The Wilmington morning star., 1943-08-20
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER


making people think.
By WESTBROOK PEGLER
NEW YORK.-Paul v. McNutts latest war
manpoWer order is as dishonest and as po-
litical as those which went before, consisting,
in large part, of an attempt to drive more
thousands of unwilling civilians into the clutch
es OF rapacious, dictatoria, brutal grafters and
exploiters of the nations peril. 1t is devious
attempt to extend the military draft to civilian
occupations without any authority from Con-
gress and contrary to the intent of Congress
and the understanding and the rights of the
people. 1t is further approach to the scheme
Matched at an interesting Sunday evening dis
cussion in the White House more than a year
ago, following which. a day or two later, Mrs.
Roosevelt, in her commercial outlet for the
sale of information obtained through her par
ticipation in the presidency, disclosed t h e
theme of the conversation and personally pro-
posed that all of u.s.. men and women, and
with no stated age limit or exception, be told
what to do by the government.
Now there may be and probably is short
age of human energy and skill in the indus
tries. The featherbedding and mock work
rules of the unions which, in some cases, are
enforced by the national government a
which were upheld by the Supreme Court in
an opinion by James Byrnes. one of the very
men now engaged in terroriZng heads of fam
lilies with uncertainty and worry, would ac-
count for much Of this. But there is no honest
ground for resort to the conscription of
civilian labor which is the intention of the
McNutt orders, until every alternative has
been tried The alternatives have not been
exhausted.
On the contrary, a recent dispatch reported
that in New Mexico the War Labor Board
had ordered a copper company to fire 100
miners in this vital industry on the demand
Of union permeated by communist influ-
ences because the men had refused to pay
union dues On the contrary in Cleveland
a few months ago, group of 300 haf-shift
workers in war plant, white-collar men put
ting in four hours a night for no other pur
pose than to help in the war effort were CIV
en- a night for no other purpose than to help
in the war effort, were given their choice of
joining the union, which had done and could
do nothing for them, or subtracting them
selves from the manpower of the nation. The
government upheld the union whose spokes-
man took the very practical and cynical po-
sition that if the union didn't get its rakeoff
from this fraction of the war effort these
workers would have to get out or the regular
shifts would strike.
Out of patriotism, most of the victims of
this extortion of money and violations of right,
yielded their money and waived their prin-
ciple. In another case, not exceptional but
strictly routine, an agent of the Department
of Labor sent blank forms to the employees
of war-essential mine, soliciting grievances
against the company in the manner OF the
shyster who goes about fomenting litigation
for what there is in it.
There is a principle at stake in all this
as important to the free citizens of the United
States as any of those which have been written
in the heavens as the purposes of the United
Nations in fighting the military enemies in
this war. McNutt however, and the ingrati-
ating but acquiescent Byrnes have undertaken
to defeat this principle by force OF the ,emer-
gency and of powers assumed through cunning
extension of the draft act but never created
by Congress
Regardless of their own ideas on compul-
sorry unionism and they have never COM
mitted themselves to this belief, they are pro-
noting the evil conspiracy of the union bosses
and the new deal party to establish union
membership as a prerequisite to lawful en-
ployment in every occupation and job through
out the land and to deliver the entire people
into the control of utterly irresponsible Or
ganiZations and of men who are, in many
cases, scoundrels of the most violent and Gym
ical type.
There would be some hope for the citizen
in nationwide, concerted refusal to pay
dues-the sitdoWn in reverse, directed against
the unions. If enough workers were to refuse
to pay, the union power could be broken and
the governments conspiracy against the peo-
pie defeated. But the people are not organ
lied and this tempting break for freedom
would be beaten back in detail by McNutt
and the draft boards through the punishment
of Individual rebels.
Nevertheless, the principle, although shack
led, Knocked and spat upon in the very city
where the rights of citizens should find their
most conscientious defenders, is not yet aban-
doned to death. If it ever does die, night will
fall on the free republic of the United States.
@"0T TI0N1C