The Wilmington morning star., 1946-09-11
Fair Enough
By WESTBROOK PEGLER
opyrisst, by King Features Syndicate, Inc.l

lQ0 udltOiidI COMMANDER III the f1W
Charles G.. Bolte, the national chairman OF
the AVG, and Commander Hardy both insist
that their organizations are not rivals but 1t
is my impression that they are about as
friendly and mutually cooperative as the CLIO
and the A.F. Of L. or Soviet Russia and
the United States and that this is an ap-
propriate political comparison.
The AVG. is campaigning to raise $1,000
600, which is a nice peaf-shaped objective,
tr the purpose Of running its membership
up to a million. The membership was only
60, 900 when / interviewed Mr.. Boite, Gilbert
Harrison, the vice-chairman, and Edward Nc
Hale, the national field secretary, early in
August and the contributions at that time
stood at S42. 479. The contributors included a
lot of dirty-rich bleeding-hearts and the cor
rect proportion Of Hollywood swimming-pool
proletarians and there were IA individual
gifts, each of which exceeded the total amount
of both 0 the contributions which the
AMVETS had received when l talked with
Commander Hardy on Aug.2 81. These con-
tributors were Andrew Higgins, the New Or
leans shipbuilder, who gave $50, and some
Pittsburgh coal firm whose correct name
Hardy did not know, offhand. This donation
was $500.
Harrison had limited that the AMvETS were
dough-heavy with money from sinister sources
but Hardy said $500 was the total and pinned
for the magic touch Of the AVG.
The AMVETS, in their Prospectus, appear
10 me to be a progressive But not radical
organization. while the AVG. endorses I'M
employment pay Of $25 FOR Is weeks for buns
and ~loafers by demanding such for 'unem-
ployment of all kinds, including time lost due
to labor disputes" This objective, if achieved,
would invite all the Indianapolis to create
fake disputes calling for picket lines which,
in the iargon of the union racket, constitute
an "unhygienic working condition. on the
ground that anyone going through a line is
likely TO get his head busted by a peaceful
picket exercising his freedom of speech with
tire-iron. But it would also antagonize decent
Americans Who would want nothing to do with
any outfit that would tax their earnings to
pay $25 a week to the bum next door. So
I should think the proposition would attract
the trash all right but repel the quality. Mr..
Hardy says he isn't Cumming for trash with
bun-bait snd is willing to let the AVG. have
that kind up to the point of monopoly. conf
dent that superior. veterans will join the
AMVETS.
The AVG. also demands severance of dip
lomatic relations with Spain which would
mean another civil war and is a weird pro-
posal coming from such as Bolte, who lost
a leg in Africa with the British. and says
he is against killing and hot as horse-radish
for peace on earth.
The AMVETS' principal handicap is that its
program is the sort of virtuous platform that
is flippantly derided as hearth. home. mother
hood and the flag, old standard ideals and
emblems that have been sneered into alb
surdity because they are not dramatic. You
don't draw a crowd by walking down the
street peaceably with your old lady but if
you bust her one in the snoot and she belts
you back and hollers murder the windows
fly open with heads out a yard, a block away.
The AVG. is using the clio. propaganda
technique to make medicine, as our reser-
walton Indians say, when they mean a
rumpus. A l~ynching calls for a telegram to
President Truman and a stern demand Cor
justice in the manner of those old Monday
morning crime must 60" editorials that al
ways wound up cts up to you, Mr.. District
Attorney" These righteous rumblings make
no difference one way or another. but thew
cost a few dollars a month and do they make
medicine! The same technique utilities Sena-
tor Theodore Bilbo and Congressman Rankin.
Of Mississippi, as devils to be denounced, and
the entire left wing really owes those two
hardy old mud-cats a debt for faithful service
as targets. A Jew weeks age, the Dallas
AVG. picketed a house owned by Mike
O'Daniel, "son of O.P.A.-hating Senator Lee
ODanlel," because young O'Daniel gave
notice OF eviction to a veteran in a dispute
about me rent. The AVG. national bulletin
printed a three-column picture of the scene,
with no statement of the merits of the spat.
To hate" O.P.A., however, was. a crime,
even unto the son of the Senator although
the U. S. Congress by the holy democratic
process voted it dead. That is the sort of
organization that the AVG. is, by deliberate
choice and policy, and veterans who incline
that way are cordially advised that this is
the ideal outfit FOR them.
Hardy claimed about $1,000 members about
the same time that the AVG claimed only
go. 900 on its way to it's million and, by an
interesting coincidence, the July Is issue of
the AVG. bulletin announced that, notwith-
standing the generosity Of it's ruddy rich
friends, it was found necessary to release a
big passed. Of professional field secretaries or
organizers. Lack OF funds was the reasonI
given.
excuse for the discharge of employees so we
may find the AVG. besieged by pickets and
the Messrs. Bolte, Harris, McHale and others
drawing $25 a week for 26 weeks out of re.
spect for this unhygienic condition.
I am pleased to be able to state now to
Mr.. Bolte that my copy of the roster OF his
contributors, the sucker list as it would be
called in the Embarrassing trade, was not, as
he thought, filched from the A.V.C.'s files.
1t was freely given by one of his own
members to a member of the AMVETS. By
the same process the same person in the
AMVETS obtained possession OF a letter from
Bolte, warning him that the AMVETS, with
beautiful and intelligent guidance, were "get-
ting members hand over fist described by
this agent as ''the ordinary guy who likes to
get up and speak his piece and sound just