The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1945-05-29

with them mucl as many Oh MS read.
ers. His articles serve the good purpose
| of making peop!e Think +
BY WEsTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright, 1945, By King Features Syndicate.)
NEW YORK-An OCCASION called National
Meritime Day, was celebrated here last week.
Joseph Curran, the president of the National
line, was given opportunity to make pro-
paganda for his group.
Curran has gone to only once during
this war. That voyage was peaceful vaca-
ton cruise in fair weather and in safe waters.
He was eligible for the draft but was excused
on the ground that his union was performing
necessary service in manning the merchant
ships.
A government agency, the U. S. Maritime
Commission, was paid to do this work. But
the fact is that the Roosevelt government load
ed this agency with pro-communist appointees
who allowed the union to control the manning
of the ships and to rule the American Mer-
chant Marine.
At one time the union tried to displace the
naval gun crews assigned to the cargo vessels.
For long while, until young American lands
men entered the merchant service in large
numbers, the union was occupied with the en-
brassing business of covering Up drunkenness,
ship jumping, draft-dodging, indiscipline and
theft and the systematic heckling of enlisted
naval sailors by hostile merchant men of the
old school The Navy, obedient to the White
House, locked up the records Of the merchant
vessels so that the public, to date, has been I'M
able to learn the details of such incidents.
These records are still secret.
Throughout the alliance between Stain and
Hitler which ended in June 1941, Curran was
active in many demonstrations of the COM
munist front, whose purpose was to defeat con-
scription and all other preparations for prob
able war.
Since the attack on Russia, however, and
during that ensuing six months period when
the United States remained, in manner OF
speaking, neutral, Curran and his union have
been extremely aggressive anti-fascists and
have boosted that there have been no strikes
within their jurisdiction. Moreover, their ex-
pressions OF loyalty to Franklin D. Roosevelt
and their opposition to all who doubted the
wisdom of many of this actions or policies have
been strangely ferocious by contrast with their
earlier attitude.
Curran was not always thus.
In 1888. the American League Against War
and Fascism, with which Curran was associat-
ed, issued publication called Flight. One
essay said, in part, "hey, there, big boy,
Uncle Sam wants you for the next war; He
wants you to take $50 month, less payments
for bonds and thrift stamps, for doing this.
SdylQS yes SIT W UllSuL UOyS Ill O14lCClS pix
pants, Digging nthe ground like half-witted
wood-chuck, shooting men like yourselves a
cross a line"
AS time passed and the communist line shift
3D. Curran bobbed up in the American Peace
Mobilization, which pcketed the White House
with placards damning Roosevelt as war
monger and Wall street stooge, but dissolved
the day after Hitler attacked Russia In this
period, the communists were telling their story
in doggerel songs improved for troupe known
as the Almanac Singers, who later were en-
ployed by the Office of War Information to
provide patriotic entertainment.
One of their songs was "Plow Under Every
Fourth American Boy and Another ran:
"Oh, Franklin ROOSEVELT told the people
how he felt. We damn near believed what
he said. He said I hate war and so does
Eleanor, But we won't be safe till every
body's dead'
manifesto to "all friends Of peace and
liberty issued on April S, 1941, and signed by
Curran, among others, declared that this is
not war to wipe out the evils of Hitlerism.
It is war to line the pockets of the corporate
interests at the expense of the peoples of the
world"
In the earlier phases of the communist pene-
tration of the American merchant service
communist propagandists diligently schooled
the sailors in the mutinies at Kiel and
Kronstadt, rernining them that the revolu-
lions against the Gar ana the Kaiser were
started by men Of the sea and suggesting
like course for American sailormen. Russia was
not strong maritime naval nation so the
program called for complete domination
by the communists of the American merchant
vessels and the establishment of communist
cells on the warships of the Navy. Thus, Russia
could take them over. The proposal that the
loyal naval men serving the anti-submari
guns on the merchant vessels, under OATH be
relieved and that the guns and ammunition be
turned over to union sailors followed in due
course.
In the early days of American participation,
the naval gun crews repeatedly and bitterly
complained Of ridicule by merchant sailors
manys of them foreign born, who called the
American naval uniform a monkey suit. At
that time the merchant sailors got $3.50 for eacn
port they touched in the war zones in addition
to their pay and other bonuses An illiteratc
Caribbean dish-washer could collect more, pay
for a cruise than a full commander Of the
Navy for like period under equally danger
GUS conditions.
| The oath of Curran's Union calls for loyalty
to the union and the labor cause but not to the
United States and restrictions are such
the majority of young Americans regretted for
service in the merchant marine cannot be
elected to Union office.
-V
Editorial Comment