just plain
nuts.
The great crouch of the eastern
seaboard has been doing just that
lately.
And when he does that Pegler is
just as bad as anything he attacks.
X X X
Pegler is a good police reporter. He
knows how to get the record in
crime case. AS philosopher dealing
with social progress he is as off-key
as banker in picnic party on the
beach. His stuff is tripe.
Pegler never has hit the real pay
dirt anyway and he probably never
will.
Pegler has the sort of skill that
can dig up the record on a Willie
Bioff and he knows just how to go
after the Newspaper Guild. But he
doesn't seem to have the slightest idea
of how to go after the bossdom which
is more blighting than actual cor
ruption and which may or may not be
smeared with the aforesaid cor
ruption.
Gangsterism is a terrible scourge
and in these times of national crisis it
is doubly dangerous.
X X X
But, brothers, there is something
worse than that AND, the action of
Dan Tobin and Bill Green have been
a thousand times more effective than
anything crouch Pegler can ever hope
to do.
Every decent person can afford to
praise Pegler when he digs up
skunk, but Pegler's manner of trying
to paint picture composed largely Of
skunks gives rise to question which
is simply this:
Is Pegler's ONLY thought the dig
ging up of skunks? Is he merely after
crooks?
If he knows anything about la
Dor at all he must know that by
and large labor is just as clean
and decent as any other groups
and a lot more decent than some
groups have been.
Are the millions of union members
wallowing in wealth? They are NOT.
They are working-and a lot of
them are working on national defense
jobs. And lot of union officers are
working too many hours day on the
job of helping to keep the wheels run
ming smoothly.
X X X
No force in the whole United States
has done more than the American Fed
Grafton Of Labor to root out COM
munism or to smash the hateful and
baleful business of labor spying and
bribing, the history of which is hide
Gus and evil.
Has Pegler ever raised his voice
to praise those valiant efforts? Let
him answer.
Labor will remedy it's weaknesses
and it will do it much quicker than
lot of American newspapers
Pegler's field) will cure theirs.
If he could rid himself of jaun-
diced mind, Pegler would be a much
more effective crusader, but perhaps
not as profitable one, nor as popular
with newspapers that don't like labor.
To rout out corruption is always
commendable. Sometimes it is heroic.
But to pick out corrupt spots and
seek to label the whole body with that
corruption is reprehensible, lousy,
dirty, mean, miserable and you can add
as many more adjectives as you can
think of.-CMW.