The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1944-10-08

and often disagree with them much many Of
his readers. His articles the good purpose Of
making people think.
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright, 1914, King Features Syndicate Inc.
NEW YORK-Do you remember the time
Fauntleroy kicked the old family coachman?
Fauntleroy had been running around insult
ing and bullying people generally for long
time. He had been brought up by his mama
who said she decided early in his childhood
not to cross him by governesses and tutors
who had to humor his whins. AS the twig is
bent and SO forth, and when he grew up his
ill-manners passed for honest candor and his
domineering attitude for highminded and adj
mirable tenacity.
| Being rich and Of the aristocracy he always
had following Of crumb-hunters and tlatter-
ers and when he rose to power they used him
to prosecute and insult people whom they
happened to envy for their success hate
for their superior ability or their decency.
They would think up sneering gags for him
to utter and he would snarl them in public
and the crumb-hunters, planted in the crowd
as a claque, would touch off the applause and
cheers and then run around to the stage door
to fall in with him as he was leaving and tell
him, hoy, you certainly laid them IN the
aisles. What man you are
Anybody who ran afoul of them was certain
to be smeared and it got so that many per-
sons who disagreed with them hesitated to
say so for fear of dirty remarks put into
Fauntleroy's mouth by his gag-men. The
crubsters would carry little pads Of paper
around with them and jot down nasty little
mites as they came to mind in the BARRIERS
chair or in saloons and weave them into
SPEECHES for Fauntleroy to hurl at the popu-
lace. They all got comfortable living out OF
this but in some cases the mean, malicious
satisfaction Of harassing and vilifying patrlo-
tic men and women whom they recognized
in their misanthropic souls as their superiors,
was more important than the pay.
And Fauntleroy, himself, having been toad
led to from childhood, grew to think OF HIM
self as one of the wonder-men OF the ages.
The whooped-up applause sounded authentic
to his ears and, like actor with a great
part, he forgot that he was just reciting lines
written for him by the crumb-hunters and de-
cided that he was a marvellous wit and
statesman, too. More than that IN time IN
some of his casual remarks which really ex-
pressed his own thoughts, he revealed that he
was coming to compare himself not only with
Lincoln but with Divinity. He found parallels
between his troubles and Lncoln's and people
who criticized him were held to be as evil
as those who had opposed Lincoln, the as
sumption here being that Lincoln was, in a
sense, a god and that al who ever resisted
him in anything were demons. Fauntleroy
even said that those who rejected some OF
his dicta were no better than scoffers at Holy
Writ. In fact he did write preface to the
New Testament for distribution to the soldiers.
| He and the crumb-hunters liked to charge
dishonesty and stealth to all opponents and
he came right out with charge of fraud be-
cause Congress wouldn't do his way on
soldier vote bill which the crumb-hunters had
designed to give them an advantage in the
election and cheat little on the Constitution
for which they did not have entire respect
anyway.
Then one day, Fauntleroy kicked the old
| family coachman.
| The coachman had always been docile and
submissive and Faunt1eroy had thrown him
quite a few crumbs in a hard political con-
test which actually made the difference be-
tween election and defeat. The coachman was
always bowling to Fauntleroy's whims and
tempers and laughing courteously at even the
worst of his gags from the crumbsters and
nobody ever thought he would rear back and
resent anything, no matter how insulting, in
cc4lsiderate and nasty. This submissivenesS
was due in part to the coachman's genuine
kindness, his desire to get along amlcab1y
with his fellow men and his sense OF place.
But possibly in some part it was due to a
superstition which had grown up that when
Fauntleroy had his Dutch up he was de-
vastating fighter. His nurse governess prob
ably would have had another opinion as to
that had she been present in those later days
to speak her piece. She might have said that
this was just the brattishness that could have
been tanned out of Fauntleroy with hair
brush during her time.
Fauntleroy kicked the old coachnan with
a public insult to him, individually, and to
the entire legislative body OF Congress, in
message written by the crurnbsters, rejecting
a tax bill.
At that, the old coachman seemed to 60
frantic He forgot his place, forgot the super
stiton about Fauntleroy's fury when his Dutch
was up and picked up a slat of wood and
slammed the astounded Fauntleroy over the
head with it, hollering, as he did so, land
furthermore. you can take your lousy job be-
cause quit
Well Fauntleroy's Dutch went down in
rush and he high-tailed it all the way to Hyde
Park. screaming Mana. Mana" which was
the old aristocratic name for nurse-gover-
ness.
When he felt safe up there, he sent the old
family coachman a telegram saying he really
| didn't mean to insult him and wouldn't he
reconsider and stay on the job?
And the coachman, reconsidered and stayed
and was sorry he had shown up with the