The Wilmington morning star., 1944-11-27

WITH Cnem as nucn as many OF MS read
ers. His articles serve the good purpose
| Of making people think.)
BY WEsTBROOK PEGLER
| Copyright, 1914, by King Features Syndicate)
| NEW YORK.-The convention of the Aneri-
| cen Federation of Labor in New Orleans pro-
duced two shocks.
| First. General George c. Marshall, the chief
of staff of the Army, and Lieut. Gen. Brehon
B. Somerven revealed that American soldiers
| fighting the Germans have been handicapped
| by shortages of ammunition, tanks, trucks,
tires wire and other equipn1en..
| Second, they both buttered with undeserved
political praise an auxiliary OF President
Roosevelts party which, contrary to their
tributes, has had absolutely nothing to do
with the production which, in General Mar
shalps words, enabled the Americans to
wrest the initiative from the enemy in every
theatre of war; Such hooking nonsense
might have been expected from Somervell.
| But Marshall always hitherto has been above
politics and he cannot but know that unions
Of the A. F. of L. have used the war as an
opportunity to shake down the workers and
the government for hundreds OF millions OF
dollars and have been guilty of innumerable
strikes many of them for trivial causes and
al of them ineXcuSable and III violation OF
the Wanted no-strike pledge.
It simply is not true that the A. F. OF L.
helped make it possible to seize the Initiative
and if General Marshall really believes that
it did contribute in the slightest degree to
this achievement then he has been deceived
to an extent which seems impossible in man
of his intelligence and judgment
The workers, yes. They did this job, such as
it has been to date which now seems to have
been nexcusably short of requirements. But
| the fact that most of them are union people
under the compulsion Of the Roosevelt ma
chine and, in countless cases, have been COM
peeled to pay the union racketeers initiation
fees of $50 and up even for the privilege OF
working at the meanest pick and-shovel jobs,
reflects no credit on the A. F. Of L. They
would have done the same work as free men
and women and probably would have built
and produced faster.
Was the A. F. Of L. helping to wrest the
initiative from the Germans when a gang OF
racketeers held up the construction OF the pipe
line from Texas to the east in an attempt to
shake down citizens who wanted no part Of
the union knowing it to be low racket?
Did the A. F. Of L. help when racketeer
in Rochester. N. Y, called the operating en-
gineers off an important construction job with
sudden epidemic OF an illness which he
said could be cured by a raise OF Is cents
an hour?
Is Roosevelts friends. Dan Tobin, Of the
Transfers union, contributing to victory and
Of local rs, in Boston, drives 5000 truckmen
to the desperate remedy of strike which has
piled up freight far outside Boston and even
clogged shipments Of war materials, includ-
ing explosives, so desperately needed for the
assault on the Rhine?
These are only examples. recalled without
reference to the files, Of thousands OF incl
dents which more than compensate any help
fli and productive results which could be cred
tied to the obdurate and selfish unioneers of
the A. F. of L. by their most devoted friends,
Of whom General Marshall has no reason to
call himself one.
And, even in projects and industries where
there have been no strikes, the A. F. Of L. has
been no more than an employment agency
and always serving its own interests first and
those OF the fighting men thereafter and only
incidentally. 1t has been crawling with racke-
teers. especially in the construction trades
which collected tribute from practically all
tie jobs in the war building program And,
though many Of these vermin have been lie.
soundingly exposed, the A. F. of L. has never
yet moved to throw one of them out or adopted
any cons titutional provision to bar them from
union office.
But it is the more alarming that these high
army officers, timing their revelations until
after election, should now tell the country that
production of arms and equipment needed
By our troops is tagging on 40 per cent Of the
program
1.-TWO thirds of this 40 per cent are the criti
cal items desperately wanted on the fighting
II onts - Somervell said, in an announcement
that would have come more appropriately
and with better faith from Washington and
by itself than mingled with undeserved compli-
ments to partisan political group in New
Orleans
This shortage whether due to miscalcula-
ton and conservative planning or to strikes
and man-wasting union rules, surely cannot
have developed suddenly in the three weeks
since election and must have been known to
Marshall and Somervell when, on the night
Of October 49, Roosevelt boosted in his Phila.
delphia speech of his own magnificent JOB OF
furnishing the fighters down to the last
cartridge and getting it all to them at the
right place at the right moment.
When he impressed the people to whom ne
was appealing for votes with such 1lgures
as ''three million long tons montn. requir-
ing SIT cargo ships and the movement OF
more than IA million barrels OF oil and gaso-
line 2 month, requiring 1855 tanker sal1lngs'
were Marshall and Somervel unaware mat
these statistics represented not success but
shortage? And if the news is not restricted IN
formation now and helpful to the enemy why
was it withheld then?
specifically we need now, as matter OF
the utmost urgency more artillery ana mortar
ammunition, more tanks, more heavy trucks
and tires, more field and assault wire, more
tentage and more radar equipment General
l "A.