The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1944-07-28
Fair Enough

| 0sS
Editors Note.-The Star and tho News accept no
responsibility for the personal views of Mr. Pexler
and often disagree with them as much a. manv Of
his readers. His articles the good purpose Of
making people think
BY WEsTBROOK PEGLER
| NEW YORK-Time was. few wears aoo
when I could have told you the club for which
every regular ball player in the major leagues
was tolllng at given time, approximately
how well he hit and from which side of the
plant and where he picked up his glove was
weak on the tennis people because the hypoc-
rlsy OF their mock amateurism made me sore
SO got even, in my outing, juvenile way, by
ignoring them The college athletes all but
few exceptional box-otfice giants went by
so fast and in such confusing hundreds that
oefore man could memorize and peg them,
they were out and gone, to be met, some of
them, year or two later as unpretentious
young statesmen, doctors, lawyers and the like.
But l did know most of the fighters including
sudden young fellows in Sandusky or Seattle,
VINO seemed to be east-bound and likely to
be met one night in the garden or the stadi-
"a and the quality of the people they had
Licked, and I could argue, capably and with
many fancy twist of that knowledge which
Gene Tunney for a row; and let you pick
comes only Of hearty interest, that Dempsey.
at his best, could, couldn't, have knocked
your side OF the proposition. That figure of
speech about persons being knocked for
row. incidentally, was one Of the sturdy ba-
nalltles OF the era of wonderful nonsense,
meaningless but somehow, witty clche which
gave generous mileage and retired for age.
In favor of terrific, 'but definitely and
''too too divine.
The golden decade passed, and popular in
terest. although not forsaking sport entirely,
turned to new fields of celebrity-the movies
and radio, and later to the heroes and com.
manders OF the great war. My own interest
became fixed on politics and particularly on
that misty, murky underworld of conspiracy
known as the liberal movement which in
cluded the communists and of course the
malevolent but oily schemers of the union
front who had discovered in the house of
American Labor" the safest refuge of the
lazy and incompetent failure It was not a
popular interest as I learned for most of
our people were indifferent and too preoccu.
pied with similar and more obvious and pleas
ant concerns, but, in the menacng presence
OF the American adaptation of the European
program for usurpation and woe, as revealed
IN the Democratic convention in Chicago, the
time and effort seem to have been well spent
However, relatively few other Americans
probably not more than one in thousand
who know their Bob Hopes and Oracle Aliens
their CRADLES and Sinatras and their Eddie
Cantors, and know who got the Medal OF
Honor and for what, know anything about
the lineup Of hundreds of tireless individuals
and hundreds of organizations whose opera.
tons this year may change the form of gov.
eminent of the United States. The Ameri
cans have been treasured that this change
would not bring communism but merely
achieve liberal objectives'' and emancipate
that vague and faceless object called con-
temptuously, the common man. and they
have begged the difficult and controversial
duty to themselves of knowing the names and
associations and the resourceful methods OIL
Strangers who mean more to them, their
children and their country than all the rec
ords of Ruth and Cobb Hornsby and Frisch
and the scores of ole fighters and other ath-
letes and all the actors and band leaders,
whose achievements and flirtations, marriages
and earnings they know as surely as they
know their own telephone numbers.
Who among the Americans has ever heard
of Saul Mills, for example, and OF the greater
New York Industrial Council? What is his
political record and how does the council
stand on communism? Is it a communist Or
ganization and if so, what candidates it put
forward and what their politics? What
is the American Committee for Protection of
the Foregn-born? What is the Greater New
York Emergency Conference on Inalenable
Rights the International Labor Defense, the
Joint Committee for Trade Union Rights; who
is Franz Boaz, and where did he come from
and what are his politics; and who is Lewis
Merrill and what his name before he
was Merrill: and what is the United Federal
Workers of America, and who is Eleanor Mel
son. its secretary-treasurer?
Americans who know the records of their
golfers and the regional jurisdictions of the
Amateur Athletic Union, and what year it
was that Bobby Jones won all the titles there
were. know nothing about the persons and
groupings, the past performances, the changes
Of line, the political attitudes, now disguised
now defiant of the organization whose chief,
Sidney Hillman, with power to levy millions
of dollars from their own wages has declared
it's intention to elect the president of thef
American republic this year But they all
know that Babe Ruth holds the worlds rec
ord of go home runs. IL
r.