The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1944-04-25
By WEsTBRoOK PEGLER

BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
NEW YORK-As an example Of propaganda
disguised as impartial and objective blogra-
ply let me call your attention to profile
of J. B. Matthews, the back-slid bolo who is
the Dies committees expert on communists
and fellow-travelers and organizations of the
outwardly innocent and pretentiously progress
sive type which the communists, themselves,
call transmission belts. This article is pub
lished in the current issue of the New Yorker,
which long ago pioneered a new freedom that
might be called freedom from decency by
publishing out loud words which hitherto had
been heard but not seen. You may see it
some day in your dentists waiting room.
The authors, Matthew Josephson and Rus
sell Maloney, purport to present, in flip
pant but strictly honest way, the story Of
man who certainly is erratic and, on his own
word, unworthy Of belief without corrobora-
ton but who cannot be challenged as an au-
thority on communist activity in the United
States for he provenly was there in the thick
of it for a long time. The real effect of the
article on the uniformed reader however, is
to discredit the Dies committees disclosures
Of communist activity and the technique is
that of the continental propa gandists of both
the communist and fascist or Nazi schools.
They describe Matthews as one who has
engaged in liberal activities Of the kind now
described by the FBI as prematurely anti
fascist but who enjoys special almost unique
immunity from persecution" by the Dies COM
mill bat 1aoI 4l4
ing reader, with complete confidence in the
New Workers. honesty, to believe that Mat
thews and the erstwhile comrades and fellow
travellers whom he finally denounced were no
worse than liberals and pioneer anti-fascists,
but the fact is that Matthews was a comnlu-
mist conspirator against this country's govern
ment and knew them all. You get here an
inslnuation that the other persons and organi-
cations exposed by him were prosecuted, as
though they should have been immune from
investigation just because, being communists
and fellow-travelers, they naturally We're op-
posed to fascism which originally, in Italy,
was provoked by the atrocities of the COM
munlsts. Matthews was immune because he
confessed. He left nothing for investigation.
The communist line these days make big cap
ital of the fact that because they are anti
fascist all communists and fellow travellers
among us are just the same as loyal Amer
fascism declared war on the United States.
The reason why we are at war as Allies of
the communist state is that Hitler declared
war on Russia before he attacked us and we
therefore found the communist state fighting
strongly on our side when we came in. Had
Hitler not attacked Russia, we might be fight
ing communism, too. The communists with
this advantage, are able to continue their
work while the fascists and their fellow-trav-
al hIy& tho rofT Mo
loney and the New Yorker. prosecuted.
by Matthew'S definition the author
writes, 1.-The communist party's united front
movement include every organization whose
members have ever deplored Hitler or con-
doned Roosevelt and there goes the needle
again. You get the suggestion, that. in re-
verse, anyone who deplores certain policies,
works and methods of President Roosevelt,
is a fascist who condones Hitler. This would
include all members of the Republican party
and many men and women in the armed
forces who fighting Hitler.
Shirley Temple was included a m N the
free-lance conspirators of the communist front
exposed by Matthews and the Dies commit
tee, if you believe Josephson and Maloney,
as you might if you didn't happen to remam-
Der the truth of the incident, w h CT was
merely that Shirley's name was inadvertently
lent to a communist occasion and that the
the communists were able to obtain the use
of the names of decent Americans to dress
their demonstrations. The communists and
fellow.t1 avelers of the Washington press corps
made great sport of this incident at the time,
however, distorting the truth to depict the
Dies committee in great lather of lear lest
the country be destroyed by a little girl who
was the darling Of the American people
But such scotching of such propaganda in
detail is like irving to keep weeds out of
garden by hand. There is powerful whole
sale weed-killer within the covers of book
called II Confess by enjamin Gitlow Earl
Browder's predecessor as chief of the anti
American conspiracy which, somehow, finds
so many defenders who do not call them
selves communists. Nobody can deny that
Gitlow was a communist and his confession
is more revolving and dan1ning taan the en-
tire record of the Dies committee.
QUOTATIONS