The Wilmington morning star., 1944-12-17
nv wEsTBROOK PEGLER

of making people think)
BY WEsTBROOK PEGLER
| Copyright, 1914, by King Features syndicate.)
| NEW YORK, AS to whether it is good
thing will not be arbitrary but, anyway, it
is fact that the good people of our whilom
| happy land are becoming breed OF scuttle-
butt or guardhouse lawyers, meaning the kind
who think they know the law and their rights
by ear and can and do argue eternally about
the Constitution and why the cops or the
government can't do this or that to law
abiding citizen. AS an opinion l would say
that this is unfortunate because life was much
serener when the laws were few and all of
them done in black and white so that people
could know instinctively what was wrong and
conduct themselves accordingly.
| It was unlawful and you could be fined 81
for leaving your horse without hitching
weight or, in winter, without a blanket and,
on Sundays and election days, in most we'll
governed cities, the saloon-keepers were sup
posed to pull down the shades and lock the
front door, leaving the side or family entrance
open, however, for invalids who might be
taken bad and need a spoonful of brandy.
The saloon-keepers were a respectable lot,
and, generally speaking, did draw the blinds
man forced by his duty to make an arrest
for open and defiant violation of law and pub
| lie opinion.
Few families and individuals who lived in
rented premises in the cities and towns Were
bothered about taxes even though there were
local tax laws which theoretically required
them to pay something their household
goods Once in a few years, the assessor,
would select a block in a neighborhood and
60 from door to door and be invited in to
look around but usally, he would be out
and gone in minute and that would be
the last of it.
Once each summer, on the average, the
dog-catchers would come around with few
poor sad NUTS squatting in the cage with
shame and humiliation written in their Woe
begone faces but the policemen were neigh
borly and word would spread like fire before
a high wind.
The dogs along the block would vanish into
their respective homes to be hidden until
scouts failing the dog-wagon would come back
and give the all clear. The dog-catchers were
cunning, like Indians, though and some times
they would hurry around the block and come
through again but the law-abiding citizens of
the younger set were no dummies, either
and Their maneuver never trapped any dogs
in our block.
The only casualties were suffered in the
first surprise but even then, you could get
l.
man called at the alderman's house that night
and sang him song about the broken-heart-
ed BARNS.
The only federal law that anybody was
really aware of was the one against monkey
ing with the United States mails. We had no
idea how the government could have caught
you, if in the dark of night, you filched
postcard or letter from a neighbours box,
but we had all heard of the Postoffce in
spectors and knew the punishment would be
sure and swift and pretty awful and so the
mails were inviolate.
Possibly big business men had problems
that the people were oblvious Of and it is
the people, then compared with now, that
l am thinking of in their relation to the law.
About their worst pitfalls were dealings with
the installnent furniture people who would
be around with a writ and a wagon and
snatch it all back if you got careless with
one of the final payments and pile on charges
which they called court-costs and lawyers
fees, and the loan-sharks who would eat you
up and stop your pay and hound you from
job to job and even from town to town.
These troubles were real bad but, even so,
you didn't have any doubt where you stood
under the law. You didn't have Chinaman's
chance and that all there was to that
AS to the other laws, of course everybody
knew it was illegal to blow safe stick
people up and anyway, these were practises
OF the criminal classes, exclusively, so the
people didn't have to bother their heads about
their constitutional rights in such matters.
But look you now!
If you don't get it up for old Sam on
dough day, he begins to grind you in and
the dizzy law is written SO that you are
damned whether you do or don't because not
even the treasury agents cah agree on a
given case.
Then the draft. A fellow with a pre-Pearl
Harbor child given a pass and started
a little store his savings and some credit
but then was drafted, anyway, and had to
sell out close up, park the family with rela-
tves and report. Then, in six weeks, ne was
back, broke and with his business gone. He
had heart trouble all the time, Now, maybe
he will be going again.
Can they do that to him? He thinks not,
but they did,
Or citizen and taxpayer in one town
takes a little job installing sink in another
little town close by and the law clips him
for $10O fine because ne didn't take an examl-
nation from the local plumbers and pay a
$50 license fee to cut in their Balkan
monopoly 4,
He is a foreigner in another town five miles
away in his own home state
Or he thinks he had better help make bull
lets for the war or build ships and the War
Labor Board says he must pay $3.50 to
union for the job Howling they can't do that
to him. he walks off so the draft board grabs I
him and to. the war he goes, still yelling
pertinent excerpts from the Constitution and