The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1943-09-17
BY WEsTBROOK PEGLER

BY WEsTBROOK PEGLER
NEW YORK.-Mrs. Roosevelt is l believe
the most influential individual leader, or pa
troness, of the youth of the United States but
the quality of her following among the young
people is gauge or reflection on the quality
o. her leadership She appeals only to mi
norlty and to them she is, in fact heroine
and an ideal but she has not attracted the
others and those others in the main, find
their leadership in their homes, even though
many OF them are far from home and some
will never come back.
The defect in Mrs. Roosevelt'S leadership
is that it is not idealistic, but political and
material. Her followers interest themselves
in reorganization" parliamentary procedure,
and tricks and political tactics They are the
speech-makers and debaters, the pickets and
politicians who join groups and compete
for control after the manner Of the profess
sonal party politicians who are forever COM
promising their principles and taking detours
toward goals that are not ideals but mere
advantages.
In Mrs Roosevelt American youth is Of
fered an energetic and daring leader who
sought them out when nobody else did, but
one who is an active politician in a party
which has often betrayed its own professional
i'~Hs To think of Mrs. Roosevelt is to think
Of such Sen. Joe Guffey of Pennsylvania,
ara the hagues and Pendergasts and the sec
ond Louisiana purchase and the degradation
of the ideal of government of the people by
the people an expedient justified by de-
sire for power and zest for the game of
politics AS youth is able to detect in the
home unfarness dishonesty and untruthful
ness in this conduct of the parents so youth
in the nation cannot have been unaware that
Mrs. Roosevelt has condoned, if she did not
positively approve actions by her party which
violated the ideals and faith of young men
and women.
| AS party politician. Mrs. Roosevelt prob
ably cannot do otherwise, for she would dis
rupt the plans of the party's leaders if she
were to repudiate openly before the youth
of the country, and for their moral benefit
| and inspiration, the routinr connivances and
schemes of ambitious and graspmg men. But
a party politician cannot perSonlty the ideal
| Of American youth and the true ideallsts
among them. who constitute the great ma
jority. not inspired md encouraged but
repealed by the camera-ogling and flippant
semi-profes sonals of Mrs Roosevelts entour
age. There is precocity, even cynicism,
among that following that suggests a desire
| for personal publicity, even notorlety, rather
| than a sincere devotion to high principles
Here is also, class-struggle phase OF the
youth movement, and ideals are not foreign
to the character of the sons and daughters
of United and affectonate American homes
of the middle class in which the parents
strive constantly from the arrival of the first
baby to deserve the confidence and unques-
toning respect of the children by conducting
| themselves as models of fairness and nteg-
rity. Nor is this idealsm less influential in
the homes of the poor although there were
many who thought, during the long depres-
sion that financial poverty and spiritual squat
or were inevitably Complementary and es-
sayed to save the children of the submerged
third by substituting the motherng and IA
thering leadership of groups and govern
ment bureaus for the leadership of the parents
At one stage of Mrs. Roosevelts activity
Gene Tunney organized rival movement'
to provide a haven for those yearning young
ones who had come into personal and ideologi-
cal collisions with the more resourceful cam
pus veterans of her following. 1t amounted
to little however, because Tunney tried to
lead youth in his spare time so to speak,
and his principal occupation was selling lq-
uor, which is legally and socially respecta-
BILE trade, to be sure, but not idealistic.
Now they are at war, everywhere, h e
American youth who were in such need of
inspiration and saving, and the ideals that they
are fighting for are derived not from any
| debates or resolutions of that artful and youth
conscious minority, nor from the Atlantic
Charter the four freedoms, but from the
example and teaching of parents in millions
of modest homes. They have no hero or
heroine ideal person but millions of them,
most of whom, however, on the average,
taught the same things. There may come
j out of this some idol, some beautiful knight
who will personify all the virtues and beau
ties of character but if SO that person must
be one who will scorn compromise and ex-
pediency and stand forever in all things for
exact fairness and justice at whatever risk
Or cost.
"