The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1945-08-15
BY WEsTBROOK REGLER

racords of n rnmunist terrorism and deliber-
ate. planned debauchery among young Ger
mans prior to the rise OF Adolf Hitler have
been destroyed one way or another. Because
they were NaZi records they would be subject
to Discount, anyway. But outside Germany
there survive contemporary proofs of this evil
campaign and of course many credible wit
nesses still live whose accounts of riots, hate,
seizure of citizens in their homes and on the
streets, vandalism and sabotage may be con-
sdered for the guidance of Americans toward
a correct judgment OF events Leading up to
Hitlerism and the war.
We are dishonest with ourselves if we weakly
admit that Hitlersm just happened as an ex-
preston of the German racial character, With
out cause or provocaton. There were causes,
the like of which in this country would invite
martial law, at least, and might drive us INTO
some form of fascisn, some OF whose arbitrary
controls over the actions OF the people were
readily adopted by the Roosevelt admlnlstra-
ton. If the Nazis rejected freedom as an ldeal
be it remembered that the Communists before
them had used every trick in their book to
make freedom under representative govern
ment impossible. The Nazis did not invent
secret police work, infiltration of the police
and military forces by secret agents and The
secret denunciation of individuals by neighbors
and associates whom they trusted as friends.
They learned all this the hard way from the
Communists who, up to 1882. could cast about
six million votes and Hitlerism was, like Fas-
cism in Italy, revolt against revolutionary
terror and planned degradation promoted by
outsiders.
| Our recollection of this sequence has been
obscured by propaganda and our own loathlng
for the indecencies of Hitlerism but we deceive
ourselves if we permit our hatred of Germany,
wholesome as it is, to cancel important truths
which in some calmer time will be examined
by historians and included in the final verdict.
The evil epithet, ''Nazi," will be flung at all
who insist on studying the cause as well as
the effect in Germany but no American who
values freedom of opinion and truth above
personal convenience will be inundated by
| that
| calm but determined review of the Com
munist terror in Germany, trustworthy &C
counts OF which were written day by day be-
fore Hiterism came might warn Americans
against similar impositions here. We nave
come to the end of the great war and millions
of men soon will be coming home, dispensing
all over the country, looking for jobs and
homes. Between them and those jobs. without
which they cannot have the homes, there
stands, however, the so-called labor movement
which is really dictatorship over labor and
industry well, by few power politicians,
skilled in the sly devices and stratagems which
brought Hitlerism to Germany and to
the world.
MANY americans say, CdleleSSly, Wall I'LL
the boys come home and what they will
do to those pickets who try to keep them
from their jobs
am afraid the boys will not be able 10
do much, even granting that most of them will
| be hostile to this dictatorship. The unions are
entrenched in most of our industries, they have
hundreds of millions of dollars their organza-
ton is an ominous marvel of tireless efficiency
and when the returned service man finds him.
| oko nd
young wife and baby dependent on him, they
will put arm over his shoulder, sympa1hize
with him, possibly feed him and his for a
few days, and tell him that the enemies of
labor, the profiteers and the native Fas-
csts are responsible for his misery. They will
tell him that the shameful record of strikes
in the war industries is, in fact, an honorable
record OF fight which they weged on the
home front during his absence to preserve his
rights and advance his wages.
Many of them will believe this the more
of them because, for fact, there was profit
eering in this war Notwithstanding the resound-
ing promises of their government to prevent
profteering. So here as IN Germany, we may
nave veteran fighters, skilled in fighting and
hardened to it, standing shoulder to shoulder
with the Communists in front of idle plants
VINO col!ld be turning out automobiles and
a thousand other articles and paying wages
and creating prosperity. Those veterans VINO
40 not belleVe the Communist prOpag anda will
be only loosely organized at best but if they
Should form themselves into bands with bras
sards for identification to fight for their Jobs
then also here, as in Germany, old comrades
would be set to fighting one another and these
groups surely would be called Fascists
Oddly We grant these power politicians ct
unionism the right to maintain private armies
and shoot, club and burn but if other groups
fight back they Fascists or Nazis and
subject to the usual penalties
1t is not too to consider these uos-
slollltles for we have done little toward recon-
version and the same philosophy that fought
against recovery, internal peace confidence
ana prosperity in Germany after the first war
IS mighty In the CLIO and the Political action
Committee and probably some of the same
agents are available, posing as refugees from
persecution when retribution would be an apter
word.
MOST OF us seem to have swallowed without
DllnKlng the propaganda which derides the pop
ulaT German conviction that Germany stood
against Bolshevism. But we weren't there
whereas the Germans were under the guns and
bulshevlsm did invade them and now that
their war is lost it is back proving that it
nad marked them for victim. True, Germany
was responsible for Boshevism for Germany
created Lenin's revolution for the immediate
purpose OF putting Russia finally out of the
lrst war and releasing armies to attack the
e Allies IN France That, however, does not i'm
pair the fact that after her defeat Germany
invaded nv fho efi ,L.