The Wilmington morning star., 1944-08-30
BY wESTBROoK PEGLER


NEW YORK.-No good purpose could be
served by the visit of R. J. Thomas and other
American professional unioneers to the zone
of war in France and the Interior purpose is
plain.
Certain new deal gauleiters went abroad to
take the heat off the soldiers resentment
against strikes and slowdowns and the extor-
ton of hundreds of millions of dollars from
construction workers They want those sol
der votes for their candidate They have an
other purpose-to soften up the soldiers for
exploitation by the unions when they come
back
The choice of Thomas as one of the mis-
sionaries to an angry fighting army is the
most significant selection This mans union.
the United Auto Workers. having nowadays
about one million head within its corraIs 80
per cent of them either unwilling or uncom-
pretending captives, has a particularly bad
record. 1t was the union in the memorable
Allis-Chalmers communist shutdown near Mil
waukee in the days of the Hitler-Stalin al
lance. Again it was the union responsible
for the North American Aviation blockade at
lngleWood, Cal, which was broken only by
troops of the regular Army. Neither one was
a membership strike. They were communist
instructions.
The object in both cases was to prevent
the conversion of this nations industry from
peace to war and thus to assure Britain 8
defeat, as she stood alone against the Nazis
The communists planned the dissolution of the
United States into a mobocracy, under ex-
ternal force from triumphant Nazis and in
ternal communist force After that communist
dictatorship was to come. The plan changed
on June %, 1941, when Hitler double-crossed
his ally and the war became, in the view of
Mr. IhomaS' communist colleagues a cru
SADIE for freedom in which we were welcome
to participate. The communists even berated
us for not being able to send equipment to
Russia IN larger quantities, a failure which
was largely their own doing.
The soldiers in France are too busy with
more urgent matters to inform themselves
that two Of the more detestable communist
saboteurs involved in these two jobs have,
ever since, enjoyed deferments in the draft
on the ground that professional unioneers
they are essential to the war effort on the
home front. 1t is doubtful that Thomas will
remember to tell them that, Or that he will
explain the more spiritual aspect of CIO-union
ism as p-opounded by his valued colleague,
one Posner, known as Thomas de Lorenzo,
who said that if it came to a question OF
sacrificing some advantage for Mr.. Thomas
union sacrificing the life of an American
flier, he would let the flier die. The question
was one of deliberately retarded production
of fighting planes for the Navy. And SO deep
was the position occupied by Thomas and De
Lorenzo, under the political patronage of the
Commander in Chief, that even Frank Knox,
then secretary of the Navy, kept silent.
They were blasted out only when a subor-
dinate in the Navy department privately ap-
pealed to certain members of the press to
publieize this sector of labors gains under
the new deal. But it is incorrect to say that
they were blasted out. The one called De
Lorenzo got a vote of confidence from his
subjects who otherwise might have suffered
from epidemic broken-leg, and brother Roosee
velt's government, forced to offer some re-
buke, chose the mildest possible way. He got
80 days and a $500 fine for giving false data
on a government QUESTIONABLE, but nothing
for the sabotage. He may never serve the
80 days and the union may pay the fine.
This is the boldest political mission yet sent
to the troops The Presidents own forays
have the color, if not the exact odor of legiti-
macy. Mrs Roosevelt after all, d d go
through the masquerade of wearing a Red
Cross habit on her roundabout visit to her
political protege, Joe Lash, on Guadalcanal.
But the union politicians have no such excuse
or disguise for mission which is purely po-
ltical. They go as advocates of the fourth
term and of all Roosevelt's works and pur-
poses. The immediate object was to deceive
the troops by propaganda to which men SO
far from home and so preoccupied could not
have the answers.
''This strike talk is purely propaganda"
said one of them.
That there have been more h "a 10000