Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1942-04-07
Effort TO Free
Browder by
Reds Barred
U. S. Relation TO SovietN
Doesn't Enter Case
By WEsTBROOK PEGLER

THE Communists. aided by the
- usual crowd of horn-rimmed
intellectual tag-alongs. are run.
ming another of their familiar
campaigns in the interest Of Earl
Browder. general secretary Of
the party. who is serving four
years In Atlanta for swearing
falsely in his application for an
American passport.
1t is contended that this sem
tence is excessive and a a trav.
esty on justice. and that Brow
der was sentenced In part for
his political convictions.
There are some fortnight Red
Communists in the agitation,
which Is efficiently organized
and financed like the lucrative
Tom Mooney campaign which
kept so many comrades in COM
fort so many years. but there
are more Of the yellow type who
lack the courage 10 join the
party and submit 10 the controls
and exactionS of party discipline.
This type Is composed mostly
of soft-handed lawyers. singers.
teachers. preachers and library
nonentities who find in such ac-
tivities a means OF obtaining
that personal publicity on which
their hungry vanity feeds.
There are also among this a
group individuals who might bsS
accurately described as boudoir
radicals. white and colored, q
type referred 10 by Miss Doro-
thy Day, the backsfid Bolo. in
her book, From Union Square
TO Rome" who use political and
social radicalism as an excuse :
for licentious conduct.
BECAUSE of our military COL
- liberation with Soviet Rus
STA. the case against Browder 10
somewhat embarrassed in these
days OF war. but that fact just
calls for a little more firnness
and nationalistic self-respect.
Browder and his party have
repeatedly disclaimed any con-
nection with the Soviet govern
ment and he is an American
citizen, convicted in an American
court, after fair trial. of an
offense against an American law.
Thus the case is strictly our
own affair. We would not think
of intruding in similar case In
which Russian subject was
sentenced for an offense against
Russian law. even though such
an offender probably would have
been put TO death by firing
squad, a sentence far more
drastic than four years In prison.
AS TO the severity of the PEN
atty, II must be kept in mind
that the sentence was prescribed
by the law-making body of the
American Republic. which obvi-
ously took serious view of an
offense which Browder and his
friends condone as a mere social
error.
IT SHOULD be remembered
L also that when Browder was
tried he was not. as his cam.
paign publicity now says he il,
Americas leading i-Fascist.
but an active pro-Axis collabora-
ZIONIST and leader of a force
which was promoting sabotage
OF the American rearmament
effort.
His party. at that time and I'D
to last June when Hitler at
tackled Russia, was responsible
for harmful strikes at Allis-
Chalmers, North American, and
elsewhere. in which the people
of the United States were trying
to build tools of war. for lack OF
which not only Americans but
Russians are dying on many
fields.
The policy of his political
group was vigorously seditious
and traitorous, and his influence
was exerted in the interest of
Adolf Hitler and Nazis.
IL the court did throw the
book at Browder on technical
conviction that would not have
been due TO his political convic-
tons. but to the dangerous anti
American expression OF those
convictions in the sabotage of
the war industries through
strikes artifically fomented over
false issues and by fraudulent
strike votes.
A court unconsciously and out
OF patriotism might have given
weight to this consideration, but
the fact still remains that the
sentence does not exceed the
law.
In a similar but more painful
case. AL Capone got nine years,
most OF il in Alcatraz. where he
served his time the hard way.
for income tax evasion, and most
of us figured that this was one
way to get hunk for a great
many other crimes.
The Communist Party didn't
go to bat for Capone, however. 4
There is nothing to the descrip-,