The Wilmington morning star., 1946-11-23
As Pegler Sees 1t
Bv G

NEW YORK - The heirs to the tattered
and spattered mantle of The Leader have pre-.
empted the word progressive as q political
liable, but the recent campaign and the election
returns prove that they are living in the past.
The Wagner Act, as it stands, is OF an old or.
der and is marked for revision Most OF the
state and new aspirants who staked theI
chances on this lopsided monstrosity were
whipped and discredited, not because they
were ''progressive'' and a reaction had set
il, among the people, but because they were
sot on an old and ugly institution and lacked
the vision and the honesty to desire change.
The voters were the '+progressives" here.
The new deal and the new dealers had grown.
old and if Tom Dewey was premature in point
ing this out in the campaign o. 1914 and In
adding that they had turned querulous and
quarrelsome, selfish, jealous and suspicious,
he was not wrong, as the angry abdlcatlons
of Ickes, Wallace and Morgenthau were to
prove within little more than a year.
About 10 o'clock on the morning OF March 4,
1888. / stood by a little window in the Capitol
in Washington with Lyle Wilson, of the United
Press. What, I inquired, would Presi.
dent Hoover do after he had turned over the
seal to this promising new fellow and had be-
come officially and irrevocably erst?
"Do you see that big, green, turtle-back
building yonder?' Mr.. Wilson asked. That
is our union station and there will be a train
waiting and as soon as Mr.. Hoover has spit
on his finger and. touched shoe-leather, he is
going to catch the brass tail-gate of the last
car and Chamber aboard and leave town. Mr..
Hoover hasn't been happy here lately"
Now we have lived to see the rout of that
triumphant crew, old and prejudiced and self.
righteous against the people who would have
no more of them. j.
I recall the ~elation, the sense of relic: and
copfidopc. that Syuopf fhro11oh the crowd &C
Franklin D. Roosevelt, steady on the arm Of
his handsome and beguiling son, Jimmy, took
the oath and assured us all that we had moth.
ing to fear but fear. I recall that. But mil
lions, perhaps a majority of the voters who re.
Gently turned this new old gang out, were
children then and we elders, including even
the brash and mischievous boy-wonders Of that
new day, are apt to forget that these new
voters judge the Roosevelt rule by results, not
by the promises and propaganda with which
it was presented. They judge the handsome
son by his profits from his fathers war on
want. Had I been schooled in politics and
blessed with a protective skepticisrn, I would
have been spared disappointment as years
passed and characters revealed themselves; as
money-mad imposters for graft and
men protesting to serve the people became,
for a long time, their masters instead. We
were afraid, that day, all Of us, and Washing
ton was strangely nervous when rich men
couldn't cash their checks for $40 anywhere
in town. Then, with a few words, Roosevelt
talked us out of our forebodings.
The new voters, who decided this election,
weren't there that day. They were too young
to be elated and therefore they were not let
down as we were. They observed results in
daily practice and their decision has been
that compuision, deceit, connivance at crime
and lawless commotion in the streets are not
progress" but failure in government.
So soon after this election. however, I sense
again a fear. Will a republican Congress and
a democratic president, who never wanted the
job in the first place, be unatle to cooperate?
VIII revoiutlonarieS, incorrigibles and commu.
mist traitors Illustrate Congress by strikes
causing poverty, alarm and riots, even if
Congress should revise old union laws and
pass new ones, and thus throttle the country
anyway? Will the Wallace and
wing cause a panic merely by talking panic
as though in warning? Is there nowhere to
go now but back to the new deal system of
controls" which degraded the common
man to a dependent and thoughtless status,
to subsection under Dan Tobin, Philip Muir.
ray, John L. Lewis and the proven gangsters
o. the political underworld Of unionism?
That was the end Of progress" under the
repudlated men who called themselves ''prt.
gresslves" in the campaign just ended. That
q pelAeCtloH, 10 uem. reform and rescue
meant confusion and doom. Even the few
half-honest men in the union movement, &C.
knowledging horrors wrought by a system
which protested to serve labor were afraid
to think OF any change. They are old; their
jobs mean gracious living and personal priv.
lege and they are biding their time until their
retirement. So they used all the powers OF
their offices-the stenographers, the research
secretaries, the libraries and lawyers and
their official publications-to hound the voters
under their control with a Gear that any
change would mean surrender to the predato.
ry bosses and economic slavery.
Much OF this progressive" system was
identical with the fascist and nazi labor
fronts, defended nevertheless by politicians
and union emperors who protested to loaths
and fear these evils.
The counsel of dread comes now from men
who stood by Roosevelt that day Of his first
Inauguration and remember best of all his
utterances, his heartening words that we had
nothing to fear but fear itself. Fear propa.
ganda comes from men and women as ancient
and mean in their bitter devotion to their
own failures as Judge Gary ever was to the
l2-hour day. They Knocked Herbert Hoover's
lugubrious prediction, then, Of grass in the
streets but warn us now Of wreckage.
The kindest service to Rooseve1t's memory
mat his idolators could give would be to let
MIN rest. at last, and cease to invoke his