The Wilmington morning star., 1943-12-30
By WEsTBROOK PEGLER

| NEW YORK.-BenJamin L. Masse, who may
be priest although he is not SO designated
had an article in recent issue OF America,
the Jesuit publication. of a type which has
been more and more common lately. 1t is
one of those pieces which say that our unions
need more democracy in the interests OF the
workers themselves but invariably take cracks
at the one person who mas done most to
expose crookedness and other evils in our
unions, meaning me
hope l am not immodest Ii this, but if
am so be it. Anyway, Mr.. Masse and the
Civil Liberties Union which brought in re-
port of similar meaning, and others all take
the attitude that they are great, highminded
friends of labor, although they sat still and
let the dirty conditions develop; and that
who did tear into the situation, starting at
time when it was heresy to doubt the sane
tity and purity Of unionism, am anti-union.
When Mr.. Masse says as he does, that
my reporting and comment on racketeering
and the effects of the Wagner act constitute a
vicious caricature" my answer, and a gen.
erous one at that, is that his own statement
is vicious caricature of the truth.
That Interpretation of the Wagner act, as
he states it, is that with government support
labor leaders, have conscripted millions of
more or less unwilling workers. forced them
into authoritarian, tax-producing unions and
are there exploiting them for motives OF per-
sonal power and financial gain.
defend that Interpretation That is pre-
cisely what the Wagner act has done and
proof of the intent is found in the logged
refusal Of the new deal and the union bosses
to agree to amendment protecting workers
from coercion by the unoneers and in the
war labor program by which Americans with
patriotic desire to produce for war are
first required to join those authoritarian tax
producing unions. I don't agree with his des-
| ignation of these bosses as labor leaders, -
! however, because they are not leaders put
drivers and politicians remote from the actual
workers, and their motives plainly are per-
sonal power and financial gain.
I have never said that the unions need
more democracy. 1 dislike the word because
this country is republic and it occurs no.
where in either the Constitution or the Decla-
ration of independence. Democracy can be
invoked to destroy itself and 1 have seen it
done in unions say that what the unions
and labor need is honesty, decency, fairness
and conscience among the big bosses and legal
responsibility. And because men who have
power without responsibility always abuse
their power, 1 say nation should adopt
laws not to protect -ncustry or capital from
labor but to protect the workers. labor itself,
from the officials of the unions. If parish
priest abuses his office is he immune? Not
at all. His boss yankS him Onto the carpet
and gives him going over or, If necessary,
removes him. But if union boss abuses his
power there is no law to curb him because
the unions make their own laws many OF
which, incidentally. conflict with the Consti-
tutional rights of citizens Of the United States.
Where did Mr.. Masse a1d the Civil Liber-
ties Union get their information about union
abuses of the workers and violations of de-
mocracy? They got it right here in this col
urnn. They got it sitting down while l was
out hustling and discovering that the AFL
was absolutely crawling with crooks and with
the consent of the topmost officials; that John
L. Lewis was dictator of the most tyrannical
kind an opinion in which his old friend and
collaboration in that dictatorship, Philip Muir
ray, later agreed after a falling out over
money; that Lewis had burglar in his ruling
council, and that unonism has become a men,
ace to itself and all American labor and the
cherished American form Of government
This is not a caricatur. but truth and
dare say Mr.. Masse knows it, for he says
just as the stockholders lost control of the
big corporations so the growth of bureaucracy
in unions has weakened the rank and file
vis-a-vis their leaders,
I am a better friend of labor than Mr..
{ Masse and the Civil Liberties Union and all
the union bosses in the country combined.
did something about it. they just drool.