The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1944-11-02
Fair Enough

| Fair Enough
Editors note-The Star and the News
| accept no responsibility for the personal
views of Mr. Pegler, and often disagree
with them as much as many OF his read
ers His articles serve the good purpose
of making people Think
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright 1914, by King Features Syndicate.)
NEW YORK; know as well as the next
one that in any political campaign nominee
is going to pick his spots when he pokes out
his chin turns on the old righteous glare and
saws after AL Smith, well, let's look at the
record"
So, to beat you to it, will admit that in
this one Tom Dewey isn't going around point
ing out his own mistakes and betting himself
over the head. But, in the same scrupulously
fair and objective mood, a marvellous quality
for which these deathless essays are famous
and destined to become political treasures for
posterity, 1 must point out that Mr.. Big is
the guy who is really playing hop scotch
around the land mines because, as Dewey
said last week. the fellow just isn't honest.
There are some things he just doesn't dare
discuss and one of them is that gift of his
ancestral home at Hyde Park to the national
government in gratuitous recognition of his
own historic splendor and the snappy accept
ance Of this burdensome old heap by Harold
Ickes whose own morality so melodiously con-
sists with that of the head man and the whole
tone of the administration.
There is no evidence that this memorial will
enrich the life of the American people in time
to come nor any basis for the assumption, in
herent in the deal, that posterity will rank
President Roosevelt above President Grant as
a constitutional executive or his administra-
ton above that of Warren G. Harding in mat
tiers Of honesty and ethics. How do they know
that posterity will want to be reminded of
Roosevelt and his works any more than ab-
solute necessity compels? Why weren't they
willing to let posterity make the decisions?
will tell you why. The reason was that for
al his reputation for generosity, created by
tearing up other peoples money. Roosevelt is
very chincy fellow as his wife told us in her
book which I will bet she now wishes she had
never written, whatever the profits may have
been, because it has turned out to be the
best Republican campaign document of ALL
By donating this dump to the people he re-
ievedhs estate Of liability which, under
the inheritance tax, would have cost his heirs
much more as bequest than they could hope
to sell it for Even now the market for such
creaky, old fashioned up country head
aches is about as lively as Sheridan's horse
and if you would like to take on the responsible
ity I think I could get you your choice of
of the papers.
Other aristocrats have demolished mansions
as good or better lest they die seized and
possessed of a m e and some actually were
blown up with dynamite to save the cost of
demolition by hand. And we have before US
few years ago the pathetic case of a far
sighted millionaire, with business like pre-
monition of death and taxes, who went tear
fully from the local to the town, county, state
nj yyifh
to accept his beautiful but dismal and enor-
mously expensive estate as public museum
and park.
The guardians Of the purse, however, scru-
tinized the old guys features and observed
his faltering step with ghoulish eyes and fought
off his generosity. After it had beer duly taxed
as a bequest they could buy it from the
heirs for much less than it represented in
taxes on the top bracket of his estate
Anyway, they didn't want it for a museum
and park because in that status it would have
come off the tax rolls and burden of all the
neighbors including the wage-earning owners
OF modest homes, would have increased ac-
ccrdingly which is precisely the case in the
Roosevelt deal
There is no future for these old piles. Their
plumbing is out of date, the heating systems
are wasteful, the designs call for great invest
ments in furniture and the payrolls for stats
OF 10 or Is household servants cannot be met
out Of the $25, 900 maximum income which Mrs
Roosevelt proposed, in interesting coincidence
with an old plank of the communist PLATFORM
and the old man tried to put into effect by
fiat after Congress had slapped her down.
A rich union may buy big old house as
retreat in which an uncle Dan Tobin may
get away from it all to preserve his precious
health for the benefit of his subjects or Father
Divine may pick up one here and there as an
annex to his Harlem heaven Religious bodies
accept few from aging owners who feel an
expanse of piety proportionate to the impend-
ing inheritance taxes and others become sum-
mer hotels or places of detention for high
toned rum-pots and queries. Otherwise, no
market
Mr.. Big and his family, however, retain the
use of their place until the last Of his children
expires, by which time it will no longer appeal
to anyone as a dwelling and the kids will
escape the inheritance tax in the top bracket
because they aren't going to inherit it. They
are out from under and good old gibbering,
SOLDERING common people stuck with it,
which serves them right, at that, because no
matter what he has done to them these last IL
years. up to now they have always mumbled,
s'Do it again, we love it,
Another off the record that Mr.. Big isn't
quoting in his orations is the one about the
difference between the cost of running h e |
White House in Herbert Hoover's time and in
the years when the selfless friend of the little
people was entertaining the hams and hacks
Of Broadway and Hollywood and Harry Hop