The Wilmington morning star., 1946-10-21
As Pegler Sees 1t
RY WESTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright BY King Features Syndicate,

BY W~ESIbhOOh TEOAIN
Copyright BY King Features Syndicate lnc')
NEW YORK, Oct. 2O.-Whoever takes the
trouble 10 analize President ruman' speech
announcing the ''decontrol' OF meat-these
iargon words are becoming a national gullan-
will discover that he wound up beating hlmselI
over the skull with the very bludgeon lhd'
he had been using on Senators Ia1t and "hel-y
= few minutes before. 1t was as though a pad
n1aver had been sold to the opposition in the
fifth and wound up the game with a homerun
against his old comrades.
Earlv in the speech, M. Truman al
tackled "a few men in the Congress "ho' III
the service of selfish interests, have Oeeh
determined to wreck price controls, no matter
what the cost might be to our people"
Toward the close, however, he adopted the
very arguments that had been offered all
by those who had opposed Its contlnua-
ton, obviously, he had to insist on the WISDOM
of his decision, but, in justifylng his own
course, he found himself agreeing with me
men he had abused. In honoring TAFT ana
Wherry by name, Mr.. Truman actually dis
eliminated against a large number OF oe-
serving Democrats who had agreed that Con-
troll was not only a failure but a totalltarlah
device and likewise had wanted an end OF H.
Inasmuch as this course is now Vlnolcated Oy
the President himself, especially by his nope
full view of the immediate results these
Democrats would seem to have deserved a
little personal scorn, too, to help them in the
current campaign.
"As we speed up the removal of price
CONTROLS" the President said, the removal
of wage controls will be accelerated. In this
way, we shall move steadily, and as quickly
as we safely can, toward a free economy
and collective bargaining. The risk in re,
moving meat controls is less than it would
be, because production, in general
is now increasing at a significant rate.
the shorta ges continue to disappear
he then said, 'the inflationary pressures Will
ease and the need for government controls
cease which is precisely what every
of the Presidents reluctant and be-
lated course had predicted all along.
And next: Abundant production is the
only sure and safe road to a free market,
which, again, is just what old Bernie Baruch,
or his spook, Herbje SWope, wrote way last
winter and not with any merit of originality
either, for this wholesome platitude had &C.
Cured to the intelligence of millions OF others
before.
1t was unidentified Of Mr.. Truma to dwell
so heavily on selfish and special" interests
in referring to the ranchers and hog farmers
who withheld their animals from the market
in anticipation of higher prices to come inn
mediately after control should be Abandoned.
was here trying to initiate Roosevelts
employment of abusive language as a sub
stitute for reason, but without the masters
nasty knack or voice and in a speech which
repudiated not merely some controls, but
Roosevelt's dearest principle of government
control itself, He completely confused the two
sides of the subject and changed sides in
announcing that he, too, like these same
SELFISH and special interests, was anxious
O end controls. And he was dishonest because
is no more active in the growers
If meat than in politicians and the men who
strike for higher wages, whose greed Is en-
outraged and praised. This phase of relations
labor and industry of all kinds has
been distorted for years, to the disadvantage
If all concerned, and should be adjusted IN
he popular understanding for the general GOOD.
Selfishness may be carried to extremes
md at some point is believed to become sinful,
out whether that point lies on hither side or
beyond the spectacular selfishness of the late
Mr.. Roosevelt and Harold Ickes, we are not
all agreed. Roosevelt, much more selfish than
he average man, turned even the presidency
% personal profit by exploiting by-products
If office, and his reputation fo- meanness
among the serfs in the region OF his HYDE
Park barony will outlive the headless horse
nan. AS to Ickes, his own entitlement Of him.
self as a ''curmudgeon'' in every meaning
il lIG WOIO llldhCo II oiHSS ~ ~
he point. Not much worse could be said.
Corporate greed is no more rapacious than
Individual greed. Indeed, it is merely an ag-
gre gation Of the selfishness of executives and
stockholders who are individuals, and Ameri-
cans by the million.
When Mr.. Truman spoke angrily of meat
who ARE endangering the health
our people by holding back vital foods
he called to mind though he did not mention,
who endangered health in many cases
and, in general, threatened the national stabili-
ty, by Withholding vital services for selfish
One wonders whether Mr.. Truman
would have hidden a few white shirts and a
gross of hanke-chiefs, ties and socks for
a higher market had he still been a haber-
dasher and not President when the shortages
occurred within the last year. If so, he could
have justified himself in a reasonable con-
science by recalling the lean years when, as
his biographers tell us, he went broke.
This is to justify neither greed, whether
in Roosevelt, Ickes, the meat growers Or the
corporations, nor the selfishness of a striker
who threatens to brain with a bat a driver
trying todeliver milk to a New York delica-
lessen. But a President who is not a saint
sounds sanctimonious and at a loss for valid
when the only charge that he can
make, and then only against nameless defend
ants, is participation in a common human
1t is like shouting at a man: You're
NH1a.,, .rNl r~n ~I,,anfiN iC rNn~N -, A.