The Wilmington morning star., 1945-07-26
Fair Enough

Editors note.-The Star and the News
accept no responsibility for the personal
views of Mr.. Pegler, and often disagree
with them as much as many of his read
ers His articles serve the good purpose
Of making people think.)
BY WEsTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright, 1945, by King Features syndicate)
NEW YORK, July 25.-The mere fact that
a few imminent, bureaucrats, through perver-
sity and for reasons of policy, defend the
commissioning of communists in various
branches of the armed forces by denying that
they are communists should not abate the
efforts OF more fortnight men in Congress to
tag these conSpirators, make them notorious
among their fellow service men and neutral
lie traitorous activities.
| The War Department changed policy while
President Roosevelt was still alive and his
wife was welding an influence which now,
fortunately, seems to be waning. Had Mr..
Truman been President at the time that the
Army yielded to political pressure and aban-
doned its old prudent attitude toward declared
and demonstrated enemies of the American
form of government, this change would not
have been made.
Mr.. Truman, within three months, has
shown his preference for loyal Americans and
his adherence of furtive schemers who
Knocked every precept of Americanism so it
follows that if he had been in the White
House when the issue raised the Army
would have been allowed to obey its natural
| instincts. The decision to the contrary was a
policy dictated from without and above the
service and Henry Stimson and Robert Pat
| terson, his under-secretary, nowadays are
saving face in clubbing over tests of dis
| loyalty.
Mr.. Patterson spoke in the tongue Of a
guard house lawyer arguing the ancient issue
of how drunk is drunk when he said the
other day that all he knew about the So
called Abraham Lincoln Brigade, of the Span
ish Communist Revolutionary Army, was that
''some in this brigade fought and died on
the field of battle.'' If that is all he knows
about the Abraham Lincoln Brigade he ought
to resign and, failing that. Mr.. Truman ought
to fire him for dangerous stupidity.
Obviously he is not that dumb however,
so it follows that he knows the testimony
elected by a congressional committee which
proved beyond the doubt of any honest man
that this was communist enterprise organ
lied by New York communists and that one
of its members was murdered because he
discovered that he had been duped and tried
to associate himself from an anti-Amerlcan
conspiracy
The dishonesty of the test by which the
Army has discovered loyalty in disloyal men
is too fragrant to be overlooked, whatever one
may think of the importance of the issue
w
as dishonest as that in matter it will be
no more honest in others in which the risks
| are greater.
Another OCCASION minute to be sure. but
indicative of the pollution of the Army with
politics, occurred last winter when an officer
who should have been court martialed for
writing top priority for the flight of Elliott
Roosevelt's dog, was not even named to Con-
gress or the public. About the same time,
in Florida, another officer was tried and pun
ished for using service materials and person
mel for his private benefit, and there we had
parallel which illustrated the corrosion of
morals in a normally honorable service.
The War Departments statement the
commissioning of communists accepted as
proof of loyalty to the United States the mere
fact that individuals served in the American
uniform during time when Stain was at
war with Hitler, when every communist had
political duty to Moscow to fight Hitler
wherever he could.
Although the party's political line in the
United States has since changed from one ct
domestic unity a makeshift adopted for
duration solely in the interests of Russia, and
pow calls for a resumption of strikes, already
Observed, riots and the class war, it appar-
emily is not yet time for the communists in
our army to take hostile action against the
United States.
The only safe assumption is that anyone
WHO ever Was d COMMUNIST tleTeDy COIuIult-
ted himself to a lifelong role of treachery
and will betray this nation to the extent of
his ability and influence and to the extent
that our War and Navy Departments trust
him.
We have not suffered nor do our commun-
lists and scuttle-butt liberals protest because
we have distrusted men who were suspected,
however unjustly, of partially to fascism The
same people who decry discrimination against
covert communists raised no protest in be-
half of Charles Lindbergh but, on the con-
trary. damned him because he said the Ger
mans had great air force and the Russians
a bad one, which was just what our General
Staff thought too. And they burned Ham Fish
at the stake because he was accused of traf-
fic with Americans who rather liked Nazis1n
as an alternative to the Russian version of
the same terror
Yet, by the dictation of this political ele-
ment among us, the War Department now
satisfies itself that men who gave equal aid
and comfort to another treason became loyal
Americans when they took the oath so often
Knocked before And it accepts as proof of
loyalty to the United States the fact that such
suspects wore the uniform of country which
was Russia's ally against Russia's enemy
Why is it necessary to commission men
who in the past gave proof of their disloyal-
ty? How many wholly loyal young men who
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