The Wilmington morning star., 1940-09-27

The Star wishes its readers
to know that views and opin-
ions expressed in this article
are those of the author and
may not always harmonic
with its position.-The Editor.
NEW YORK, Sept. 26.-I want
to reveal an example of the harm
full effect of the New Deals dis
honesty on the editorial morals of
a newspaper which is working that
side of the street.
The Tribune of Tampa, Fla, has
apologized to its readers for hav-
ing published a recent column Of
mine wherein it was observed that
"the American people long ago
YEARLY abandoned principle and
surrendered to the what = the : hell
philosophy which holds that any
crookedness short of downright
criminality is all right if it is clever
and produces results" This spir.
it," it was remarked, marks a
great change since 1882 and 1888,
when Americans still had the will
and the morals to resent crooked
ness"
Inexact
The Tribune says this shows that
1 hate Americans and promises
that hereafter if my copy contains
statements indicating that my
miso-Americanism is a progressive
paranoi it will not be printed. That
is inexact. It is not Americans
that l hate but crookedness and
publishers who condone this moral
slackness.
The Tribune did not always hold
the views expressed in this
apology.
In the spring of 1888 the Tribune
made a spirited expose Of one OF
the most arrogant, corrupt and dis
honest acts of the New Deal up to
that time. But the New Deal got
away with that n by sheer power
and effrontery.
On that occasion a local grand
jury returned the usual seasonal
spring batch of indictments against
local new deal politicians in con.
nection with the traditional Florida
crime-must-go fiesta, which corre-
spends to the pagan harvest festi-
walls. The foreman Of the grand
jury was a WPA worker who was
instantly fired from the WPA with
the explanation that there were no
further funds available for his par
ticular job. He appealed to tie To-
cal court on the ground that the
WPA politicians of the new deals
state machine we're trying to in
timidate grand juries and the
courts by Furnishing a grand jury
foreman for doing his duty as a
citizen. This threw a scare into
the WPA political gang, and a few
hours later they miraculously
found" the funds with which TO
retain the man on his job. The
state WPA administrators new
deal machine politician, of course
was summoned to testify before
a new local grand jury regarding
this obvious attempt to coerce
grand juries and the courts. He
refused on the authority of Harry
Hopkins in Washington, who held
that no state agency could investi-
gate a federal agency. Even the
federal district attorney went to
bat for the state administrator,
thus bringing the department of
justice into the play on the side of
corruption and in opposition to
civic decency in local government.
Protected
The proposition was that if you
indicted new deal WPA machine
politicians you lost your WPA job,
and the full effect Of this was that
any crooked new deal politician,
whether office holder or grating
contractor, was protected by the
WPA from indictment in the state
courts.
I may say here that these facts
and this Interpretation of them
were expressed in the Tampa Trib-
une itself at that time. 1 might put
some doubt on the purity of the
Tribune's motives in fighting for
the discharged WPA worker, how
ever, because he had been a Trib-
une staff man, discharged for rea.
sons of economy and thrown on the
public treasury for support. The
Tribune did not feel bound to keep
him on the payroll but did feel a
moral obligation to compel the GOV.
eminent to carry its social-eco-
nomic responsibilities to the man.
I am not certain that such re-
sponsibilities do rest upon an en-
ployer, but the Tribune is bound
to admit that they do, for that has
been one Of the favorite conten-
lions of the new deal biologists,
and the Tribune is a new deal
paper. !