The Wilmington morning star., 1946-06-21
Fair Enough
BY WEsTBRoOK PEGLER
Copyright. by King Features Syndicate. ]

PoWSlS III uulOi1S, L nave never lOSC Sl2nt OF
the tact that Congress still had the authority
and duty to restrict those powers by cor
receive laws.
Congress has failed, although it must be
noted that the House of Representatives has
repeatedly passed corrective bills which then
were smothered in committees of the Senate.
This Illustration was dictated from the White
House and the anarchy In this field has been
a political coup of the ruling party which
Francis Biddle, as Attorney General, frankly
identified with the union bosses who were the
beneticisries of the situation. Even impartial
justice was Subordinated to the ambitions of
a group Of union politicians with millions to
spend on elections. They occupied the position
of junior partner and protege of the ruling
party.
AS a federal judge, sitting in New York,
expressed it a few days ago, the law should
be horizontal and no element should enjoy
under law privileg es which are denied to any
other. He was here criticizing the exemptions
which unions enjoy under the Sherman Anti
Trust Act, the Norris-La Guardia Act and the
anti-ra cketeering and antikickback laws. The
theory implicit in these exemptions is that
unions are weaker than employers and, there
fore, should be allowed to bring themselves
to equality by conduct forbidden to employ
ers and all the rest OF us.
Dave Beck, a great power in the teamsters'
union in the Northwest, once told me that
he had embargoed California beer in Wash
ington and Oregon, a plain interference with
interstate not because of any dis
pute with any employer but because the
brewery workers union in California insisted
on an ancient right to man the beer trucks.
Long ago, the brewery workers had received
Jurisdiction over the drivers of the brewers
big horses Of which the p~enitents used to sing
with mournful fervor in the revivals of the
late Billy Sunday. The Transfers, with some
justification, held that these people were not
brewery workers and should join their union.
The case was fought Our in the American
Federation of Labor, aud the teamsters, who
were now a mighty giant in the internal poll
tics of the federation, defeated the weaker
brewery workers who refused TO yield, never
theless.
The public, the California brewers and the
dealers were by-standers in the case but Beck,
nevertheless, found his remedy in the en-
barge which excluded the California brewers
from a great field of business to which they
had a competitive right. This boycott had the
effect of comforting a monopoly in the re-
stricted area on the regional brewers. That
these northwestern brewers were in politics
and were friendly ana cooperative toward
Beck is not necessarily a sinister fact al
though It's evil possibilities are apparent.
No attempt was made to reach Beck with
the antitrust law because he plainly was un-
readable by decree of the court. He was
mightier than all the brewers combined, by
virtue of a law enacted on the premise that
he was weaker and needed special privilege.
Similarly, Congress h a d provided that
unions should be exempt from court %injunc-
tons to restrain them from the operation of
boycotts in plain obstruction of interstate
and in favor OF monopoly for bust
ness interests which they favored. These en-
bargoes and the consequent monopol us need
not even be the result of votes by rank and
file workers. They may be the whim Of a
notorious racketeer inflicted for the purpose
of a shakedown or the result of collision be-
tween the union boss and the favored manu-
facturer. The courts will rot even inquire into
the reasons for such a boycott. 1t is enough
thai the one who orders it is an official or
agent OF a union.
Twice the lower house has passed an
amendment to the anti-rac keteering law to
plug the hole left by the Byrnes opinion in
the notorious teamsters' case tried in New
York. Here sangsters holding union cards
practiced highway robbery under a thin pre-
tense that they were applicants tor work.
Byrnes held that Congress meant to exempt
them from the misunderstanding law. If that
was not actually the intent of Congress in
passing that law, it certainly has become the
plain intent Of the Senate in its repeated re-
fusal to adopt an amendment specifically re-
Vok1Ng the exemption.
Recently, the Supreme Court held that the
anti-kickback law did not apply to union
bosses who robbed workers of fees and dues
on public projects and kept the money for
themselves. What they did with the money
was a matter for decision in the councils Of
the unions. Such, says the court, was the in
tent OF Congress in passing the law. Such will
be its intent until it repudiates the decision of
the court by revoking that exemption.
ut seems obvious TO me-" wrote Federal
Judge John C. Knox OF New York, that the
time will come when the Supreme Court will
be faced with the necessity of reversing itself
or quail flying its decision in the anti-rack-
cheering case. But their embarrassment. it
seems to me, is their own problem. The prob
lem of the country is that unions have been
granted privileges so extreme that, in the
interest OF the people as a whole. they must,
in practical, common-sense justice, be cir
cumscribed."
have believed since the beginning of the
Roosevelt court that the Roosevelt judges
were incapable of fair justice in union mat
tiers and would always find excuses to favor
unions where no reasonable justification ex-
listed either in the debates or the text OF laws.
Justice Jackson gave startling confirmation of
this belief in his attack on Justice Black
when he remarked thai a justice proposed to
hurry a decision in n pending case So as
to exert an influence on contract negotiations
between workers and employers.
Iouyo1yo C114roer uJnI knows his DdTLdl-I