The Wilmington morning star., 1946-09-19
As Pegler Sees 1t
By WEsrBROOK PEGLER

Copyright, BY King Features Syndicate lnc.)
NEW YORK, - Beneath all the issues OF
wages and hours, of price control and wage
stabilization, Of racketeering and communism
in the. union movement, the damned fact that
is responsible for the paralysis OF industry IS
that ugly monument to the pride OF an oNo
Tammaay machine politician, the Labor he
!ations law.
Senator Robert F.. Wagner could have avert
ed most of the tragedy to the people OF tne
United States that has been caused by these
by a year, had he been willing to admit IN
time that experience had proved that MS law
was a monstrosity. President Roosevelt, Of
course, was at fault, but the correction OF the
evil conditions established by the Wagner Act
would have followed Immediately if Senator
Wagner, himself, ever had admitted that he
was wrong?
Not long after the unions began their cam
paign Of violence and other outrage against
not only the peace of communities but the
civic ana human rights of the individual
American, l perceived that the bosses OF the
unions were, at worst, mere proteges OF a
vicious and reckless organization Of political
adventures. To be sure, when the CLIO was
being organized in Michigan, Ohio, and Penn
sylvania, amid tunlult and terror l would have
advocated the indictment and prosecution on
state charges Of John L.. Lewis and a num-
Der of Utterly brutal boss-thugs who terrorized
helpless cities. But Roosevelt patronized and
ged these men, as Mrs. Frances Per-
kins, his Secretary of Labor at the time, re-
Gently admitted in a side-long way in her
Memoirs. The moral effect alone of this part
nership between a President and maraudlng
gangs with known Stalinists acting as SER
geants, was a general surrender by the people
of old liberties and ideals and the impair
r, ont ~ III oir citizap shin IN tho mast cOrnora-
tons had imported gangs of sluggers to break
strikes, By breaking up their meetings and
beating up pickets. This practice had been
outlawed 10 the extent that espionage against
unions and the interstate transportation of
strike-breakers were forbidden. But, at the
same time, unions, which had no substance
and pretended to be voluntary associations
were invited to use, against all whom they
opposed, including workers, the very methods
of viole ace which the Roosevelt government
had condemned. The Wagner Act and the La
Dor Relations Board. deliberately packed with
Stalinist enemies of the United States, encour-
aged rio,ers, racketeers and highway robbers
and the Supreme Court protected them by a
series Of decisions. There was no word of
protest from Senator Wagner.
Rooseelt flippantly remarked that when a
gang Of vendals seized an automobile factory,
destroyed materials and equipment of enor-
NOUS value, beat up citizens going to their
lawful employment and refused to obey court
orders, they were guilty of nothing worse than
trespass, malicious mischief, assault and con-
tempt of court, and admitted it would be i'm
possible to convict the individuals Of even
those petty offenses. That these organized as
saults on popular government were insurrec-
tons he would not admit until he was pre-
pairing for a war which he anticipated even
while he denied that he did. Only then did he
call out the Army to break up a picket line
and permit workers to build planes for the
British. When pickets embarrassed his own
plans that was violent Instruction.
1 have said that Jimmy Petrillo and l were
friends. We are friends, he is 4 smart, hard
working, alert union executive. His union con-
stitution is a dictatorship. His methods are
outra geous and should be unlawful. But Pc
trillo is PAID to run his union as he sees fit
and the Wagner Act gives him all the powers
that he has exercised. If those powers violate
the rights Of the community the fault is not
Petrillo S. The fault is Senator Wagner's. So
also, the National Maritime Union has a right
to dictate foreign policy and involve us in war
by refusing to sail freight to Spain or the Ar
gentine. The AT Of L.. sailors likewise have
a right to refuse to carry freight to Yugo-
slavia because their union fights communism
and Marshal Tito is a Stalinist dictator.
L may polHL OUT DFuLaut1eS In the 1eaMSIerS
union and the regal status of Dan Tobin, it's
president. Il is wrong, it is immoral, to com
pei a good man to work Cor the same pay
that is provided by law for a loafer who pro-
vokes a strike to throw hundreds or hun
dreds of thousands onto the unemployment
rolls. But the Wagner Act created these con-
ditions with a pious pre.ense that it's only
purpose was to enable workers to bargain
through agents of their own free selection.
1t is pathetic that a few thousand transfers
should paralyze New York, or a few thousand
sailors the sea-borne N o. the United
States. But the Wagner Act conferred on a
few union officials, with sufficient personal
force TO dominate their unions, the power to
throw all the workers in the United States
into idleness. This is not a theory but a legal
Fact. Wagner's law tied up the automobile in
dustry go that all but a Tiny fraction of the
years production has been lost since W
day. His law enabled John L. Lewis, alone. to
cripple most of our industries for an immea.
surable time by a coal miners strike. The
men who ran these and other strikes contri-
outlng TO the present desperate situation only
oWer given them bv Senator Wap-