The Wilmington morning star., 1946-11-27
As Pegler Sees 1t
Bv sTBRO PEGLER

Willie WOTkeIS, 1IOI1 ODSCoA1tv WASA ~~ oAo-
was weak and its treasury low, gave him
the power which he now yields under law.
and encouraged him to place the union al
ways before the nation in any conflict OF in
terest.
He is no more dictatorial or ruthless today
than he was in the thirties when he was
chairman of the Committee for Industrial Or
ganization, the predecessor Of the present
C.L.O., and, with Roosevelt's active support,
was running an organizing campaign in the
steel and automobile industries which Inflicted
a reign of terror on areas of Michigan, Ohio,
Pennsylvania and Illinois.
Trained communist street : fighters and
dynamiters, vandals and nightriders OF the
Ku Klux type took part in these frightening
disorders by which Roosevelt drove American
workers into unions which they plainly pre-
ferred not to join. Roosevelt knew all about
Lewis then and knew that his rule over the
union was as despotic as the Stain regime
in Russia, which Roosevelt, in a patronizing
speech to a gang Of young communists on
the White House lawn, denounced as a "dic-
tatorship as absolute as any other dictator
ship in the world"
Roosevelt knew, and so did Mrs. Roosevelt,
Frances Perkins, Harold Ickes and Phil Muir
ray, Lewis old associate in the mine workers
and his successor as president Of the CLIO,
that Lewis had suspended the home rule. or
autonomy. of two-third Of the districts" Of
the United Mine Workers, containing more
than two-thirds of the rank and file member
ship, and placed them under 'provisional' Of
flcers, his personal satraps, subject to his
orders and Indifferent to the desires and de-
mands of the miners whom they ruled as
subjects. This condition continues and it is
good union practice, in the approved Roose-
welt version of democracy" for it all was
done within the framework of the miners
constitution. The same practice has been FOL
lowed by Dan Tobin, in the Transfers Union,
and by other friends and political proteges
OF Mr.. Big. incidentally, nasmuch as that
term now seems to have entered our Ian
guage as a synonym for any mar who re-
CARDS himself as a great brain, and great
boss of the people, I will take occasion to
say that it was a contribution Of these dis
patches but was originated by q colored
woman, a cook, who called the young son Of
the household Mister and the head o. the
house Mister Big" Henry Mencken might
like to make a note Of that for his exhaustive
but sometimes cratic histories Of the Ameri-
can language.
In financial matters and In elections, Lewis
is not only arbitrary but beyond challenge.
In 1896, the CLIO. gave $500, 600 to the Roose-
welt presidential campaign fund by way Of a
Lewis organization called Labor's Non arti-
san league. nasmuch as the CLIO. was then
in its struggling and swaddling days and
largely reliant on gifts or loans from the
miners treasury, the $500, 900 was commonly
regarded as a git Of the miners money from
Lewis. 1t was not necessary for Lewis to
consult the rank and file, for he had SUI
ficient authority under the laws Of the country
and under his unions constitution, which, as
in all other cases, IS regarded as a private
affair OF the union, even though the govern
ment habitually has torced ostensibly free
American workers to join such unions.
Lewis also used money belonging to the
miners to pay the cost OF organizing his
CLIO. empire which he later was to relinquish
to his old friend, Phil Murray, who had been
one OF his vice-presidents in the UNI. W. after
the break, Lewis sent a bill to the CLIO.
saying the money had been loaned. Murray
insisted that it had been a gift, proving that
the pious Mr.. Murray was not above dipping
into a unions treasury for money to promote
personal projects Of its rulers, and Murray
and Lewis became enemies.
Nowadays, Lewis power is absolute within
the union. Like Roosevelt in the democratic
party, he has in recent years been able to
keep down ambitious underlings, one result
being that his name goes before the men on
a Hitlerian ballot. But in the last serious,
though not dangerous, challenge, 20 years ago,
John Brophy, VIII ran for president and was
counted out, demanded an investigation OF
fragrant discrepancies in the returns. He was
QClY 0SuS O1. Jill oS IVA uAd
his men run the elections, count the votes
and certify the count, any rival would have
to rely on the dictator's self-denial and homes
ty to win, even i it were possible for a
rival to give him a contest.
This command Of the districts under the
rule of men who might be compared to Hit
ler's "protectors' in Poland and other con-
quered countries Is not peculiar to Lewis
union. 1t is familiar in many others. In the
Hod- Carriers' and Common Laborers' Union,
the national bosses did not hold either a con-
vention or an election for 80 years. They
elected themselves a n d their successors as
old gangsters died or were knocked off and
the locals were dealt out like principalities to
gangsters who shook down both the laborers
and employers and established embargoes to
keep building and paving materials out OF
certain areas. Yet, in the FACE Of this record,
throughout the war, the Roosevelt govern
ment gave these racketeers exclusive hiring
and shakedown privileges or. government
projects. The graft ran into millions.
If a President of the United States were
to suspend the rights of a majority Of the
states and send in personal representatives to
rule as governors, that would approximate
the Lewis system in the UNI. ".
Phil Murray has enjoyed a fine press not on
ly from the Ear left but even from some pub.
fishers and politicians who like to call them.
selves liberals or "progressives". But the
only difference between Murray and Lewis is
that Lewis has more vitality, audacity and
ability. Murray was Lewis accomplish for