The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1945-10-25
Fair Enough
By wEsTBRooK PEGLER
Copyright, 1945, BY King Features Syndicate)


that press conference at the office of Nathan
Witt, the lawyer who represents the COM
munist element in the attempt of Harry Bird
ges' West Coast Longshoremen to take over the
port Of New York Because it says here the
master of ceremonies was one Milton Kauf-
man and it would have been like old times
to see him in action again.
1 used to see him doing his stuff in the
meetings of the World-Telegram unit of the
American Newspaper Guild and they had
wonderful team, too. Old Broun had taken
some elocution lessons on the sneak and had
learned to shake his William Jennings Bryan
hair-do at us poor, bewildered editorial saps
who, to our cost, had given him our conf
dence, and glare and spatter sweat over the
front rows, as he howled for a strike which
would throw all hands out Of work and smear
the paper and send a little circulation over
to the Evening Post which was where he was
going when his contract ran out
Homer Thorne, for our side, would get up
and try to bust up the play but the COM
munists spotted around the place would be on
their feet with points OF order, amendments
and the like and pretty soon our Homer would
be turned around running for our own goal.
They may have been only junior varsity par
liamentarians in the Union Square league but
II,
they were champions by comparison. So most
of the time we didn't know the score or wheth-
er we were discussing a motion, an amend
rnent or a strike to reinstate some drunken
bolshevik in Boston.
This kaufman was what they called the ex-
ecutive secretary which in those days didn't
mean much to me although / presently
learned that in the communist scheme this
office in union corresponds to that of minis
ter Of the interior in European cabinet. He
holds the power. The fellow was good, too,
and every now and again there would be
little buzz-buzz in huddle off to one side
and they would run off a shoe-string or
hidden-ba1l trick and then rear back and laugh
and laugh.
somehow thought he must be newspaper
man like you know, rewrite, headquarters,
city hail. general assignments or copy-desk
and the bolos of course said, oh, to be sure
he was except that he worked on some gar
ment trade paper which didn't seem real
newspaper to me, and, not that am any way
snobbish, but just clannish If you will, kept
wonderingg how cloak.and-suiter got to be so
important in our lives, when SO many Of us
had been in the business so long and had met
just about everybody but never had heard Of
Milton Kaufman.
Just all of a sudden there he was, the head
man, with old Broun for front and Broun
always insisting that all this talk about COM
munism in the guild was nothing but red-bait
ing and probably the work Of the Nazis.
I decided to take the fence soon after long
meeting which the commies dragged out until
many of the Americans had gone home to
catch some sleep and the rest Of us were
groggy from the smoke, in the hope that they
could out-vote US because their side never
gave up. Maybe they weren't allowed to go
home, I have often heard that about them.
At any rate, they put up fellow from some
OF the mechanical trades, which had firm con-
tracts with the paper, who said that if we
struck and put pickets around then he would
consider that an unhygenienic working condi-
ton as perilous to life and limb and call out
his men too. Not sympathetic strike, you
understand. No strike at all, on their part.
But some hundreds Of American workmen in
these departments would have to lay off, with
out pay or even strike benefits because un-
ion boss had decided that few dozen seden-
tary editorial workers, girl reporters, some of
them no longer girlish by many years, and
clerks, were interposing a formidable human
wall and might beat their brains out
That was when I decided that Broun was
fake friend of labor, perfectly willing to
inflict all this distress on fellow-workers in the
shop. much less able than himself to live
spell without pay or find new jobs, just to
build his reputation as professional bleed
ions were as dirty in their way as the corpora
tons ever were and finally that the rank
and file had no chance under the present laws
and the new deal hypocrisy which prosecuted
and oppressed them through union bosses
while pretending to befriend them. And
wasn't wrong either.
So that is where our old executive secre-
tary is now. Master of ceremonies at press
conference for left-wing lawyer who held in
the Roosevelt Labor Relations Board the same
job that kaufman had in the guild until a
congressional committee exposed the commu-
mist organization in the labor board and Witt
thought it best to get out.
Edwin S. Smith, the chairman Of the MI.
RIB. in Wits time, during all Of which you
were Hitlerian labor-baiter if you so much
as mentioned COMMUNISM, also hobs up, by
the way, executive director Of the national
council Of American Soviet friendship and if
you can't guess how that one stands on COM
munism I am afraid we'll have to lock you
up for your own good
Well, it is satisfaction, at that, after all
this time and in spite Of Mrs. Roosevelts
jolly fellowship with them, to find them all
in league again and to be able to tie them
together and identify them as what they are.
Not all communists hold cards in the COM
munist party but God gave us the sense Of
smell.
Editorial Comment