The Wilmington morning star., 1943-05-12
By wEsTBRooK PEGLER

hi. readers. HI. articles tn. good purposs Of
By wEsTBRooK PEGLER
| LOS ANGELES.-Well, so long, sport. Take
care Of yourself. 1t is tough to be leaving
the little woman and your good job. You GER
tainly show the American spirit, you two
KIDS, only three years married and with all
your plans and dreams.
You will be in good company, anyway, in
the Army and when she goes to work in
the war factory she will find lot of other
fine girls in the same fix-husbands away,
homes broken. There are a couple of fine
outstanding, patriotic Americans that you prob
ably won't be meeting in the Army, though
Not if they can help it.
| One is Joe Curran, president Of the Ma
| tional Maritime Union. That boy is American
through and through, like Earl Browder, and
nobody in this land is more eager to send
you walking up some beach along the channel
coast through shells and machine gun fire
| to open up second front against the aggres-
sors.
| But Joe can't get away to join you. He will
be with you in spirit you understand but
not in the flesh, because he has to stay in
New York to run his union and help Harry
Bridges and his Communist fifth column cap
ture the East coast, while you are away.
Joe passed his physical, but the poor guy
| is essential. 1t broke his heart to get de-
ferred, but he had to do it. He is one of
| the few Americans who can write their own
| tickets before the draft boards. unioneers
get very special treatment under orders from
the new deal. Much better treatment than
ordinary saps like you, sport.
| When patriotic unioneer like Curran wants
deferment, the unions ask for it, But he is
the union. So Joe Curran, the union, asks
for deferment Of Joe Curran, the bloodthirsty
second-fronter, and gets it. Then Joe clenches
his fists and shakes them at Hitler and yells,
''You louise, l wish 1 could get away to
slaughter you on that second 'front.'" There
| is no more bloodthirsty anti-Nazi on earth,
at distance of 5000 miles, than Joe Curran.
| He didn't always hate Hitler, though. They
used to be pals His union used to say that
this was an imperialist war and picket the
White House under the slogan, 1.-The Yanks
Aren't Coming" This hatred for Hitler and
aggressors came over Joe's union all of a
| sudden on June %, 1s41, the day Hitler at
| tackled that beautiful democracy of Joe Stain.
When you come back, sport, if you do come
back, Joe Curran will be down the bay to
meet your ship with a glad hand. Not you,
but your ship. He will be down to grab
some Of that $100 week and up that his
union grabbed from the government for mess
boys and other civilian sailors while you and
the Navy gunners aboard the same ships
are doing your stuff for q base pay of $50
month.
| Yes, Joe has been deferred for six months.
He comes up again in September, but he will
still be Joe Curran, the one-man union, and
more indispensable than ever, even though
that second front that he has been yelling
for may be going to beat all hell.
Another who will be with you in spirit, but
otherwise absent from that second front is
the president of the United Office and Pro-
fessional Workers of America. They call him
Lewis Merrill. He got deferred for another
month on April 30, although he was classi-
fled LA back in February. This is another
Of those one-man unions and another of those
''Yanks Aren't Coming outfits, that turned
against aggression when Adolf took a sock
at Uncle Joe.
| He is a fearless and furious second frontier,
too, but by proxy. You are his proxy. His
union said he was essential and irreplaceable
in aiding the mobilization Of the white collar
workers for the war effort, so he got deferred
again.
| Last February, when his number was up,
his union paper said the union had decided
| to appeal for deferment. That meant, of
course, that Merrill, as they call him, in his
role of unioneer, decided to appeal for defer
ment for Merrill, as they call him. the verbal
commander. 1t is just little scraggly union
| but very important, in the war effort because
| il is SO close to the Communist party.
| Under the New Deals magma charta for
| labor. the Wagner act, it can plant clerical
workers in government offices and private
business houses and then, if they pick up
any confidential information and report it
where it will do the most good from the
standpoint of the Communist party. that is
helping the war effort. / told you, didn't I.
about the member who planted herself in an
office in New York and tipped off confidential
information and brought down raid Of Com
munist-front goons on the premises of her
employer Sure she was a member of this
| union. so essential to the war effort
In that February issue of his paper an
nouncing that Merrill as they call him, was
going to- get deferred, there was a little item
announcing that he was going to make
radio speech entitled Wake Up America
He was bugling reveille to get you up in
time to kiss your wife goodbye, sport, and
shove off for that second front that he is
ESQ crazy about.
So long, sport, and when you get to Bon.
Ilogne or Calais or climb up the cliff at Cane
Girls Nez. go to the picture post card shop
land send greetings to Joe and Lewis, as thew
2