The Wilmington morning star., 1946-11-26
As Pegler Sees 1t
BY wEsTBROoK pEGLER

what he is doing, but l Like my heroes all
in one piece, so it regrets me to observe
General Eisenhower in a bow to the Go
at the big convention in Atlantic City the
day after old Whitney, of the Brotherhood OF
Trainmen, attacked President Truman for
having the audacity last spring to appeal to
the trainmen, as citizens, to put their country
above their union. Whitney's speech was a
fair expression of the snarlirg and lnsensate
eftrontery of profe ssional unioneers who re-
gard their members as subjects and expect
from them the dunb loyalty Of dogs to their
masters.
Labor, Whitney said meaning American
citizens with rights, duties and personality,
should beware of those, including the Presl-
dent of the United States, who, in a conflict
of the national interest with the plans Of the
boss unioneers, would turn the members
against their leaders," meaning him and
his kind. He referred to a historic incident
last spring in which the President. acting
for the entire nation in a crisis which might
have caused God only knows what calamity,
found himself so bereft Of power, to match
his terrible responsibility. that he had to pro-
pose the humiliating expedient of drafting
railroad workers into the Army so as to put
them under military orders to run the trains.
Mr.. Truman. General Eisenhower and all the
rest of us knew that this was a Hitlerian
labor draft, and, in time of practical peace,
at that. And they and all the rest of US know
that Congress and the natlor. had never in
tended the draft law to impress civilians into
military service to run trains, sell groceries
or stitch buttonholes. However, the Roosevelt
system, to which Mr.. Truman frequently has
lowered his eyes as though it were some
heritage of Holy source had given HIM this
responsibility, without power, and Whitney his
terrifying power but no responsibility. Even
as General Eisenhower got up to splatter
hypocritical platitudes over the C1O, a new,
similar situation existed. This time, Mr.. Tru-
man was trying to intimidate John Lewis
and dissipate a monstrous coal strike by
blowing a police whistle. In this case, the
President had 10 make believe that the miners
we're striking against the government because
the nation had drafted the mines, instead of
drafting the men, and now pretended that
the mines were government property. He got
the legal authority to draft. or seize, the
property from a set OF ominous heresies de-
vised by Roosevelt's evil counsellors and de-
scribed as the Presidents aggregate war
These powers" in a notorious,
wartime case. permitted Roosevelt to seize
Montgomery-Ward as a facility" and turn
it over to the Army FOR operation because
the company was drawn into a dispute With
a &c union heavily infested with commun-
lists.
Under these aggregate var powers" the
President, technically, still has a right to
oClZC oil IIC plcSS dIu IdulO 1dCllltlSS VI III
nation and turn these means of public ex-
preston and information over to the same
theological reptiles who demoralized the Army
in Europe after We Day through the insidi.
Gus G-I publications and satur ated both the
Army and the Keeling populations Of Europe
with calculated anti : American propaganda
through the unspeakaBle OWL. il the News
Matched in some Red Cell in New York,
should plant pickets and create an artificial
labor tissue" with The International News,
United Press and Associated Press. Mr.. Tru-
man legally could seize these facilities"
And any Of several iraitorous organizations
OF pseudo-artistic type could give him equal
justification to commander the air. as Hitler
did.
General Eisenhower couldn't have done his
job in Europe if he had had to ask his
armies to do as he planned. instead Of COM
handing them. But the President Of the Unit
ed States has no power to deal with men
who have power to sta:ve the country and
wreck the government, and still the people
expect him to do his Job.
There was no necessity for Eisenhower to
go to the CIO convention at all or. having
gone, to belittle his own honesty and intelli-
gence. II he is suffering from political ambi-
tons it is so much the better that he made
a spectacle of himself so early, though the
demolition Of a man who was will bring no
pleasure 10 InOSe VINO know MIN thus Tar only
as a military hero FOR history.
Eisenhower told the CLIO that American la
Dor rightly shares in the laurels won by
American troops on the battlefield which is
the damnedest nonsense of the season and
certainly violates his own information. Amer
lean labor got enormous wages in the So
called war effort and loated, malingered and
squandered money on booze, entertainment
and jewelry and the record of those very
unions to which he addressed this idiotic flat
terry was so disgraceful that even the very
men whom he tried here 10 WOO must have
been contemptuous. These unions struck over
childish causes, such as the color of the ice.
cream and the pop on the hokey-pokey wag-
ons, they slowed down and stalled, they prof.
iteered and racketeered and the rank and
tlle, the workers, enjoyed the highest wages
in history while the troops were winning their
laurels on the battlefields.
And Eisenhower is one who knows it, too,
for it was Eisenhower who bad to send back
word that he was shot of shells and big
tires, soon after Roosevelt, in the 1914 presi.
dental campaign had boosted of plenty o,
everything when and where it was needed.
He knew that the notorious mo strike, pledge
OF American labor" meaning the union hos.
ses, was violated ten thousand times ard that
no more mercenary and selfish performance
could be found in the history of all our wars.
including the shameless profiteering of the
contractors and manufacturers in the Civil
ana opanlsh-American wars.