Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1942-05-08
Liberalism
To Bi,eo+ry
Short Step
Peeler Tells Why He
Quit Old Friends
By WESTBROOK PEGLER

7 HAVE decided that I am just
u about the most liberal liberal
in the United States at this
writing.
! am what you could call a
reactionary liberal which may
sound like a contradiction of
terms, but isn't.
IT means one who has reacted
against liberalism gone to
bigotry which is what has hap
pened to most of the old lib
eralism.
1t was, I guess, along about
1884 that i first felt sensation
that those whom l had formerly
respected as leaders of liberal
thought were going haywire.
One, for example, who had
done a big business in liberalism
and went in for all the snowy
Alterations, such as dirty finger
nails and the 30-day shirt, sud-
denly let fly the idea that
freedom of speech might reason
ABBY be denied 10 persons who
couldn't be trusted to exercise
it with a due regard for the
feelings Of adversaries on the
point of being COMPOUNDED.
Most OF them, by suggestion
if not by outright expression,
also revealed a belief that all
business was bad. not because
OF any specific fault which all
business was tainted with, but
just because il was business.
And there was one, a terrible
rum-pot. who drank only cham
payne and always dressed like a
stand-in for Jimmy Walker, who
expressed his liberalism by get
ting drunk at political gather
ings in the homes of the dirty
rich and then insulting the host
or hostess for being rich.
THIS one got big salary, but
had grown son of an aban-
doned wife working on one of
those leaf-raking government
jobs and while he pretended that
he had cut the kid loose for the
kids own good / noticed that
my liberal friend wasn't denying
himself anything and came TO
the conclusion that he was Just
damned selfish.
AS TO his insulting conduct
toward rich people. / decided
that he was just jealous.
IL you hate the rich just be-
cause they are rich you don't
hang around with them and Slop
up their grog.
I noticed that liberals could
break down and yowl over the
pinched and sallow children of
the mill towns whom they had
seen Summing and wall about
the squalor of il all while sit
ting around in comfortable
homes or saloons. but were abso-
lutely insensitive 10 the predica-
ment of kids who are denied
the counsel and immediate pres
ence Of a father or mother just
because one parent or the other
decided TO jump the fence.
If a miner was killed in an
explosion, leaving a fatherless
young one, that was awful. but
If a well heeled liberal aban-
doned his kids 10 chase some
floozey. or just because the old
lady could talk him down on
his liberalism. that was different.
/ discovered that they were
awful gossips, liars and truth
twiSters, too.
Well. these were manifesto
tons Of personality, to be sure.
but you can't throw such con-
siderations out entirely in esti-
mating the liberalism OF a man
processing to be a bleeding heart
or liberal.
And, furthermore, their lib
eralism itself was very narrow.
in that, for example, men and
women who had been bawling
against RECOMMENDATION went tail
over lineup for NRA and the
dole with its plain implications
of mass dependency on the lar
CESS Of the party in power which
would surely exploit that depen-
dency, and did. and for laws
which would compel every one
TO join a union.
EVEN then ! could see what
IL John Lewis was made OF
and would tell them he was a
dictator and that their plan
would deliver the whole people
into the power of Lewis and
others like him and they would
say / was just ignorant and
without social conscience.
Most Of them have turned on
John since then, but not because
he has changed or the laws
have changed.
He has just been taking ad-
vantage of those laws exactly as
i predicted and ii isn't even for
that they have repudiated him.
He has been repudiated be-
cause he broke with +. d. r.
and they had to be for him or
against him.
II he had stuck with the
President he would still be jake.
Now, me, 1 am a no-discount
liberal and l saw the light, as
you might say, when the mock
liberals began traipsing with the
a a n