The Wilmington morning star., 1945-06-07

ers His articles serve the gooo purpose
of making people Think
Bv WEsTBROOK PEGLER
downright, 1915, BY King Features Syndicate.)
NEW YORK. - AS that wonderful new
world of the future comes higher and higher
find my enthusiasm for television well under
control. Television will be, for several years,
crude and expensive disappointment and
it's clients or consumers, will pay high for the
slow improvements of primitive experiment.
The gaudy come on which thousands of
Young fighting men are encouraged to believe
that they will rank as experts" at high sal
aries is a heartless imposition on their hopes
Not one in a hundred of these radio and radar
technicians will come out Of the service with
knowledge and experience in the field of cleo
tronics superior to that of garage mechanic
in the realm of automotive engineering.
They will be, in the MAN, mere electricians
with speciality serving propaganda which
intends to make Use of their skill in operating
this new means Of expression to the detriment
of the nation they preserved in war, and you
will find no more complicated sentence than
that in the works of Felix Frankfurter him.
self
When I say that television will be an ex-
pensive disappointment, rely on the example
of audio radio which has been a pretentious.
mysterious, over rated contraption all its life
to date. 1t has victimized the public to the
extent of millions of dollars with false prom
Uses and high prices for device whose inter-
nal works in mass production should sell prof.
| itably for few dollars backed by reliable
guarantees. The radio apparatus of the more
elaborate sets is no more efficient than the
same device in the cheap editions, which is
manner of saying that most of them, what
ever the price, are capricious and not depend
able After all these years they still crackle
to1I,
the manufacturing departments of the industry
have dealt more in promises and excuses than
in performance and good faith.
In the photograph department device has
been exploited as the greatest mechanical
marvel since the inveton of the wheel which is
in fact, clumsy faulty travesty on the com.
monplace timer that is part of the cheapest
automobile. This thing has from 80 seconds to
several minutes to make up its mind, move
into position and do its simple little job Of
turning the pancake or lifting it Up and away.
But the latest statistics on the subject, which
l just made up and personally guarantee, re-
veal that u per cent of them haven't worked
since Pearl Harbor and that, on the average
they work only "a times before the need arises
for mechanic at 81 an hour plus transporta.
ton to and from the job. This mechanism is
not fit to be mentioned with the ordinary dol
lar watch of 80 years ago. AS furniture, the
| cabinets, in which cheap wires, bulbs, coils
and moose-calls are housed, are arbitrarily not
at all superior to other factory made furniture
and are, in many cases, monstrous.
Meanwhile, the radio industry using these
| machines for its outlet, have been wanton in
| som cases and, at best, negligent in its stew
ardship. The air belongs to the American peo-
| pie but it has become an avenue of political
propagand and Communist penetration. And
in its presentation of news in the form of COM
| mentaries, radio has permitted known rascals
to exploit personal grudges against distinguish.
| ed citizens without giving the victims chance
to defend themselves.
| 1t has been sad that the newspapers also
employ professional opinionarians to analyze
news and that is correct. But the difference
is that radio welcomes as a martyr any psy
chopathic liar who has been thrown out of the
paper because of proven malice and falsehood
and at present provides an audience for one
set of blackguardS while denying the same
facilities to another group. If it barred Com
munists and the evil personalities which
voice their propaganda as resolutely as it
smothers two or three notorious preachers of
hate of the opposite school, it would deserve
public trust and respect But the simple truth
is that radio has been morally yellow and is
preparing com-uppance which may be pain
full to many more people than just those who
are implicated in this performance.
| Television plans to use Hollywood movies
| and ham in the flesh as a social force"
disguised as entertainment and education This
is an oninous intention in view of the politica al
record Of the moving picture industry and con-
sidering the leering cynicism of so many actors,
hack writer's, magnates and serio-comic movie
politicians. BY way of ''educating the Ameri-
can people, television plans to repeat the audio.
radio affronteries of the Political Action Com
mittee and charge the victims of this conspir.
acy outlandish prices for experimental trash
| which will be obsolete soon after it hits the
market
Samuel j. Novick is one of those who have
had the fine pubic spirit to organize tele.
visio: company to enlighten the American PEG.
pie on social and political problems after the
war. That is particularly kind of Mr.. Novick,
considering chat he comes from Russia, but
popular gratitude will be less than it might
4 be when the patients are reminded that he
has associated himself with a group of com.
munists in the new concern, that he has a
radio company in Mexico and, finally, that he
is the radio sponsor of the thief Gailmor, aged
"a, weight 200 pounds in his police pedigree.
who has poured out Communist propaganda and
even lectured sick soldiers Under army aus
pieces while better men fought his battles.
Television has a generous plan for the chill
I'D in that wonderful world of the future.
the idea being to throw television right into
the public schools, using both movies and ham
; on the hoof wired direct from Hollywood. Thus.
the kiddies will learn further developments
in the lessons of the films which thus far have