The Wilmington morning star., 1944-01-09
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER

NV YORK. - Al Schacht, the baseball
clown, tells story of a pair of comedians
in vaudeville who, like Schacht and his old
in public but were strangers and sometimes
worse off-stage. In the course of their rough
and-tunble, Mr.. Schacht n Mr.. Altrock
sometimes would take little bark off or
bleed a lip for arts sake, bu. each was
always little suspicious that the other did
it, as they used to say, on purpose, and So
through much of their long association, they
would dress in silence and go their separate
ways after work.
T. The vaudeville comedians of Mr. Schacht's
story did dance in wooden shoes at one
point If which they reach a peak of hlarity
by kicking one another in the pants Each
thought the other was unnecessarily robust
in this and they fell to fighting in their dress
ing room to the embarrassment of the artists
who followed them on the bill. This became
great nuisance, with their angry shouts
penetrating the auditorium so, eventually
they were warned that if it happened once
more they would be cnceled and left to find
their own way back to New York
That very night Mr.. Schacht said, lit
happened again. They kicked each other with
great vigor and, at the end of the act, bowed
off and hurried to their dressing room. There
moved a wooden shoe and beat the other
over the head but as they did so, each would
put a finger to his lips and say, "sh-sh-sh!"
1 use this anecdote in the manner of a
$50 speaker at a luncheon club to point up
painful embarrassment of the people. in
GLIDING the politicians of this beloved republic,
in our need of conducting presidential cam
paign in time of war in the sight and hearing
of not only our friends but our enemies. 1t
&c o1y no of 10 Outc who
to get in to point out the sins, errors and
fallacles of the party in power and that cannot
be done in private and with finger to the
lips and in whispers. The neighbors are sure
to overhear, and those who are not members
of our happy family cannot understand that
disturbance which to them has the sound
of mass murder, is only routine domestic
row. Had they but heard the late Huey Long
and his henchrnen in the Louisiana dictator
ship calling their opponents skunks, liars and
llegtimates, and vice versa and seen the
rivals drinking and conniving together on af-
fectonate terms after election or other turn
of political events, they might realize that
usually our sound and fury signifies no very
serious threat to national integrity.
The high Washington official, described in
an awkward journalistic term 1.-The source
undoubtedly knew that the railroad and steel
workers would be persuaded one way or an
other, not to strike, or anyway, not for long,
but was figuring up the effect on the morals
of the enemy's satellites not the actual OBJ
struction of the war effort The Germans
forbid strikes and would massacre the lead
ers and key participants in any discussion
of a strike, so naturally the enemy would be
heartened by our strike news to believe that
the principal producer of war materials for
our side was coming apart at the seams 1t
is easy to agree with the sources emohonal
exclamation that this talk of strikes was the
"damnedest crime because the strikes were
unnecessary and. according to William Green
| we're only bluff as to the railroad men.
| But in our national politics there can be
neither unity nor secrecy IN presidential
YEAR President Roosevelt Will be attacked
| for his new deal for Pearl Harbor, Tor block
aiding remedial labor legislation IN congress,
for thousands of strikes and threats OF strikes
and their effect the morale OF our own
FIGHTERS and friend and toe for refusing to
hand over Lepke to Governor Dewey and Tor
the barring mystery of the income tax forms,
On the other hand, his side will call the op-
position tories and copperheads meaning trait
| ors Hitlerites obstructionists and diSrupters
and they too, will be heard by the audience
| out in the theater. There will be, as always,
some axggeration and some inserity, on
both sides, and friends and enemies both will
wonder how any nation so angrily divided
can hope to fight as one
That is just our way. We can't help it
and we have no equivalent of the silencng
.device of the e1nbittered wooden-shoe dancers.
It is one of the things that the country is
| fighting for.
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