Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1942-07-25
Letter Box
Falsehoods
Under Fire
Writers Usage Of Labor
Attacked by PegIer
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
ITO THE EDITOR.

Dear Sir:
/ would like TO call your at
tention TO something.
Our American standard daily
press. meaning the non-Commu-
mist daily papers, is the most
liberal in the world and most
of these papers maintain their
own individual little Hyde Park
corners in which persons who
wish to sound off against their
editorial policies are given room
TO do so.
That is fine, but
In view of the fact that you
do not resort 10 untruth in your
editorials and do not know
ingly permit your reporters or
commentators 10 publish false
hoods, does your liberalism re-
quire and do ethics permit you
10 grant the right of falSehood
or misrepresentation 10 those
who express themselves In the
VoX pop?
l am thinking in particular
of such terms as labor, pro-
labor. anti-iabor and labor
batting.
A LETTER will say that labor
"A wants this or that or labor
is doing so and so and you let
il 60, when the fact is that
labor includes practically all the
adult males and a large pro-
portion of the adult females in
the United States, of whom the
unions embrace less than one
fifth.
This is a very small minority
of labor and a proportion OF
that membership is involuntary
or captive, as the unions admit
in demanding the closed shop
and the cheek-ea
So if we say, for figure, that
the unions represent only one
tenth of labor in our country,
we are just about right
Yet the term labor is applied
10 this minority, including the
captive element, and you regu-
larly permit this misrepresenta-
ton 10 be made and not only
in your vox pop but often in the
news columns as well
This causes confusion and the
unioneers and the union poll
ticians being smart. sound that
false note all the time.
THIS naturally leads to con-
4 sIderation of the abuse OF
the term pfo-lsbor which is APP
piled often 10 men and women
who are anti-labor in spirit but
couldn't speak for labor as a
whole even if they were pro-
labor because there is no or
gained element in the country
large enough TO deserve the
name.
Labor as whole has no
qualified spokesman and even
the unions are at war among
themselves on issues which seri-
ouSly impugn their sympathy
with the worker and their re-
spect for democracy, another
term which is glibly and seri-
ouSly miSused all the time.
Senator Bob Wagner is called
labor senator because his
name is hitched 10 the so-called
labor magma carta.
In the first place. this wasn't
his law AT all but an admins
tration job which had 10 bear
somebody's name and was
handed 10 him.
And, in the second place,
Wagner is actually anti-labor
because he yelled his head off
about the evils OF coercion,
-hamled about the precious right
of free men 10 select their own
bargaining agents and then
fought down all proposals 10
protect labor from coercion.
Even the Go and ALL now
claim that John Lewis is anti
labor.
NOV VIC come 10 the terms
4 anti-labor and labor batter
as applied TO persons who have
exposed and fought corruption
in unions. the knowing liberation
Of criminals in union office. and
the violation of the human or
God Civen rights Of men. and
their constitutional rights as
-LmericanS-hy unions.
This includes me. but | am not
sensitive and speak not in per-
Sonal resentment but in the
interest Of truth and clarity.
Tom Dewey, for example. will
undoubtedly be called a labor
batter in his campaign for gov
ernor, VIII en- the fact is that
every official act of his in
relation TO unions when nc was
prosecutor, was pro labor and
pro-union.
Dewey drove the rats out OF
the house of that minority Of
labor represented by the unions.
PRO BONO PUBLICo.