The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1945-08-03

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 WEsTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright 1945, by King Features Syndicate.)
NEW YORK-Our British cousins seem to
have let themselves in for a spell of the
same sort of invisible government and back
stairs bossism that the late Mr.. Roosevelt
I gave us in the heyday OF Felix Frankfurter
Hardly had the election returns become known
whereby their so-called Labor party took over
the government with Clement Attlee as Prime
Minister when Harold j. Laski, the chairman
telling the world what Britain was going to
do about Spain and other nations which he
calls plague spots.
The British people elected Laski to no office
and we may doubt that if he should offer
himself and go forth preaching his resolution
which calls for such bloodshed as might be
necessary he would be any more successful
than Frankfurter would be here. But ne is
one of those bumptious and devious denizens
of the smoke-filed room whose power in the
party may be likened to that of Sidney Hilln1an
in the new deal until the death of his patron
and agent And it was not surprising that,
with the election won. he emerged from the
underground assuming authority to speak for
the British people and demanding IN their
name, that the government of Spain be altered
to his liking, which is something the order
of the Russian system.
1--WE cannot leave plague spots in Europe
he said. 1--WE intend to use our influence to
erase those plague spots, above all the plague
spot represented by the Franco regime"
The same dispatch from London said sit
was indicated' that the victory of Laski's
party "was extremely bad news for the right
wing government of Portugal as well as that
of Greece.
The effrontery of this man is no less inter-
estng than his intentions Holding no office,
unrecognized by the people of Britain, a revo-
lutionary lecturer by trade, he has long been
active in the conspiracy to discredit the Con-
stitution of the United States and substitute
authority for the freedoms which it undertook
to guarantee to Americans His associates here
have been the man who calls himself David
K. Niles, one of the White House haunts during
Roosevelt's time, Frankfurter. our new deal
Amba ssador to London. Mr.. Winant and Harry
Hopkins. Indeed, he was one OF Mr.. Roosevelt
| counsellors of revolution and called on him
during his visits to the United States to lecture
at Harvard, Columbia and other sources of
the dicatorial experiments which, in the last
three months, President Truman has been
repudiating day by day. Unquestionably he
may take satisfaction from the fact that, with
out citizenship or residence in our country or
any stake in the nation, he nevertheless was
influential in forcing upon the Americans some
OF the most audacious invasions of their lib
critics in Roosevet's Presidency.
The question is not pertinent here whether
the Franco government is good or bad from
our point OF view or that of the British people
or Laski. The fact is that it happens to be
the government of Spain which is presumed
to be an Independent nation with right to
conduct its own affairs. Spain has equal
right which is to say none to regard Britain
as plague spot and to use her Influence"
to erase it.
The Influence by which such erasures are
made generally consists of conspiracy and
treachery in the household of a nominally
friendly nation, and as last resort the lives
and bodies of young men. Laski, of course,
would play absentee role in the actual
erasure but, like Charlie Chaplin, when he
was demanding second front on the beaches
OF Normandy from his refuge in Beverly Hills.
his spirit would march with the brave lads and
his heart undoubtedly would bleed for their
families
This method Of rescuing a nation from
government that is offensive to the rescuers
was the same that Adolf Hitler adopted in the
Sudetenland of CZecho-Slovakia and in Norway
1t is the same that Moscow used in Yugoslavia,
Romanla and Greece and it is very reprehen-
slple When it is used by the Fascists but noble
When the Laskis of the Red revolution are in
charge OF operations. Thus a Quisling is
Qulsllng only if he happens to be on the
wrong side, but "patriot' if, in the behalf
OF the other terror, he betrays his people and
his country into slavery under armed terrorists
and secret police.
Meanwhile, it may be observed. Laski has
seen no plague in Bucharest for example,
where the Russians emulated Hitler's way in
Oslo, so there is temptation to believe that
on behalf of the British people but with no
authority for them. he has committed Britain
in favor OF communist relationships and to the
destruction by war, if necessary, of others.
On the basis of our knowledge of the British
we may anticipate that, given few more
! outbreaks of this kind and few years of
failure in the tradition of so-called labor gov
ernments, they will smash Laski's hat over
MS ears and repudiate him utterly. They are
more sensitive than we were during Frank
1urters lmpudent hour as power behind the
| scenes and they will want to see his credcn-
tails, which do not exist. And the socialist
program OF pie in the sky will flop because
Whatever her government these days, Britain
is busted and the Americans are tired of pay
ing taxes to meet Britans running expanses
as we'll as our own.
| George Spelvin, American, says it has been
bad enough to have to divvy his earnings
with the people of another nation, but that
he draws the line at paying his money to
promote Bolshevsm in Spain and Portugal
QUOTATIONS