The Wilmington morning star., 1946-10-08
As Pegler Sees 1t
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright, by King Features Syndicate Inc''

downright, by King Features Synulca'o' w.
NEW YORK, Oct. 7. - Continuing our
study of the fraud in the Wagner lano- -ehd-
lions law, let us examine Its oSlehslpie poi-
pose of abating labor disputes and mus I'M
proving commerce., and compare laot elo'eN
intention with results.
The act was passed in Roosevelt's trst
term. Unemployment due to the so-callea
depression had been vast ever since 1917. Al
concerned agree that unions were weak IN
membership numbers and BARGAINING power.
In fact, one of the reasons for the proposal
was that the workers, being unorganlzed, dlo
not have the strength to strike. Strikes, there
fore. were not an important reason Tor lhe
prevailing unemployment and impairment OF
commerce. So we see that the purpose was not
to minimize ''strikes and other forms OF In
dustrial strife or unrest" but to strengthen
the unions, whatever the damage might be
to future and to the peace and
order of the nation. -
The men who most selfjshly wanted this
law were union bosses such as John L. Lewis.
then a close personal and political friend OF
Roosevelt and a protege OF the trst New
Deal. That Lewis was and still is a dictator
in his union, the United Mine Workers, all
his colleagues in the politics of unionism
agree. Roosevelt and Senator Robert F. Wag-
ner knew it and Roosevelt heartily accepted
large grants of money from the miners
treasury, from the hand of Lewis for his
political campaigns.
Unfortunately, emotion, rather than in
telligence, directed the judgment of many
other prominent Americans, editors and clergy
men, as well as conscientious politicians.
Organized industry had taken cruel and stupid
advantage of the workers in many industries,
including the newspaper business. Public
opinion overwhelmingly favored legal recogni-
ton of the right of workers to join unions,
to strike and to advertise their grievances
to the public, which is the formal definition
Of picketing. The error of the unthinking but
sympathetic in journalism, religion and poll
tics, and in the homes across the county,
was their eager acceptance Of a counterfeit
law as the means of equalizing the power Of
the workers with that of the employers. Only
a few, and those few lawyers and members
of the house and senate, had the intelligence
and moral courage to predict that this law
would create a power over the workers at
least as brutal as the worst employers now
exercised, and that this power, being absolute
ly unre gulated and irresponsible, would in
flict its violent will on the whole people. They
were howled down as stooges of the Tories
and big business, as some of them may have
been.
We had our Sherman Antitrust Act to
forbid combinations in restrain of interstate
commerce. This had been intended to forbid
union conspiracies in restraint of trade as
well as wickedness by capitalists, but congress
had then passed a specific exemption for
unions. They could restrain interstate COM
merce at will. Any whim Of any union boss
was legal justification to freeze the flow of any
commodity, such as Budweiser beer, even
though the union boss had violated a union
contract with the employer. There was to be
no test of justice in such interstate boycotts by
unions.
Courts also had granted injunctions to
restrain union bosses from picketing in viola
ton of contracts, from picketing where there
was not even a ~pretense of a dispute between
an employer and any employe, and from
organizing mob violence in the guise of picket
ing. Congress curtailed the authority of courts
to issue such injunctions. Possessing this enor-
nous latent power, the union bosses were
now given the Wagner Act under the leering
pretext of an honest desire to protect inter-
state commerce from the interruptions caused
by strikes and other labor disturbances.
The effects of the Wagner Act were soon
visible in historic riots as the CLIO. set out
to dragon American workers into its unions.
often using communist street fighters, especial
ly trained like soldiers, to terrorize cities.
Thousands of Americans were beaten up or
terrorized by the bloody spectacle of neigh
bors being beaten. Thus the Steelworkers'
anu tHe CHlted AUTO WOIkeIS uIllOIS OF tne
CLIO. became the bargaining agents of the
workers own choosing"
Roosevelt flippantly justified all this, and
his follower among the union bosses, now be-
coming the masters of millions of Americans,
insisted with him that the only remedy lay
in individual prosecution of the rioters for
disorderly conduct, assault, trespass or malici-
GUS destruction of property. They refused to
admit that these instructions, which Temporal
rily conquered local and state governments,
were organized. Their position is different
when they storm President Truman in the
White House to demand a federal law against
lynching, where, again, the answer is prose-
cution of individuals by local authorities Oh
actual evidence.
From a minor position in the causes that
impede commerce., strikes and boycotts have
become the most powerful impeachment of all
today. Even during the war there were as
many as 5000 strikes a year in war indus
tries. So great is the impeachment of strikes,
in the automobile and farm implement in
~dustries, in steel, coal and other lines, that
all other causes are trivial in the present
practically total collapse of American com
merce, foreign as we'll as internal.
A law pretending to encourage friendly
adjustment of industrial disputes" has throttl-
military victory. in the great war, by placing
in the hand of crooks and traitors, adventurous
demagogues and union di%ctators, the power
to prevent adjustment on any terms that
industry can meet without bankruptcy. And,