The Wilmington morning star., 1943-03-13
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER

BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
CHICAGO.-It would be foolish to think that
American big business has forgiven or ever
will forgive the harassment which it has been
compelled to endure at the hands of the new
deal since the winter of 1888. These the
men who were called tories and copperheads,
words meaning traitor, who were insulted and
humiliated by inpudent little Shysters sent out
from Washington to administer the Labor Re-
lations act for the benefit of John L. Lewis
and the Communists of the CIO and the racke-
teers of the AFL. Their very bigness in busi-
resS was held to be proof of corruption and
fascism and they were charged with disloyalty
if they believed their country could and should
keep out of the war.
But now, they are the men who are running
the arsenal of democracy and putting to shame
the cheap and venal politics Of Washington,
where thousands of lawyers and party press
agents on the public payroll still carry on the
class war and are trying to renew their jobs
for four years after 1914. They know, as any
one can see, that but for big business dis
tinctive American institution, the United States
would lose this war and that because it is
SO big, the United States cannot lose. They
are satisfied that this time, big business can
not be accused of creating the war and shov-
ing the country into the fight for profits. The
proof of that is found in the very accusation
leveled against them little more than year
ago that they were loath to convert their
plants to war industries because it seemed
a profitless venture.
But forced into war by the enemy, big busi-
ness Is months later, is producing with all
that vast might and ingenuity which the new
deal tried to handcuff and suppress. These
are not new deal achievements, these crates
containing airplane engines which come out
of the plants by the bo-,car load, these tanks,
jeeps and guns and these flying Warships, by
the contribution of those traitorous tories and
copperheads to the destruction of a foe who
challenged country which they love as much
as Harry Hopkins does Felix Frankfurter
or Franklin D. Roosevelt, himself.
And if the Presidents sons are risking their
lives, so are the sons and brothers Of the men
of big business and many big businessmen,
themselves for, to them, this is not the new
deals private war but fight for the survival
of their country. It is still their country, too.
Who are they, by name? Some of them
you would know by name but many more you
never heard of. They do not try to conceal
their hatred of those who tried to raise class
war against them during the last 10 years
merely because they were good men at enor-
NOUS Jobs who took their rewards in preten-
tious homes and winter vacations when things
were rolling well at the plant and who finally
came to them to use their bigness against the
enemy.
be not identified with any political opinions
which they express, even on the subject of
the fourth term or of the unions which are
loudly garrulous against them still They are
afraid that someone in Washington will meddle
with their contracts or their materials or start
the propaganda mill going against them even
though the new deal makes politics and damns
for disruption those who oppose the campaign
for a fourth term. They are more concerned
with winning the war than with the internal
future of the country. They work to win, even
though the victorious United States should be
ruled again by the same men who, when the
war broke at Pearl Harbor, cried to them for
help.
The contrast between the men of big bust
ness and the political man of WASHINGTON is
shocking to observe. In the old Federal build
ing in Chicago tonight long lines of tired men
and women, four abreast were inching wearily
along after their work to file their income
tax returns, many of them for the first time.
1t was spectacle of bureaucratic waste
of time, fumbling and inefficiency as most
dealings of the people with the government
are. A factory which did business so badly
on pay night would have riots at the gates.
At the same time, in a hundred enormous
plants in Chicago and countless big business
factories in Detroit, Pittsburgh and Toledo
and everywhere in the industrial east and
Middle West, big business producing
weapons, vehicles, engines, steel box cars,
boats and submarines smoothly and in great
and steadily increasing quantity, hampered
more by the new deals payroll parasites than
py any other factor. The rate of production
already has passed Hitler's, and probably the
combined production of Hitler, Musslini and
Japan, and is increasing by the very hour.
plant standing land which was an open
field 18 months ago is turning out x big bomp-
ers month now and is expected to make
five times that many in a few months Else
where. on another open field another great
bomber factory is rising and will begin pro-
ducing soon.
In another big business factory aliptamr fa,,r
engines are assembled completely In Iour
hours and the gears are ground to increoioae
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