The Wilmington morning star., 1941-01-07
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER

NEW YORK, Jan. g. The most
important recommendation of the
Smith committee of the House of
Representatives which investi-
gated the labor board and the
Wagner act was the one which
proposed a congressional study of
the whole question of labor rela-
tons. Of course, events may rush
upon us in a storm and prevent
orderly consideration, but I am as
Stunning, for the moment, that it
will be possible to poke along in
a deliberate and ~sure-footed way.
If that is done congress is sure To
cure its mind of a great many
superstitions concerning the struc-
ture and practice of unions, aud
amendments to the Wagner act
naturally will follow.
It would be just as well to admit
that the Wagner act, as originally
passed, was an emotional item OF
legislation which recorded or re.
vealed great ignorance of the SUBJ
ject of unions. Surely congress
would not have passed this law
had the fact been known that pro-
fessional criminals were operating
important unions of the American
Federation of Labor and were re-
presented in it's executive counct,,
and that this big parent organlza.
ton disclaimed both the power and
the duty to clean house. Congress
would not have taken the respon-
sibility for driving hundreds OF
thousands of workers ::ato unions
against their will, thus %subjecting
many of them to the rule of gang
sters and of communist conspira-
tors.
Impossible To Believe
It is impossible to believe that,
even in those emotional days, con.
gress knowingly would have be-
come a party to a deal by which
unions were given the rover to
intimidate workers in p~blic cleo
tons, and even to shake down
workers and employers as well for
political party funds.
These are some of the discover
les that have been made since the
Wagner act was hailed as labor's
magma charta, the law which "a
supposed only to guarantee tn e
right of collective bargaining but
which created abuses as bad as
those which it was intended to cor
rect. A calm inquiry would show
that in the union of Sidney Hill
man himself voters were coerced
in the last election i a manner
which, invoked by an employer,
would have landed the rascal in
jail. It would show that a local
of David Dubinsky's union order
ed its members to attend a politi.
cal rally for Senator Mead of New
York, under penalty for failure,
and, of course, it would prove that
the Wagner act established a legal
basis for the operation of rackets
at the expense of the workers, in.
dustry, the national defense and
workable relations between labor
and industry.
To recapture the mood of the
time when the Wagner act was
passed it may be recalled that
the American Federation of Labor
was commonly and careles re-
garded as a great, voluntary or
~ganization of workers landing to.
gether, against abuses by the EN-.
ployers, but still in need of federal
backing to thWart the bosses al
their dirty practices. But that was
just a general impression which
made the employers, as a class,
appear to be a bad lot and the
unions innocent and noble groups.
Plain
Now it is plain that ~, employ.
ers were not all cruel and greedy
and that there were some very
bad men in control of the unions,
including some clever r-ugh-and-
tumble swindlers who held their
power by the methods of the graft
ing political boss and lacked crimi-
nal records only because tradition
warned the public prosecutors to
lay off the unions.
There are plenty of honest union
leaders who would testify, if
placed under oath, to the perfidy
of other union leaders, and it
would take no ~squealer to reveal,
under intelligent questioning, that
the two big organiza'- -s-A. F.
of L. and CT. O.-are enormous
private governments with all
theills and faults of public
government, but in exaggerated
form because they have been prac-
tically immune from public inspec-
ton and governmental restraint.
Once the facts were revealed
congress would be bound to adopt
amendments to the Wagner act or
other legislation to abolish, rather
tan license, union abuses. This
need not be "a dramatic or corny
investigation of the midget-on-lap
type. A few Individual workers
could be used as witnesses to
prove various forms of oppression
by unions, but the union powers
and practices could be learned by
examination of their constitutions
and their history. A union which
has not held a convention in 80
years, for example, cannot be said
to represent the will of the work
ers.
Senator Wagner himself should
be debated to his actual size, anG
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