Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1945-02-06
FAIR
ENOUGH
By Westbrook
PegIer

American soldiers in France and
Italy who have been robblng
their comrades for the black
market, we are more likely TO
find the answers here at home
than abroad.
In any military force so large
there will be inevitably a small
minority of completely bad men,
but accounts from Europe sug-
gest that the number of thieves
in the American forces is out OF
proportion. But why not?
Most Of the soldiers Of this
army grew up under a political
regime which, early in its rule,
made an alliance with the crimi-
nal underworld in the labor
movement and W h h, ever
since, has made occasions to
honor takers posing as labor
leaders who, actually, have been
the accompliceS of ScoundrelS.
Millions of them, from the
time when they first became
conscious of the existence of
government, were taught that
diSobedienCe of law and au-
thOrity was reasonable behavior.
This occurred W hen the
Roosevelt government encour-
aged the Go, under John l..
Lewis, TO transport professional
rioters into peaceful commune
ties where they organized ter
ror, and governors, mayors and
the police fell back before
them.
Millions of them, since they
were 10 or y years old, had
been given TO understand that
good citizenship did not require
conscience but was anything
they could get away with under
political favor and protection.
1t surely had dawned on
them, by the time they were
taken into the army, that the
crisis had not been cured but
prolonged and that this con-
tinuance Of unemployment and
its denial of opportunity to mil
lions like h e m and their
parents, was advantageous 10
those who were living lavishly
on peak incomes in their role
of servants of the people.
More intimately, however,
and, in fact, right under their
eyes in many of the camps in
which they trained, they saw
thievery beyond calculation car
ried on by privileged racketeers
who bestrode the roads and col
lected from S25 to 5000 from
hundreds Of thousands of citi-
Zens coming to work on con-
struction.
They read exposes Of such
graft by committees of Congress
and by newspaper reporters but
they never heard that any one
went to Jail for this eXtortion,
and so, again, il was theirs to
conclude that there was nothing
wrong in doing approximately
the same if opportunity pre-
sented.
The wonder is not that there
have been so many such crimi-
nails but that there have not
been many more and the stand
ard of discipline that has been
maintained is the most remark
able by contrast with the indis-
cipline and special privilege of
the ruling group at home.
For all that has been written
and said about the exploitation,
first of the war on want and
later Of the war against Ger
many and Japan by the Roose-
welt government, it lis still
doubtful that the nation realizes
what a cynical example this
established.
In the war on want, entirely
aside from the greedy, personal
rush to get rich through the by
products of high office, the po-
litical regime. itself, manipu-
lated want and relief repeatedly
so as to impose on the distress
Of the victims and renew itself
by buying their votes with hams,
blankets and dull, futureless
| jobs.
In one spectacular case, a
member of grand jury in
Senator Pepper's state of
Florida was fired from his re-
lief Job because the grand jury
had embarrassed crooked
local machine by investigating
gambling.
So not even the grand jury,
one of the most important in
stitutions for the protection of
the rights of the people, was
safe from political intimidation.
In the fighting war against
foreign enemies these young
men saw traitors exempted
from the draft to continue their
dragooning as union officials
who, during the RusSo-German
alliance, had done their utmost
to sabotage the job of putting
weapons in their hands.
They saw, from afar, millions
of their relatives driven into
unions, failing which they could
not work in the war plants, and
compelled to pay tribute to the
Roosevelt fourth term cam
paign funds.
The successful result of the
campaign meant continuation
of the easy and useless jobs of
thousands Of parasites whose
aggregate toll of pay will vastly
exceed the loot taken by few
hundred or a few thousand cyni-
cal soldiers from the black mar
| katc of EurOua