The Wilmington morning star., 1946-10-12
As Pegler Sees 1t
By WESTBROOK PEGLER

NEW 4Onh OCL. IL L. WC1C dAy
excuse for believing that they were honest in
their remarks about Palestine and the immi-
grafton of more refugees into the United
States, President Truman and Governor
Dewey might be forgiven their competitive
political appeals to religious-or racial-feel-
ing in the current campaign. However, both
are obviously moved only by consideration for
the Jewish vote in New York
The President issued his statement in time
to jump Dewey's gratuitous declaration at a
dinner OF the United Palestine appeal in New
York. Thus Dewey's expression became anoth-
err "me, too" item in an initiative appeal to
elements which were a secure monopoly OF
Franklin D. Roosevelt as long as he lived. In
1914 Dewey Endorsed the Wagner Act uncondi-
tionally in a foredoomed attempt to win away
some of Roosevelt's solid support in the union
political organizations, knowing it was a bad
law which had thwarted both of it's avowed
reasons 1or being: the promotion of interstate
and the guarantee that workers
should be allowed to bargain through agents
of their own choice.
There was no occasion for Truman's state
ment other than the political purpose OF rub
bing some of the fuzz off Dewey's peach two
nights later. Dewey also lacked an occasion,
except the political opportunity. The subject
was, according to his own contention rather
neatly put in his 1912 campaign for governor,
i1oAAN Va 40 0oAAAS OSSoooC PO1ANJ
is the exclusive business Of the national gov
eminent. Dewey is again a candidate FOR gov
ernor, so Palestine and the problem Of refu-
gees or displaced persons, as they are now
called By subtle perferance - still is none of
his business. The state Of New York is for.
hidden by the United States constitution to
have a foreign policy and has no authority to
exclude refugees or displaced persons. Their
admission is controlled by national law. Once
oTroiftoH IVY +ho faIare1 fheu M ~,
settle in New York, or wherever else they
please, needing no permission from him.
In 1912, Dewey practically read Ham Fish
out of the Republican party for a politically
stupid but morally honest admission of the
fact that there was such a factor as the
Jewish vote. Every politician knows there is
such a thing and both Truman and Dewey
in the present case are angling for it by de-
liberate ano venal Misrepresentation Of the
facts and issues. AS politicians they hope to
seduce Jewish voters with promises that they
know they have no authority to make and
know they can't fulfill. In 1914, both the Demo
cratic and Republican platforms contained
Palestine p1anks that would have committed
Americans, both in their physical persons as
warriors, and collectively as a moral and poll
cal force, to the creation of a free and
democratic'' Jewish commonwealth in Pales-
tine. But in that campaign none OF them dared
go before the country and talk it up because
they knew the people would tlatly reject any
obligation tc 60 to war or pay taxes to estab-
lish an artificial nation for any group in a
land which a group Of power propagandists
happened to desire. Anyway, Americans
would be colossal hypocrites to take on such a
mission, when our own national history con.
tains so many chapters of ruthless disposes-
sion, deportation and disinheritance of Indian
nations from land which we now own. II we
justify those acts OF our own, we must reject
the Zionist claims to restitution in Palestine,
and we had better justify them or we must
then unwind history and truly give the United
States back to the Indians. To be sure, our
method was something like that proposed for
Palestine.
We infi,trated until we either outnumbered
the Indians or became a controlling minority
because we were smarter and not fastidious
in our honesty. On our own precedent, we
shouldn't object if the Zionists should try that
in Palestine. But Truman, Dewey or any other
politician who tells the voters that
they have any obligation to hack such a VEN
ture with their lives in war, and the prop
erty and labor Of the whole American people,
will be exterminated at the polls.
ut must be clearly demonstrated" Dewey
said, chat the United States reaftirms its poll
cy that the pledges to the Jewish people must
be fulfilled"
What pledges? When were the American
people ever consulted in any election on this
discussed apart from all other issues or
even as a major problem? Nobody can say
the platform planks on Palestine put the ques-
squarely to the people because they were
never argued so as to bring our their mean
ings and elicit a conscious decision.
What Jewish people? Throughout the Hitler
regime Americans heard, aid agreed, that
Jews were Americans, Germans, Britons,
French and SO forth. We heard, and agreed,
that JeWlshness was a matter Of religion,
not race, and that Hitler's proposition to the
contrary was diabolical. Now the same au-
demand a new nation. for Jews who
are Germans, Poles or Romanians or even
And the same authorities also ar
que that persons OF no religion or atheists are
nevertheless Jews by some test that seems to
indorse Hitler's racism. BY what other test is
a person with no religion to be deemed a
The United States had secretly admitted
$50, 900 displaced persons, formerly called refu-
gees, by 1942 and some vast but unrevealed
have come here since then. Still, Tru-
man, Dewey and recently Mayor O'Dwyer, OF
New York, demand that we modify our laws
so as to admit ''our share" Of additional i'm
migrants, but all without telling us how many
have been admitted or what "our share is.
Inviting $50, 900 more to New York, O'Dwyer
said: eff anyone says there isn't plenty of