The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1945-12-13
Fair Enough
By WESTBROOK PEGLER
downright, 1915, BY King Features Sy]

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their publications both have taken some cracks
at our great, free, capitalistic American press
lately and I probably am a great chump for
taking up LaGuardia on it because the bellv
is Snowman for pay and there are
plenty of poor, starving clowns and funnier
too who better deserve this publicity. How
ever, our local Bilbo has become a pet of
mine since Ickes choked up and subsidized and
if this runs up his ratings and earnings well
that is no more than I used to do for Primo
Camera in the days when I was fearlesslv
denouncing old Satch for pushing in-offensive
tankers into the water from here to San Diego
He and the Russian said our capitalistic
press angled or slanted news and am going
to cross them up by admitting that to de-.
gree they are right, although such COM
plant sounds funny from Russian whose
favorite American papers would be the Worker
and Marshall Fields thing whose angle on
any story that you would care to name I
can predict before the paper goes to bed or
even before it is written.
I admit that some publishers play empha sis
as means of promoting movements and mea-
sures or opposing trends but ! observe, too
that some staff reporters and press associa-
ton men, particularly in Washington. plav
counter-propagan right in these very same
papers, apparently without their knowing if
Day after day, see where they sneak in the
propaganda term "anti- labor in discussing
bills and proposals bearing on the outlawry
and general anarchy of unions.
Howard Smith, Virginia congressman and
very able member, too is often tagged
'anti-labor,' as though that were an indispu-
table description when the truth is that he
is just anti-racketeer and very effectively pro-
labor. Then you find such writers sneakng
into print with persuasive force of constant
repetition with the innuendo that some politi-
clans whose attitudes and straight fascism
lifted from Mussolini are liberals" and "pro-
gressives" and So altogether, would say we
keep balance.
But if I were criticizing the American press
I would take up a silly weakness of ours
that seems to be more a matter Of habit or
old superstition than evil intent and sometimes
produces results that are against the public
interest. LaGuardia is one of these results
and we have to plead guilty of having caused
him.
Going way back, we find him making public
ity in our own sheets by brewing himself a
batch Of beer as a piece Of heroic defiance
against prohibition when the truth was that
he was taking no more chance in doing that
than you would today in rubbing your buttons
against bar and ordering a stub of old STEP
mother. He never did have any nerve and
that night when Harlem blew up into riot
that he had been helping to promote for years
he lew into panic and squealed like pig
under gate, also assuring one and all by
radio that this was no race riot but something
else which was lie because that is just what
it was and he was afraid that If 1t ran its
course the people would remember thu t most
of the blame was his.
We were dumb enough to tag him a pro.
labor fellow In c ngress when, in
fact he was just lawyer with a good prac-
tice in union litigs ton and counsel And then,
after Roy Howard, in fuzzy-minded moment
decided to fnflict him on New York as mayor
our papers constantly built him up for this
radio job by repeating on Mondays the sensa-
tlonal vulgarity which he yelled over the air
on public station in the schoolgirl voice
and that ersatz Will Rogers style Of his on
Sundays. Not one line In column of this
publicity was actual news after the first of
his denunciations of punks. tin-horns and gyps
but nevertheless we carried miles Of this trash
and now he is a star comedian although Of
course, like some others Of the same school,
he may lay an egg.
For another example, suppose have seen
over the years 500 stories about an ordinary
little fellow named jeff Davis who calls him
self the King Of the Hoboes, and most Of it
was straight publicity and, in my judgment
not word Of it was news
How come we do that? I don't know. How
come we print lot of art about some dizzy
fool with an inherited fortune marrying SIX
seven, eight times? Who gives dam whether
Orson Welles stays married or gets divorced
or from whom, or Peggy Joyce plans to take
up motherhood now after forty-odd years Of
elaboration?
Look at the way we ballyhoo saloon life
and the private affairs of lot OF dssolute
tramps and poseurs. The big few, gaudy New
York dumps that get all this advertising
probably haven't total capacity of more than
5000 head and yet the rest OF the country
and, indeed, the world, have received from
us an impression that all New York's seven
millions, or whatever the figure u.s. spend all
their time at shows or getting drunk and fight
ing and falling down in such joints and that
everyone buys marriage licenses by the book
This is phase of OUR journalism that really
is weakness and, assuming, we must
that press does have some influence on
thought, opinion and customs, it follows that
we are exertng a bad influence.
Anyway, We have no right to complain Of the
nuisance of LaGuardia. We made him out Of
an ill-mannered, pushful, foul-mouthed little
twirp who talks too big and brave about the
punks and tin-horns but never dares name
one, personally and never goes without body
guards and keeps three shifts Of policemen
guarding his house.
But we never learn. We set them up and
knock them down and then set them up on
the other alley and do it all over again. Some
times think we just haven't got good sense.