The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1945-07-07


accept no responsibility for the personal
views Of Mr.. Pegler, and often disagree
with them as much as many of his read
ers His articles serve the good purpose |
of making people Think
BY WEsTBRooA PEGLER
Copyright, 1945, by King Features Syndi .ate)
NEW YORK,-Captain Joe Patterson, of
the New York Daily News, usually has pretty
good sense but when he lays an egg it is a
double yolker and that certainly is what he
did few years ago, when he decided to
nickname Mayor La Guardia Butch and
tried to Put it over with the public. If he
had suggested "Snitch word whose mean
ing is understood in the soul of every man
who ever was a neighborhood kid with an
appreciation of the social ratings of youth,
that would have been much better.
But 'Butch is burly, manly. rough-and-
tumble name suggesting a character whose
every trait is fouted by the conduct of the
ambulant belly under the black-handers hat
which has been what New York has had to|
make do for a mayor ever since 1884.
La Guardia was out of job and the seat
was pretty near out of his pants when Roy
Howard, of the World Telegram, to his later
chagrin, picked him as the fellow to drive
the rascals out Of the City Hall which, as you
may remember, had become a mockery skCllS'
ING al olI1u IHe tdpTOOIS OIL LHe SoOu olu SdCISu
heritage. He wanted to sign with one of our
| syndicates dealing in journalistic canned goods
to do column for the papers, but Roy had
one of his bright ideas and sent him to the
post and he just breezed in to become the
most mischievous, brattish intolerant, foul
moEthed public character this side of Berch-
tesgaden.
When I say he is dirty talker I don't
mean that he just INDUCES in the routine
hellng and damnng that most men use and
the occasional sexy epithets that are diction-
airy words, SO to speak, in the unwritten lam
guage of the males of this republic. 1 mean
that he rolls filth around in his mouth with
voluptuous Adriatic relish and repeats it and
fairly drools it and if you doubt this you ask
Jim Farley about his distress one time in a
mayoralty campaign when he wanted to bring
out this fact but just couldn't because it was
| impossible to repeat even to stag meeting
the language that The Hat had uttered for
publication only short time before re-
porter had asked him for statement and
La Guardia said he would make one IT the
reporter would promise that it would be print
ed verbatim The reporter naturally agreed
ard then La Guardia let fly and not only that
but for sheer pleasure in the repetition OF his
obscenities said them again slowly as the
reporter made his notes.
He is moreover, a bull-dozer who takes adj
vantage of his position to bawl out decent,
would reach out and knock him boWlegged
but for his power to fire them out of the
service without their pensions after all their
years. He humiliates other Subordinates in the
same way and although he is great four
flusher about the right of worker to talk
back to the boss man-fashion, without being
| fired, he goes into screaming RACES whenever
some individual decides that his manhood is
more precious than lousy job and lets him
NJ right
The melancholy that pervades the police de-
partment is the result of degrading restric-
tons that have been placed on the cops in
their dealings with his political following, and
his arrogance toward his betters on the force
ha- also contributed to terrible decline in
the morale of a corps that once was the best
| in the world.
In the last few years he has just about
talked himself out of his job mayor by
his absurdities over the municipal radio sta
ton which has become his personal propa-
ganda outlet. Most demagogues use radio to
advantage but La Guardia's voice is almost
soprano and moreover most Of the masses
to whom he looks for his support are the very
people who like to lay a bet in the books or
play the numbers racket However, The Hat
has been wowsing against the operators OF
these public utilities for years.
There was race riot in Harlem a few
years ago and you would have thought that
would be a lesson to HIM. But no, the otner
day he had to get the air and tell the
Negro population that the white daily news
papers had purposely refrained from saying
that General Eisenhower was going to drive
through Harlem to the ball game because the
rapers were anti-Negro, which was not true
and might have stirred up another disaster.
Then he made political occasion of the
Eisenhower dinner, Hitler made politics OF
the Olympic Games, using the general as the
stooge for political trick while lot OF
communists horned in where they had no
business.
Murray Davis, a reporter, big fellow who
Used to pitch ball in the American Association,
knocked his ears down one day. He asked
La Guardia some question and got dirty
answer and gave one back and then La
Guardia screamed like little girl i am
going to CELL your boss on YOU
Instead of Shaping him across the mouth,
Davis pitched his voice into an effemlnate
tr eble and shrieked back, land am going to
tell my mama on you"
The name Fiorello means Little Flower
so why monkey with it? The dandellon is
little flower and it's color could not be more
appropriate.
-V
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