The Wilmington morning star., 1944-10-14

responsibility fer the personal views Of Mr. PesIer
s.d eft.a disagree with them .. nssh Is many u
his rsaderH His articles serve the good purposs Of
making people think.
By WESTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright 1914. King Features Syndicate, Inc.
/ NEW YORK.-At the end of Harold Ickes'
speech at the dinner of the Hollywood commu-
nists and their fellow-travelers, Gene Fowler
who had heard the Grafton by radio, turned
to w. c. Fields and remarked: IF this fellow
keeps on talking, Dewey is going to lick Roose-
welt with the jaw-bone of an ass.''
Mr.. Ickes had made merry over the fact
that Lionel Barrymore, who had been i'll for
a long time, greeted Tom Dewey from wheel
chair when Dewey arrived in Dos Angeles on
his recent tour, and, on the evening of Dew
ey's political meeting, did not even send the
empty wheelchair to represent him. This re-
mark was in contrast to that compact of civ
| iized decency which, throughout Ickes long
term on the public payroll in Washington, had
forbidden reference to the infirmities of
stricken man. By the same unspoken and un-
written understanding all men and women
above that ethical sub-stratum which may be
termed the 1ckes level, instinctively forbear
to mock the lame or halt or blind for their
impairments. Some children, of course at the
barbarian stage, do yell "Gimpy at the neigh
borhood cripple or Cray Bob at the village
moron But mostly, their mothers rebuke them
and they soon learn better and, surely, few
young ones of this day will mock the Ameri-
can soldier who taps the sidewalks with
| stick because he lost his eyes at Anzio or
shuffles, hobbies or witches in his stride or
rides in mechanical chair.
Ickes, however, who tainted Lionel Barry
more because he is crippled with arthritis.
might respect no such restraints. This leer-
ing was authentic Ickes humor, and consistent
with the spirit of a man who got rich by a
method which he forebore to explain in an
otherwise detailed and boastfm story of his
life The missing chapter. the sudden rise
from the financial status of a humble and
handwashing Johnny One-Sut to that of sue
cessor to a rich woman's first and recently
divorced husband might have charmed his par
ticular section of the Hollywood public but Of
Tended the primitive priggishness of many 9TH
er Americans. The prigs may be contemplate
but their votes do count and one does not
challenge their moral idiosyncrasies by boast
ing of a romantic coup, with pleasant eco
nomic consequences.
The element to which Ickes was speaking
was not, as one might suppose, altogether
cynical and vile. The communists, of course,
predominant and out-voice the men and WON,
en-, actors, writers and others, Of the luxuri-
Gus class. who are democrats or even new
dealers for honest motives and convictions.
There are many among this group who know
the color of the politics and liver of Charlie
Chaplin, the one red, the other white, and
distinguish between political license and DEM
agogic bestiality. And so, that night, the hor-
rid taunt to distinguished and respected col
league, delivered in a ribald appeal to politi
cal passion, was followed by sharp drop in
temperature. 1t was as though Fowler, speak
ing to Bill Fields, many miles away, had
conveyed to the decent Democrats of Holly
wood his inspired thought that if this fellow
talked much more, Dewey would lick Roose
welt with the jawbone of an ass.
So strong is the instinct of decency in our
standard American journalism that, in most
of the published accounts of Ickes speech,
dignity and kindness of which he was, him.
self, SO brutally ignorant, protected him. This
| sneering reference to sick mans nlisfor
tune was deleted in the standard press al
though it probably will be exploited in the
leftish publications which now, in a sort of
English, emulate the nasty little ephemerae
which cluttered the news-stands of Paris, Ma
drid and Barcelona.
These two incidents, the Dewey rally with
81, 900 Americans present in Los Angeles where
the communists have wrought so zealously for
20 years and the antics of the visiting crutch-
kicker, may serve to publicize the fact that
the opposition in Hollywood is strong patriotic
and defiant Hundreds of actors, writer's and
directors and few producers, have stood
FAST unorganized and ostracised, against con-
pered smears. They are, in the main, Demo
Gratis but anti-communist and anti-fourth-term
The movie industry, as a whole has been
subidiary, for propaganda of the new deal
and in favor of communism or communistic
elements and ideas. 1t has ridiculed Congress
to the point of utter detestation. 1t has damned
the American press, preached the futility and
failure of the American way of life and gov
eminent and extolled the system which de-
liberately organized CHASTITY famines and mass
deportations The movie industry has never
examined it's own corruption, however, or pro-
duced single film which criticized the ten
denotes Of the Roosevelt government.
It has taken courage there in Hollywood to
nout and fight the continental influence and
invite the insidious persecution practised by
the native communist e m n t who were
among the hosts to Ickes when he guyed an
afflicted man.
Fowler, Fields, James K. McGuinness, Zasu
Pitts, Jeanette Macdonald, Walt Disney, Leo
Garlic, Frank Craven, Iona Massey, Lionel
Barrymore, Walter Pidgeon, Ralph Morgan,
Ginger Rogers Edward Arnold, Claire Trevor,
Leo McCarey and hundreds Of others, famous,
with everything to lose or obscure, with ev-
erything to gain, have defied the terror.
The cheese-cake glamor of Mrs. Roosevelts
| friend, Helen Gahagan, turned to senescent
l MI YAy,fin nv owl &IN