The Wilmington morning star., 1945-03-25
Peglarized
Special To Star-News


conspiracy, conferred in the Tonabs today with
their attorneys on an appeal which will be
sought when they come up for sentence April
s.
They will face possible prison terms total
ing 10 years when they appear before New
York Supreme Court Justice William H. Mum
son.
Word from the camps Of the racketeering
union cars indicates that they consider them
selves "Peglerized'-an expression coined by
George Scalise president of the Building Serv-
ice International union when he sent to
Jail for grand larceny after coming under
the fire of Columnist Westbrook Pegler.
The exposure of Scalse for Pegler the
1941 Pulitzer prize in journalism and in the
criminal convictions of Fay and Bove follow
ers of the columnist saw a repetition Of that
triumph.
The guilty verdicts against the labor boss
es, returned in New York Supreme Court on
March IS, climaxed a five-year campaign to
bring them to justice. blue-rlbbon jury
found them guilty on two counts; the first
for conspiracy to exrort s7O3, 900 from con-
tractors working In the New York City-Del-
aware water project the second for the spe-
cific extortion of s62 900 from the Walsh Con-
struction company.
Fay, vice president of the International OPP
Grating Engineers union, and Bove former
vice president of the International Fod Car
thus join the growing list of racketeers who
have been jailed in Pegler's campaign against
the men he calls the enemies of labor and
capital alike.
They take their places with Scaise, with
George E. Browne, former president of the
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage En-
ployes, and with Willie Bioff, the unions West
coast agent, all of whom served or are serv-
ing penitentiary terms for various shakedoWns
which thew betraVed their trusts for per-
sonal gain.
Defense tactics at the trial of Fay and
Bove recalled the exclamation of Scafse-
I've been Peglerized'-as he was convict
ed on Sept. IA, 1910, one charge of grand
larceny OF union funds and four counts of
forgery in falsifying union fiscal records.
1t was generally conceded that Scalise was
not wide of the mark. Pegler's hammering
article were credited with forcing the Grim
inal proceedings against the building union
head which resulted in term Of from five
to ten years in prison. The Pulitzer prize
committee considered the revelation of scan
dals in the union worthy of the journalistic
award
At the Fay Bovetrial, prospective jurors
were questioned closely on whether they had
read Pegler's columns which dealt with the
depredations of the labor leaders and whether
as a result Of such reading they had formed
prior conviction as to the guilt or limo
cence of the defendants.
Those who said that they bad and who
were not certain in their own minds that
they could put aside all prejudice were, of
course, automatically excused from duty.
However, Moses Polakoff, attorney for Bove,
today still labeled as unfair the fact that
Pegler write column the case the day
that the trial of Fay and Bove opened.
Observers of Pegler's two-fisted war against
extortion and larceny in high union places
saw nothing unusual in the fact that the
columnist continued to fire after an initial
hit The case was cited of the 'Peglerized'
Willie Bioff who first was exposed as a con-
victed panderer. Bioff had been found guilty
of the morals charge in Chicago 10 years
AS result of Pegler's columns which point
ed out this oversight, Boff was extradited to
Chicago from. the West coast in 1910 and sent
to jail for six months.
Payment of this overdue debt to society
did not get Boff out from under Pegler' S
fire. In 1941 he was convicted with Browne
in New York Of extorting $1,000, 900 from the
motion picture industry on threat of strikes.
Both were given sentences of eight years in
the federal penitentiary They were freed last
December after serving three years and testi-
flying against six Chicago mobsters for their
part in the shakedoWn. Even then, their re-
lease was protested by movie labor union
which called it "a blow to honest labor lead
ers and labor members
In the case of Fay and Bove, Pegler re-
called that his interest in their activities first
was aroused more than five years ago. At
that time he began receiving letters from
daywage workers and engineers on the Della
ware aqueduct recounting grievances against
the union bosses.
Irregularities in the opposite direction came
to light when an engineer visited Pegler at
the columnist's home, then in Pound Ridge,
N. Y, and showed a batch of tickets to a
| testimonial dinner being given by the union
for one of it's leaders. The tickets, at $3.50
each, were being sold by the hundreds to
contractors who were in position to re-
| fuse them.
The subsequent investigator, conducted in
secrecy, took fifteen months and followed a
trail which led throughout the East and the
Middle West
| Even after indictments were returned Fay
and Bove fought trial successfully that IL
was an additional twenty-five months before
the case opened in New York Supreme Court
on Feb. 49, 19A5 The jury heard testimony
for two weeks and then deliberated Ia hours
to agree upon the verdict of guilty.