The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1945-02-07


serve the good purpose of making people
think.)
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
copyright, 1915, by King Features Syndicate.)
am beginning to be troubled by horrible
fear that wronged Harold Ickes when, during
the presidential campaign I called him in
print penny ante chiseler.
Although there is scarcely any saving or
profit too small for his notice, Mr.. Ickes is
chisel large profit, too, and so I am happy
to do him the justice of re-classifying him
as an open class chseler. I am happy to
award him this welldeserved promotion.
In the story of his life, Mr.. Ickes called
himself a curmudgeon, choice with which
would be the last person in the world to
quarrel, the definition of a curmudgeon being,
in my dictionary, IAN avaricious, churlish fell
low: niggard, niser and the synonyms for
churlsh given as "surly, sullen, Grabbed
Incidentally, although his memory seemed
excellent in ancient matters relatively trivial,
nowhere in these memoirs OF atfectlonate self
approval did our avaricious, churlish niggard
and miser confide to his readers how it was
that he, an .impecunous study-boy, nickeling
his way through school, then into journalism,
at which he flopped and finally into the law,
suddenly, became man OF riches.
He had sneered at Wendell Wilkes asso-
Citations with Wall street, which was the region
of Franklin D. Roosevelt's early adventures
with other peoples money, but modesty, or
perhaps finer motives deferred him from ex-
planning that he married the rich ex-wife of
another man as a preliminary to his with
drawal from the squalor and other dlsadvan-
tageS of life in Chicago, to reside In pleas
ant suburb on a street listed in his biographl
cal data as "Private Road"
My first knowledge of the avaricious and
misery character of Mr. Ickes came of some
inquiry in Washington prompted by casual
news item relating that he was ill in the
Naval hospital. Knowing that the Washington
public hospitals were overcroWded and even
less cheerful than most, and prompted by an
out-moded resentment against special prl-
vilege, 1 made inquiries and learned that Mr..
Ickes was to a large extent a guest OF the
taxpayers.
he was paying a nominal Naval rate which
would not have hired beaver-board booth
in an ancient Georgetown garnet. He was,
moreover, violating the law which provided
only that doctor from the hospital should
attend the members of congress and said
nothing about rest cures for rich and avarl-
ciouS miSers OF the cabinet.
Admitting not one such sojourn but two,
our surly preceptor in citizenship, democracy
and honesty added, in naive expression of
the sense of special class and privilege which
pervades the New Deal household, that really
the public hospitals were very bad. Thus, he
didn't have to say, not good enough for him.
Since then, my numerous little sheafs of
love notes concerning the prince of avarice,
tied with barbed wire and scented with asafoe-
tida, has grown and grown. And it contains
now another Renaissance, even more beauti-
fully expressive of that graSplng nature than
the allegations in the Chicago tax case.
The first Mrs. Ickes was killed in an auto
mobile accident in New Mexico, in August
1885, while riding IN hire car owned and
driven by Frank Allen, of Gallup. Mrs. Ickes
had known Mr. Allen about five years in the
status of client and had expressed great con-
fdence in his driving. The car was no liv-
cry limousine but desert ford and renting
and driving for hire was Mr.. Aliens means
of livelihood for himself his wife and their
five minor children.
Preoccupied, perhaps, with problems of in
heritance in Chicago where contention soon
developed over the distribution of his late wifes
millions, our curmudgeon couldn't find time
to go to New Mexico. However, in due course
and in disciplined obedience to that grasping
character with which he has publicly and
somewhat proudly endowed himself in the title
of his book the voice and spirit of the New
Deal did file suit against the estate of
Mr.. Allen. He demanded $500 on the general
ground that Mr. Allen had been a public
carrier not unlike rich and soulless cor
poration operating a railroad
Meanwhile, however, the district attorney
had Investigated the accident and a coroner's
jury, after an inquest, had fixed no blame. \
Mr.. Allen, was a one man business of
the type for whom the hearts of the New
Deal in particular the hearts of Henry Wal
lace, Sidney Hllman and the Communist Poll
teal Education society, bleed He left
an estate of Sc, AL, including two life insurance
policies, for the protection of his wife and
children.
Business, however, is business and, true to
the principles which have been his guide from
the day when he succeeded to the luxurious
estate of the dispossessed first husband the
conscientious miser in Washington pressed his
claim. Moreover, he might have taken his
pound of flesh but for a peculiar kink in the
law of New Mexico which held that the right
to sue expired with the defendant unless the
suit had been filed before his death Mr.. Allen
had died of his own injuries within a few
days and the avaricious Mr.. Ickes, with SO
many other property interests at loose ends,
had delayed too long
The residue of Mr.. Aliens estate, after his
debts had been paid, was $685.. And the thought
that Mr. Ickes might have had it for himself
but for error of timing is one that Wrlngs
my own great and mushy heart for him.
Of all the stories told of Mr.. Ickes by him
self and others, this one seems most fully
and poignantly to express the soul of the