The Wilmington morning star., 1945-01-29


much as many of his readers. His articles
serve the good purpose of making people
Think
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright 1945, by King Features syndicate)
The incident of Elliott Roosevelts dog is
good occasion to teach some generals their
proper place in relation to the civil authority.
mo comment says the headquarters of
the Army Transport Command when asked
who authorized an "A" travel priority on an
army plane for the dog, travelling as private
property, which bumped three service men
off the ship at Memphis.
What do you mean mo comment
The thing to do now is to call up General
Harold L. George of this command, make
him click his heels before a committee of
Congress- stand at attention and answer ques-
tons This command needs reminding of it's
status and probably some personnel with
out political motives, ambitions obligations.
No officer whose administration has been
such as to permit this misuse of Army prop
erty and this imposition enlisted men on
behalf of a dog should be allowed to consider
himself immune to questioning. He can be
made to answer.
This is no mere unfortunate incident but
an expression of dangerous attitude of SUI
periority by military men over the civil popu-
lation. In France, recently, enlisted soldiers
have been sentenced to long terms in prison
for Black Market operations comparable in
principle to the episode of Elliott Roosevelts
dog. Like the government cigarettes which
those soldiers sold for their profit, this plane
was the property of the American people,
not of any general Or President Roosevelt's
family and like the cigarettes the accommo-
dations allotted to this dog were mlsappropri-
ated to private use.
And, while the subject is warm there is
casion also to check the priocities on COM
tically monopolzed by the government with
civilians outside the privileged class imposed
on with delays, expense and hardship.
1t is no justification to say that civilians
should not travel unnecessarily. The law is
that they have as much right to travel as
Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, the Hollywood Com
munists who went to Washington to celebrate
of the 1000 club whose trip consumed the
equivalent of 14-car train to and from the
capital for the formal exercises and the Incl
dental drinking.
They have as much right to travel in the
best accommodations to be had Elliotts
latest wife whose trip for the Inauguration
seems to have been her second since their
marriage. They are no less entitled to 60 to
conventions, whether Of antique dealers or
the Sons and Daughters of I Will Arise, than
Mrs. Roosevelt, Sidney Hillman and thous-
and others were to occupy train space to
Chicago for the purely political convention of
the CLIO or William Green, Dan Tobin, Joe
Padway, and all the miscellaneous high-bind
ers DRINKS, thieves and racketeers were to
go to the convention Of the American Fedora
ton of Labor in New Orleans. If such people
have the right Of assembly SO have that great
and faceless multitude whom these patronizng
and sef-recognized superiors refer to as ''the
little people, Pressure the rest of the
nation to stay home, applied through hardship,
threats OF delay, hunger, sleepless nights
cold and opprobrium are plain expressions
of that arrogance toward 1.-The masses" which
now dictates the conduct of those who have
come to regard themselves as the rulers"
of the republic.
They have right to use the commercial
planes, too subject to legitimate priorties
and these priorities do not belong to GALL
wanting bureaucrats on political or personal
business, under the pretext of urgent public
necessity.
When an ''A priority can be had for a dog
occupying three seats in an Army transport
plane. it may be suspected that this was not
the first abuse but merely the ultimate out
rage, perpetrated by men emboldened to ex-
cess by earlier impositions.
Ihere is no reason to anticipate that the
characteristic snobbery and sense of privilege
of the ruling household will be abated o. EN-.
barrassed by the findings of a congressional
inquiry, however scandalous. Mrs. Roosevelt
expressed this attitude when she remarked |
apropos her own restless wanderngs, that she
travelled because ''the people want me to,
a mandate that must have been done in in
visible ink inasmuch as no such proposition
has ever appeared to the naked eye on the
ballot or in any of her party's platforms. From
the time when accommodations became a
problem before Pearl Harbor and since, Mrs
RooseVeltS mileage has exceeded by thous-
ands OF miles, within the United States alone,
that OF the most itinerant professional
Wanderer, nowadays she still commues be-
tween Washington and New York on a trolley
car schedule to make speeches of no impera-
tive importance and take a few young friends
to the play.
If these be legitimate missions, remember
ing that Mrs. Roosevelt usually travels double
with her secretary, if her trips by plane long
after under-privileged civilians were being
pumped at way stations were justified, then
any Army wife following her husband, any
mother bound for the embarkation port any
aimless member of ''the little people" has the
same justification.
Again, the sense of special class and i'm
portance makes itself felt among the public
whose travels might have been voluntarily
restricted by personal decision if such an ex-
ample had been set. The example having been
just the reverse, the traffic is the greatest
in history and the method taken then to de-
crease the strain is not to correct the example
but to threaten hardship and disfavor.
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