The Wilmington morning star., 1945-09-16
BY WEsTBROOK PEGLER

BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
copyright, 1915, by King Features Syndicate,
NEW YORK,-Harold Laski once of Har
ward, and now secretary of the Labor nartv
which rules Great Britain seems to mis,,nd.r.
stand the equation between the American citi
zen and taxpayer, and the party for which
he speaks Although he holds no British nublic
office, Laski also presumes to speak for the
British people and their government as well
which should be all right with us if it is with
them If they want to repudiate him that also
is up to them but up to now they seem not
to think he has exceeded his credentials.
Laski's government took office to the tune
of the International, the anthem of the com.
munist conspiracy against all freedom every-
where and particularly against the freedoms
inherent in the government of the United
States. News photographs of Clement Attlee.
the new Prime Minister showed MANY of Att
lees supporters, and Laskis, saluting with the
clenched fist which the communist challenge
to the American republic.
All that is all right too, with American who
grant other peoples the right to choose their
own poison.
But, in speech at Blackpool to the British
Trades Union conference, Laski said his
people would insist on their right to expert.
ment with their own lives on their own terms.
subject to no interference from the American
big business and that is where he MAIDS
his mistake.
1t isn't American 'fbig business" particu-
larly, which objects and it isn't the right of
the British to experiment with their own lives
on any terms they choose, that is objected to-
The DIRECTORS are the American tax-pavers
II Lac nd oorfxy
ment look for new homes, free, new industrial
equipment, free, cash unemployment and de-
mobilization allowances, free, and food and
clothing for an indefinite time, all free big
business" may also object although "big
business has been very gullble in the past
to risking its money and talent in countries
which were trying revolutionary governments,
and may hope that by some economic witch
craft another experiment in the case of Laski's
revolution would pay off, Laski insists that
the right Of the British to experiment with
their own lives includes a right to experim ent
with the lives OF the people Of Spain, as we'll
So he obviously means that busted Britain
not only demands that American workers pay
taxes to support the British labor government
which can't Experiment successfully without
share OF the American taxpayers dollar,
but that they contribute to the financing of
another civil war among people with whom
full relations than we enjoy with Soviet Russia
1t is, therefore, not, as he suggests Ameri.
can big business which is primarily con-
cerned here. It is the American worker on
say, $50 week, who finds $12 missing from
his envelope by way of withholding tax, who
insists on being included out of the British
experiments. This American is beginning to
understand that, although legally he is obliged
to pay taxes only to his own government, the
~ fh@ fhN~ LII
line into the American treasury and are draw
ing off his earnings to be handed out as doles
to British voters by the Laski government to
buy their further votes, or spent to start THAI
civil war in Spain.
The British certainly do have the right to
experiment, but that experiment runs toward
communism, the declared enemy of the sys-
tenn that provides the wages that enable the
American to pay his taxes. The proposition is
simple and the analysis is clear and the
Americans have indicated no desire to inter
fere with the British experiments They just
don't feel any obligation to pay for them.
Valiant fighter that he is on the barricades
OF freedom, in the absentee manner of his own
Charlie Chaplin, who has been here on lend
lease for many years, Laski Is less wel-known
to Americans than he should be.
His intimate friendship with Felix Frank
furter, OF our Supreme Court, and the man
kHoWH DIS DAVID X. NyleS, OF Boston, whom
the late Roosevelt planted in the White House,
is, to informed Americans, as more indicative
sign than muddy analyses of his writings But
when we consider also the fact that he had
the impudence to interfere in disorders
amounting to violent overthrow of government,
in the Boston police strike of 1919, we give
ourselves clearer idea.
Left unprotected, the people of Boston were
at the mercy of that beast, the mob, an ex-
perlence similar to that of the people of Liver
pool about the same time Laski argued that
the police had right to join any body to
better their economic position but the practi-
cal results were, first, the strike and then
civil commotion. The American people repudi-
ated the whole affair by eectng Calvin Cool
ldge vlce-president and, by succession, Pres-
dent for the sole reason that he beat the
strike and banished forever, without benefits
and against all kinds of threats and appeals
the men whom Laski had upheld.
The police of Liverpool may have, as Laski
would assure them, right to organize for
their economic betterment, and to strike
again, exposing the people to massacres on
the pattern of the Petrograd slaughters after
Lenin and Trotsky smashed Kerensky all with
the purpose of creating a bolshevik Britain
But, admitting the American taxpayer has no
right to interfere with such an experiment,
neither has he any obligation to pay for it,
QUOTATIONS