The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1944-09-02
Fair Enough


Editor. Note:-rhs star and the News accept nc
and often disagree with them ~ much n many o.
his readers. His articles the COED psrpess o.
making people think.
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
! NEW YORK-You know how it is when yol
get lost in another.
I never did get what went for and almost
forgot what it was I wanted, digging into ole
debates on Negro Slavery.
| These wrangles were only hundred years
ago, which is only twice your age when you
are 50 and not such a formidable stretch Of
time as it seems when you are younger and
yet, in England, there was great agitation for
the abolition of the slave trade from Africa
and of slavery in the United States by men
who were, in practical manner of speaking.
shareholders, themselves, in their own coun-
try This point was brought out in one docu-
ment by a man who was Interested in the
preservation of slavery and though I tried to
chase it down I never found the reply, much
less refutation.
He said certain noble lord who was agitat-
d
lem which many Americans held to be strictly
our own affair, was actually holding white
English workers in bondage in his coal mines,
while living on the fat of the land himself The
mines then at least, wer not equipped for
ventilation fire prevention and the occupa-
tional risk of the miners was great, what with
asphyxation, explosions and fires. Moreover,
tho rod ~
that for about eight months Of the year they
never did see daylight, except on Sunday, and
were becoming purblind like the ponies they
worked with, or deep-Water fish, Their wages
were peanuts although there might be some
margin in the fact that even down to 1914, a
shot of Scotch in an ordinary London bar cost
only 4 cents, and other necessaries of life were
proportionately cheap, and lit seems that they
couldn't lay up cent for depression periods
which came unexpectedly. My Uncle George,
who seems to have been Methodist clergy
man and abolitionist of some importance in
this country along toward the SOS, related in
his life and times, published by the Wesleyan
Methodist Publishing House, of Syracuse, in
1879, that this old man had two wives (con-
secutively, of course) and Is children, of whom
Uncle George never saw more than 10 at a
time, and that he went to work helping his
mother spin hemp in his dads rope-walk in
London when he was only years old. Then
he ran away to sea at the age of and he tells
of some prodigious swimming around Bermuda
when small boat broke loose and he had to
go after it; so l have sometimes suspected
that Uncle George was a bit of liar around
the edges because you don't learn swimming
in rope-walk working as ships boy. /
don't mean he actually was my uncle, but.
| with that hn co,drt have been far
removed.
This Engishman in the slavery debate in
sisted that the slaves in Jamaica, where his
interests were, were better off than the white
men in this noble lords mines because they
were fed enough to keep them in fair shape
as property. whereas the miner had to feed
himself and when he went on relief in slack
times got only cents day. I gather that
this cents was for the whole family, not
per head, and moreover, this mineoWner didn't
pay it, nor the government, but the parish
or church.
Then, he said this lord had the gall to pro-
pose that during depressions the husbands
should be sent elsewhere away from their
wives, so that they wouldn't beget more
children to grow up and compicate the prob
lens of unemployment and over-populatlon;
and even to try to impose rule forblddlng
men to marry before the age OF 49, for the
same reason If a did marry premature
ly he was blackballed from the mines.
OF course this was strictly counter punch
ing which is not the. war to win fight, and
ENGLAND continued to agitate against slavery
in our country precedent for some of our
later intrusion in certain affairs of European
nations, while white Englishmen in their own
country actually were much worse off than
manv OF the Negro slaves. Here we are
again. for example, running terrible force
over ghettos in Europe as though we had no
ehettos of our own. And, for another thing,
like the noble English lord, here we are hol-
lering down fascism, with our professional
unioneers leading the chorus, while many Of
the loudest and angriest crusaders against
the foul philosophy, notable Mr. Roosevelt and
Sidney Hillman, are imposing on our country
regulations and restrictions straight out OF
the book Of Benito II Bum.