The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1945-09-08
BY WEsTBROOK PEGLER

| nent under the patronage OIL ule hOOSeVeil
government, I observed, with gloating salts
faction that this var, when Labor Day came
two of the most preposterous political. para
| sites on the body of American labor lacked
| the effrontery to ignore such vicious cond-
lions furthur. This is some gain for the gen.
eral cause of decency and for the worker who
was thrust into these filthy compounds by the
Department of Labor, the Labor Relations
Board and a whole organization Of political
head-hunters comparable to Hitler's early
brown shirts and his gestapo.
| Fiorello La Guarda and Harold Ickes both
became conscious of the presence OF thieves
in higher union office, a condition which, in
common with most other imposters in the role
of liberal thought and moral leadership, they
hitherto had though it wise to minimize.
observed, with the same pleasure, that Mr..
Schwellenbach, selected by President Truman
soon after the demise of the late great patron
OF the gangster in unionism to succeed Mrs.
Perkins in the Labor Department, also thought
the occasion ripe for warning to the move
ment to be rid of such vermin by its own
Initiative or accept government compulsion.
La Guardia, with $4,000 policemen, ALL it
goes without saying, much better men than
himself has been slow to discover the exis-
tence in his own jurisdiction of the Fays and
Doves whom he now repudiates with resound-
ing piety. His cops however, knew of such
corruption in the political auxiliary by which
La Guardia created his false reputation as
friend of the American toiler and might have
told him all about the vile conditions which,
by his indifference, if not by his active col
fusion, had been created for the exploitation
of those whom politicians of his school refer
to as the masses.
of the most dramatic illustrations of this part
nership between the political labor faker and
the underworld unioneer, newspaper photo
graph showing La Guardia and George Sea-
lise, the white SLAYER and common gangster,
signing articles of peace, amounting to sur
render by the city of New York, at the end
of strike of elevator operators by which this
low-loved fraud had compelled hundreds OF
thousands of New Workers., including cardiacs
and cripples, to use the stairs in high build
ings. It seems not to have occurred to La
Guarda to telephone the detective bureau for
a record on Scalise which would have shown
him to be not only an unregenerate criminal
of the foulest type but, at that very hour, the
New York administrator of the Capone~ gang
now turned from liquor to the union racket.
For the record, therefore, in connection with
his sudden awareness it should be noted that
La Guardia had nothing to do with the expose
of Joe Fay and James Bove, spectacular ras-
Gals in the heavy construction and excavation
ton and convicted of Scalise. On the contrary,
these men, members all of the Roosevelt con-
spiracy against public safety and morals
which called itself the labor movement, re-
ceived aid and comfort from policy which
purported to leave it to the rank and file to
clean house The rank and file, of course,
couldn't clean house and the whole corrupt
adrnnistra alton, national and local as well, was
content to leave the rank and file to the
brutal rapacity of hundreds Of evil extortion
ers, leg-breakers and killers.
Ickes, in his Grafton before a gathering of
workers, made the mistake of referring to the
part which "labor' played in producing the
atomic bomb. BY labor" Of course, Ickes
and all members of his school mean the unions,
not the workers who, by choice or compulsion
are members of these predatory organizations.
And, again referring to the files, I find ar
original appeal from the u. S. Employment
Service issued about a year ago, in tones CT
almost frantic urgency for several thousand
electricians to work on the plant then building
in Tennessee, with a proviso, nevertheless,
that each man must pay $50 to the local cleo
tricians union of the American Federation Ct
Labor, failing which he could not contribute
his skill in the desperate race with the Ger
mans to finish the bomb first. Here. then, we
found the Roosevelt government placing the
interests of this small group, itself insufficient
to do the job, above the lives of millions of
American fighters who might have had to in
wade Japan the hard way, and, indeed above
victory itself.
Ickes was unfortunate, too, in laudatory
reference to the nomination for the office OF
mayor of Detroit of Richard Frankensteen,
of the United Automobile Workers of the C1O
He took satisfaction in that although, from
Pearl Harbor to VJ-Day no other union in
the country had such shocking record OF
strikes slowdowns, malingering and loafing.
1ckes with La Guarda, had suddenly
learned that there are some disreputable Ia
Dor leaders with grasping fingers and deep
pockets a tardy realization inasmuch as the
Department of Justice has files on practically
all of them and remembering the fact that
Roosevelt made political proteges of the worst
racketeers and blocked all legislation proposed
to run them out
For that matter, I think we may conclude
that both of these demagogs were mercy pay
ing belated lip-service to honesty ana are stlll
against it because they are OF the polltlcal cult
which still insists that such laws are unnec-
essary. Up to now, as they admit, without such
laws the thieves still thrive in DEFIANT security
and the few who have been beaten IN court
and sentenced to prison were not molested by
the Federal government. They were made no.
tor;ous nv newspaper initiative in the face of
,,;o;o,r rrona oanda from the Roosevelt ma
chine and were convicted one by one. through
49, d;1igence of such conscientious public Of
f;cere &c Tom Dewey and Frank Hogan in
Nav, work They still have the protection of
49, 49, oh;ro .nd the policy that Roosevelt built