The Wilmington morning star., 1946-07-29
Fair Enough
By WEsTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright, 1916, by King Features Syndicate,
IncorpOrated)

P4So0oAC v L4C P4StQ u lAS
wedding parties Of the Gsrsson crew at which,
in time of war, generals and colonies were
snapped in attitudes of relaxation, it might
be good FOR our souls to think back and then
furtively drop that first stone instead Of
throwing it.
These people were not alone.
1t would be incorrect to say this kind Of
social life began soon after the coming OF the
first new deal. 1t had merely Jagged a little
during the stretch Between the Republican
boom and the beginning of the memorable
war on want in the first year of Mr.. Roosevelt.
Then it resumed, starting in Washington, with
a new lineup. Restaurants in New York, prev
iously known as headquarters Of cafe society,
became political resorts frequented by prom
inent iedologists of the new administration,
including an occasional cabinet member, gov
eminent attorneys, administrator and crack
down mountebanks, enjoying a few months or
years of prominence and power.
They were lathered with attention from
the owners and headWaiters and with publicity
from saloon reporters and it was observed
early in the great reform that while they were
fighting heroically for Il minimum wage of 40
cents an hour or SIG a week for the common
man, many of these ~selfless Zealots were
feeling Only vicarious pains in the struggle
to emancipate the oiler from his slavery to
Well-fed clubmen.
After the war industries began to expand,
there were hundreds, even thousands of par
ties like those that Murray Carson gave to
celebrate the wedding OF his daughter and
some Of us will remember the cynical jest
about the contractors agent who insisted on
picking up the bill for an expensive party at
any hotel that you might name with the re-
mark that this was on the taxpayers.
This extravaganza backed up to Chicago,
Hollywood, San Francisco and New Orleans.
In Washington it was hard to find a table in
the Shoreham or the Statler and many of
the suites were monopolized by corporations
not only for staff members stationed there for
legitimate liaison with procurement and allo-
cations bit for hand-shakers assigned to pour
liquor and buy food. Lawyers, finders and
fixers aEounded and thrived, including many
of those nimble opportunists who had caught
on with the administration, learned their way
through the mazes and now were able, or said
they were, to guide bidders and applicants
by shortcuts to the Ger tiers Of decision and
favor.
# some Of the officers garishly depicted in
idiotic ~rostures at the Carson wedding party
in New York came up to town on fake orders
and pocketed their petty subsistence, letting
Carson pay the bills, let the punishment lit
the crime but it was petty venality at worst.
How many civilian burearcrats for years be-
fore the great debauch OF wartime had found
~'official business in New York which took
them to the Stork and opp on government
transportation? These army men are doomed
to lasting humiliation i nothing worse while
Henry Morganthau goes uncensured, even I'M
noticed, though he procured for himself,
through the Navy, by order of his friend and
neighbor, the President, a Coast Guard plane
and crew and precious fuel to fly him to his
home for week-ends and back to Washington.
"The armed services may be disappointing
in their lack of 'know-how' in the management
RsyI - HV--- ry--I WAL Tl----
who toiled in the meshes of bureaucracy to
spread contracts among the smaller war
plants, but you can be sure, dead sure, Of
honesty, loyalty and endurance" That tradi-
ton of honesty and the reputation for scrupu-
lous and cautious honesty, avoiding even the
appearance of evil, is one reason why these
unhappy men are so CONSPICUOUS in the revela-
tons. They are being tried by that severe
standard whereas politicians and other civil
lians will be forgiven because they cannot
be indicted.
/ come back to the miserable historical fact
that an administration which entered Washing
ton with the confidence and hope of the peo-
pie, protesting the'hignest motives and preach
ing sacrifice and scorn of greed, soon sucumb-
ed to the most ordinary temptations. This did
have an influence on others and soon after
the shock of Pearl Harbor had been relieved
by young Marines and 81 Lejackets and boyish
flyers, dying in unheacd OF places, the mad,
selfish career resuned.
In New York hotels, men who formerly
had occurred Sc and SO rooms and lived close
ly on their expense allowances, now took suites
and charged it to "the government which
paid these expenses as a legitimate cost of
war production. The extravaganza extended
in proportion, down the line to the jukes and
taverns in factory towns, to the jewelry stores
where war workers bought trash on instalments
at high prices from merchants whose adver-
tisements piously exhorted them to buy bonds
to defend democracy. The trains were damned
with standees even on long hauls, including
many passengers with TO mission but to go
somewhere now that they had the money.
Meanwhile, American young men, the sons
and brothers of the jewellers, were dying on
the beaches and in the snow of France, as
earlier American soldiers had died in Vir-
ginia near Washington while protiteers and
run-aways from the front, prostitutes, gamb-
lers and some of the sristocrats of politics en-
joyed wild and luxurious life and fought for
money and power behind the shield of the
wavering lines.
With that and other past experiences, we
should have known what callousness and in
gratitude may be expected of human beings
and resolved that this time war would not
be a debauch at home. But we do not learn
and far from presuming to "honor" the dead,
the nation, from the government down, may
better bow in remorse and shame.