The Wilmington morning star., 1945-05-25
Nv WESTBROOK PEGLER

erS. His articles serve the gooo purpose
Of making people Think
BY WEsTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright, 1915, BY King Features Syndicate)
NEW YORK, My colleague Leon Racht
of the New York Journal-American, seems to
be surprised to learn that old Dan Tobin's
racketeers are still running their shakedown
on food coming into New York over the road
from the South and the editors apparently
considered this to be news too, for they gave
Mr. Racht big play on page one, Monday.
with a picture three columns wide showing
him disguised as truckman and putting up
an argument with Union agent identified as
Abe Spitzberg.
Mr.. Racht joined Virginia truck on the
Jersey side of the Hudson and rode up to the
unloading dock of commission house in Wash
ington street, New York, where Spitzberg nail
ed him with demand for $50 of which $50
was to be his fee for initiation into the team
sters' union and the other Sc his dues. Racht
said he was Virginia man who might never
come into New York again and therefore had
no Use for card in New York local but the
guy said he didn't give damn if Racht lived
in China and he would have to get it up or he
couldn't unload the eight tons of cabbage that
vas fixing to spoil unless it was put in the
cooler pretty soon.
Then a photographer shot their picture and
the guy got indignant and wasn't going to let
Leon have a card for any price, not that Leon
minded, because that only made the story
better although, finally, it seems that Jack
Harris, of Tasley, Va, who owns the truck,
was allowed to pay the $50 and save the load,
which was worth $40.
Well, at that, don't blame Mr.. Racht and
the editors for if you don't keep reminding
yourself of such things you are likely to forget
that this shake was solemnly approved by the
United States Supreme Court in long and
NV PIyrr yhn hall
that even If a gang Of goons should haul a
driver off the seat and belt him around and re-
fuse to drive truck an inch nevertheless they
became employees of the owner, entitled to
days pay merely because they demanded it.
Then Frank Roosevelt lured Byrnes out Of
his soft $4,000 year job and his security for
life to pull some other tricks for him in the
line of claiming civilians to their wartime Jobs
and shooting them into various other union
rackets and, finally, as show of gratitude,
Sidney Hillman and the CLIO and the commun-
lists mixed the poor guy for the vice-presidency
in Chicago last summer because he was anti
labor All he did was grant them a right 70
commit highway robbery but he didn't specif-
ically include murder and guess that taught
him that you can't fool the smart Roosevelt
unioneers with mere lip-service.
Byrnes took a walk on his good friend, Frank
a few months ago, resigning his job as the
presidential dog-robber just when old Stinson
and Mr.. Big were hollering their loudest for
civilian labor draft to handcrH most of the
population to their jobs and make people 20
wherever they were sent and ! have had a
suspicion ever since that he timed his retire
ment with beautiful precision to get even for
the doublecross at Chicago. Because, no doubt
about it, Byrnes did figure that he had Roose-
velt's support for the No. spot on the bill and
nobody can tell me that all the aspirants for
the vice-presidency were not figuring that that
which did happen would happen and that the
vice-president would be president before 1913.
And when he quit because the war in Europe
was almost over. Jimmy totally queered Roose-
velt's nazi civilian control plan.
The odd thing about the Byrnes opinion
which, of course represented the decision of
the majority Of the court, was that he realized
it legalized an outrageous situation and figured
that Congress would finally get up the gump-
ton to revoke the exemption for unions which
he wrote into the anti-ra ckettering act. For
that matter, the House did pass such an amend
ment and sent it over to the Senate but Roose-
welt was against it because is would have been
a terrible blow to his oil dfriend. Dan Tobin,
the president of the teamsters. Therefore the
good old Senate smothered it. So it is still
legal to extort money from interstate COM
merce if it is done in the name of union, even
though the racketeers have criminal records
as many of the gorillas did who were defend
dHtS III lIle OTlSlHd1 case.
The lug OF shakedown in those complaints
was only about SO for each truck and this,
of course, was tax on the food. clothing ard
other commodities destined for consumption byl
the people of New York but there was really
no limit According to the Byrnes decision the
goons could make it 500 or $500 truck and
still be within their rights provided they oper-
ate in the name of one of old Dams subsidi-
aries.
fel1ou con,t check all those racketS oxar,
day l don't know for sure whether the
Jersey mob is still practising highway robbery,
as one of the dissenting justices plainly called
it, but their mothers didn't raise any foolish
children so assume they are still at it, back
ed as they are by the Roosevelt Supreme Court
Anyway, here is New York. beginning to
dig up dandelion green's in Central Park and
an alley-cat or pet mutt amt safe and here is
old Dams mob running up the price of food
with this racket while the OPA and the little
clown in the black handlers hat are threaten
ing to throw people in the can for violating
ceiling prices.
There is still Roosevelt's show, too. He was
responsible for it. Tobin was his pal and he
personally saw to it that the Senate killed the
amendment
There is nothing in this case that couldn't be
cured by just one good New York cop if the
policemen still had their authority and their
self-respect, or, for alternative you can a. |
muse yourself by imagining what delight it
would give Marine sergeant back from Pele-
leu to chase Abe Spitzberg right into the Hud-