The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1945-04-26

| views of Mr.. Pegier, and often dlsagree
with them as much as many o W Ia, r,,-rase
ers His articles serve the gooo purpose
Of making people Think
BY WEsTBROOK PEGLER
(Copyrisht, 1916, BY King Features Syndicate.
SAN FRANCISCO, In common with some
other observers, was struck by the consist
ent Inconsistency of those reviewers OF books
in New York who took w. L. White to task
and, in some cases, to pieces, for writing
in effect that Russia is a land OF bedraggled
and sallow people, primitive plumbing and
monotony.
Book reviewers have been a power in our
country for a long time. We are the book-reads
INCEST people on earth. In normal times the
publishing houses turn out 10000 titles year
and the books which have received the greatest
acclaim and thus the widest circulation in re-
cent years have been novels which depicted
the neanest aspects of our national scene and
mentioned the beauties of or resorts and city
suburbs only to sheer at them as the ostenta
ton of the undeserving rich and the ignorant
and frivolous middle class
These professionals, as group and with
notable exceptions, to be sure, have praised
works written in filth by dirty minded men
and women who could not express themselves
in decent language and had no decent language
and had no decent thoughts to express anyway
and have had their share OF responsibility for
DEGRADING, not only the morals and CONVEX
sation of the people, but their opinion of their
own country.
The stage and the movies, too, and again
with the enthusiastic cooperation OF reviewers
wit hthe enthusiastic cooperation Of reviewers
mentioned them only in derision and v e
| scoffed at every typical and priceless institu-
ton of the United States, including Congress,
our system of justice and our press.
Now if realism or truthful reporting is a
virtue as to our own country and if this ac-
cent on our imperfections and failing was good
literature, then Bill Whites book on Russia
| could not be consistently damned Tor treating
Russia the same way.
Yet even though his observations have not
been faulted, he has been denounced neverthe-
less for saying such things about our ally
with whom, incidentally, we have no formal
alliance. 1t is not even contended that Whites
picture of Russia is overdrawn but only that
the sacrifices of the Russian people in the
war entitle' them to more consideration.
insist, however, that White is not abusing
the Russian people but is refuting comm cnism
which many of the bigots and conspirators of
the element calling itself liberal would es-
tablish here, by showing that even after Is
years and a series of plans to which the
Russians for a whole generation sacrificed
everything, the absence OF competition, free in
itiative and the profit motive has produced
in Russia drab uniformity and general sal
lowness of life.
II the Russians like that, they are welcome
to their way but it is fair to warn Ameri-
cans, as White does, OF the results of total
state regulation OF life and business.
However, my enjoyment of the controversy
comes from an incidental source was sure
that some reviewer would compare Bill White
to his late father, William Allen White, Of EN-
poria, Kans., to Bills discredit and it has
happened.
Chow much better his father carried Ameri-
ca abroad. one reviewer wrote, when he
and Henry Allen visited Russia at the time
Of the revolution. There was no food for Fas-
cism in the martial adventures of Henry
and me-
You may note here suggestion that there
was food for Fascism in young Bills book
and the implication that because he found Rus
STA unappetizng he is a Fascist.
But here let me quote that great liberal,
William Allen White, who was, to my mind
a rather pathetic poseur in his later days,
trying to live the role of liberal institution"
In a small and forceful book called GAS
We Go Marching published last summer,
John T. Flynn was discussing Fasclsm Which
he and l, too, have detected in the guise OF
liberal social reforms in the new deal. And
to develop his argument that Fasclsm has
long been among us, he quoted from piece
published under William Allen Whites name
in the Emporia Gazette on March 20, 1899.
No Latin country governs itself" old man
White wrote. 'Self-government is the most diff
ficult thing in the world for people to &C
complish
Only the Anglo Saxons can govern them
selves. The Cubans will need despotic gov
eminent Tor many years to restrain anarchy
until Cuba is filled with Yankees. The Cubans
are not and, of right Ought not to be, free.
Unrest will prevail until the Yankees take
possession of the land. Then the Cubans will
be an inferior, if not servile race. Its the
Anglo Saxon's manifest destiny to go forth
in the world as a world conqIeror. He will take
possession of all the islands of the sea- He
will exterminate all the peoples he cannot sub
iugate. That is what fate holds for the chosen
people, It is so written. It is to be-
Ten years later, Mr.. Flynn writes, William
Allen White printed a book in which the fol-
lowing paragraph occurred:
The best blood of the earth is here,
variated blood of strong, indomitable men and
women. brought here by visions OF wider
lives. But this blood will remain clean Aryan
blood because there are no hordes OF infer
ior grades about Us to debase our stock. We
re separated by two oceans from the infer
ior races and by that instructive race revCl-
sion to cross breeding that marks the Ameri-
can wherever he is found
There is your show horse liberal from
the stable of the New Deal who spent his
last DAYS strutting for carrots from those who
mouth the word liberal and demand civil