The Wilmington morning star., 1944-12-08
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
nv r;oht. 1914, by King Features Syndicate. )

,Conxr
NEW YORK-Ever since last May, I have
been beating myself over the head with
sort of manifesto, issued at the time by Pro-
fAsscr Albert Einsteln to the National war
Time conference, urging us intellectual work
avg nj the world to unite. The conference seems
~ have been an intellectual Olympic games
n which rs scientific. professional and white
col1ar organizations took part, although l must
cav that I never did hear who won the team
cha7,nionship the swims or the quarter-half-
n6-fifty-s1x. ~s
10 vo,. know what the quarter-haH and-fifty
six is? Or was? well, it is bad form to dlgress
This way, but it used to be a combination
event in 1ae track and field meets in which
the athletes had to run the quarter and the
half and then heave the 56-pound weight
s,,nnose it was the forerunner OF the stream
lined pentathlon and the decatholn.
Little Al Copeland, the old-tinle professional
sumter, used to tell us about 1t when most us
o,d spoft.writers of the era of wonderful non
sense. we're very. very young. AL was, as he
uce3 to saw. two pounds lighter than straw
hat and a cocky. temperish little man who
covered the hores-tracks as writer IN his
latter years but, back In the nneteS, had
been track coach at one or more OF the Dig
eastern colleges. In his professional days he
ran in the old downtown Madison Square Gar
was the Q-H-and-56, because he could easily
out-foot the big, beefy slobs in the quarter and
half and still win, though he couldn't even lift
the S. much less flip it down the and
out the back door.
On the night that Paavo Nurmi made his
American debut a professional amateur
athlete Al sat there at the Fourth avenue end
of the old heap, fascinated by the shape of the
fabulous Firms wonderful legs and watching
him clock himself around and around the track,
with a Wrist-Watch and, just casually, blurted
the most distinctive case history of a slang
expression that I recall hearing firSt-hand in
all my association with those interesting peo-
pie whom reporters are forever meeting
He was shifting the wonderful goat s-nest
smells of the old garden, that bouquet of pea
nuts, rub-stuff, bumbs, barber-water, slum
mers, elephants, brocco-the-bike-rider, zip-the-
whatizzit and Tammany hall, which prevailed
the block even after they had torn the pile
down, and then he asked Dan Ferris and me.
do you know where we got the phrase Give
MIN the works?"'
We said, sure it came from the bootleggers
who were current then and popping off there
friends with Thompson guns for social and
mathematical errors. When hoodlum erred,
his colleagues gave him the works. Al Cope
land said no. it came from back in the days
when professional sprinters were supposed to
be amateurs and the indoor track meets were |
and no athlete was supposed to get anything |
Of value for his efforts, perhaps a gold-plated
watch. If convicted Of accepting remuneration
the amateur athlete would be suspended and
lose his livelihood But, after all, he had to eat
so the promoters used 10 present their big
winners, of whom Al was one with watches
minus the works In private, he would then
open the case and find $50 bill or $500 en-
closed ard return the case for refilling at the
next meeting. But sometimes, INSCRIPTIONS
fly-by-aight promoters would give Al or Spar
Robertson watch containing the actual
gears and sprockets and this was dirty trick
which. as long ago that was known as
giving guy the works, total value 81.
commend this information to Henry Menck- !
en- for the next >revsion of his American Ian
euage with foot-note to Al Copeland.
Well for goodness sakes, look where I am, |
with old man Einstein blowing on his blue
fingers out there in the alley waiting for me to
cue him in.
Oh well, was just going to carry on frivol-
ously about the customs of unions as applied
to us intellectuals 1 was just going to yelp
like a sea lion on tub and toss myself an
over-ripe islemorado mullet in the shape OF a
suggestion that once intellectuals were Or
ganized into union, with representative Tor
collective bargaining and working conditions,
we would refuse to think faster than very
slew standard rate, refuse to think more than
~ or, possibly, 81 hours d WeGlA, dllu 1C1uoC
to out-think each other comparatively for fear
of killing the job by thinking up more thoughts
+ran the public could absorb at the time This,
as Prof. Einsten may have forseen, although
impute no monkey-business tc him, might
create surplus which could be warehoused
in some kind of intellectual deep-freeze and
held for high, scarcity price while we intel
lectuals sold apples around the Blltmore, |
which is the headquarters in campaign time,
of the Democratic National committee.
Me, don't want to belong to any thinkers
union I think al odd hours, fast or slow, dur
able thoughts or consumer stuff. l am self
employed thinker with formal office hours
nor behOlden to any time clock. Sometimes I
think in bed when the union couldn't very
well check on me for scabbing the job and
often think secretly when nobody would sus-
pect me of un-unon-lke activity. what with
NV blank and loose-mouthed expression I
Just cant help it, love my work and I am
crazv over thinking even though Prof. Elm
stein NAV. be able to switch it off at quitting
.ifne and go blank till the whistle blows again
And, finally, l am not sure whether Prof.
E.lnsteins manifesto represents thinking or de-
libriunn.
One of these days I may quote from this
manifesto SO that you may judge whether he
is thinking thoughts or just messing up intel
ectual Jaw material and turning out product
that couldn't be used even by the bobby OK
trade.
-V-