The Wilmington morning star., 1946-07-18
Fair Enough
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright, by King Features Syndicate, 1nc.)

ism and though I respected him as a clever,
able and persuasive man, I think the damage
he did in substituting European concepts for
American outweighs the material benefits that
he won for his clothing workers and some
others. The propagandists of the other side
are fond Of saying that all opposition to per-
sons, methods and principles dear to them
springs from hatred but l did not hate Hill
man and wish him eternal peace, assuming
that he was sincere arc believed his ends
justified some very questionable means. The
controversies of the last II years have been
waged in a mood of anger to the impairment
of sober understanding of the issues but I
think I can point out the error of those who
would perpetuate Hillmanism in our country
effectively and without temper.
We needn't 60 into the question Of The closed
shop because if we did we would stall right
there. its advocates and opponents being i'm
movable and all the arguments having been
exhausted long ago.
But Mr.. Hilman, in 1943. proposed some
thing that seems to me to have been right
out of the books of Mus5ollni and Hitler when
he asked that all the unions in the state Of
New York affiliate with the so-called Ameri-
can Labor Party, then, as now, the temporary
abode OF the movement, and pay
into the party treasury a per capita tax on
all their members. That meant. and Sidney
Hillman intended it to mean. that all the work
ers in the state who are union Members wheth-
er by choice or by force, and may be re-
publcans or democrats, would have been COM
PEELED to pay tribute to his own political party.
We may have had isolated precedents for
this idea in rotten localities in times past, as
where employers warned the workers that if
they did not vote thus and so the works would
close down and they would be out of work.
But know of no true parallel and I think
the proposition was violently un-American. I
say that If you compel an American citizen
to contribute to a political party and threaten
to suspend him from ac union and lay him
of the job for refusing 10 contribute you are
violating his political rights in the meanest
way by threatening his family with poverty.
Inc failure OF this proposal was due to poll
teal rivalry between Hillman and the other
union bosses. The fact that the others did not
denounce 1t on principle but ditched it only
because ii would have gnified Hillman's
great power, shows how far this leadership
has travelled back toward continental Europe.
British law, the source Of ours and in many
respects superior, explicitly forbids compulsion
in the collection Of such contributions on the
very ground that it would force some voters
to give financial support to candidates and
proposals abhorrent to them and thus impair
their citizenship.
In Hlllnan's own union, collections were
taken up for 'underground' work in Europe
oAN LIN PCoPlc " Fay WIelucI Uey were
willing or not and the levy was given a tint
OF that amorphous and sometimes evil thing
which the unioners are always calling demo
cracy" with the explanation that this collec.
ton had been decided upon by the high execu.
tive body of the union.
There are SO many objections to that that it
IS hard to put them in oloer. But, just at ran.
dom, l point out that underground work IN
foreign countries is no business OF an osten-
SlDIV voluntary Aroericoo oScocio{;op ~ Y,or1-
ers formed for the purpose of negotiating
wages, Eours and working conditions and that
no American citizen should be compelled to
lmpllcate himself in sucn mysterious and omi-
nous business with idleness and want as the
only alternative. The money might be used to
start an armed revolution against a friendly
nation, and the "underground' might get the
United States into a war.
Back in 1910, Hillman S office sent circulars
to the members which we're nothing but cam
paign literature for President Roosevelt.
We aIe modified in a crusade to re-elect
our great President; it said. Let there be
no slackers in our midst"
Well, now, who said all the members were
"mobilized in a crusade" and so forth and who
gave anybody the right to call an American
citizen a Stacker, which is a dirty word and
deliberately selected, just because he intended
to exercise his political right to vote for Wen
dell Willkie? Probably most of the members
were Roosevelt voters but this official writ
from headquarters stigmatized all others.
So, of that piece of business I say that here
again Sidney Hillman revealed that, although
he had lived long and had prospered in the
United States, he was still haunted by the
mental political habits arc superstitions that
he formed in Lithuania. He spoke often OF
freedom, and rather pretty his wordage, too,
but his u.terances and actions, over the years,
reveal a strictly materiailstic concept of the
more abundant and satisfactory life. Vacations
with pay9 Yes. Pensions? Yes. Freedom from
the fear Of poverty? Well, yes and no, because
he threatened you with poverty as heartlessly
as any soulless corporation ever did. if you
reared back and insisted that you were a man
with a mind and principles and would vote as
you pleased and refuse financial aid to candi-
dates whom you opposed.
Mr.. Hillman carried the same European
psychology and political ethics into his Politi-
cal Action Committee and men found them
selves down for a dollar assessment for the
fourth term campaign who deeply believed
Roosevelt should not be reelected.
Even though the country was supposed to
be short of civilian manpower, and Paul Nc.
Mutt was hollering for n4o1c labor, the Roose-
welt campaign fund came before the nations
necessity because men who refused to paw
were ruled out of the war effort In some
cases, the alternative was induction into the
Army or Navy and I would like to hear some
one say that Congress and the people intended
that the draft act should be used to make
anybody contribute money to anybodv'e ram