The Wilmington morning star., 1946-11-21
As Pegler Sees 1t
Bv WEsTBROOK PEGLER

NEW YORK, Nov. 20. The republican re-
sponse to President Truman's appeal for coop
GRAFTON between a lame-duck President and a
republican congress in the national interest IS
provisional, but certainly more reassuringt than
the conduct of Franklin D. Roosevelt and his
MAschievous band of barber-shop chorists dur
ing the fateful months between Roosevelts
first election in 1882 and his first Inauguration
four months later. Those were months whose
developments turned the course of the world,
when a Hippant and actually playful group Of
cynics delighted in the somber appeals OF
President Herbert Hoover for honest, con-
scientious help in maintaining the recovery
then apparently on the way to some measure
of fulfillment, the great war itself might have
been averted then, but they joked in their
corny, pedagogic way. for they had the mirth-
less humor OF the professor talking dirty to
show that he is, after all, a real he-man and
one of 1.-THE fellows and IT mattered not to
them that the nation suffered if Hoover could
be made to suffer a little more. The crisis was
Hoover's "baby,' in Roosevelt's own phrase,
and they made faces and pinched it to make
it cry, but it was the nations baby, too, and,
as one editorial predicted, it grew up to play
witt matches.
Certainly, we have this advantage in the
present situation, that the new national legis-
lature and Dewey, Taft, Bricker and the other
leading candidates for Mr.. Humans office in
1913 do not regard their present advantage as
a mere opportunity to rock the boat tor the
pleasure Of watching Mr.. Truman turn green
and drape himself over the rail. Cooperation
will mean that Mr.. Truman must cooperate
with them to the extent of %disoWning the ele-
ment best personified by Mrs. Eleanor Roose-
welt. This following had its day at the polls
.~L Jor4 A~J oo., fJrfher afforopf fn rr0ro nfo
its program and its political personalities and
fortunes will be rebuked. Cooperation can 60
Just so far. Mr.. Truman seems never to have
been happy in this company, however, and, as
a masculine, worldly man, he is more COM
Portable among other men, democrats or re-
publicans, whose word, as man to man, means
what it says and is not, as Felix Frankfurther
wrote, with feline reasoning, pernicious over
qualification. Truman has paid his debt to
Hyde Park and it took his last cent Of political
capital to do so and now he is broke but
square with the spooK.
1t would be too much to ask that the repuo-
licans refrain from trying to run some OF the
r~ascaIs in, now that they have run them out.
There will be legitimate reasons tor commit
tees under republican control to demolish the
regulations Of pernicious adventurers and send
some Of them to political p%erdition and on to
Alcatraz for thievery and connivance. Il, there
Gore, duty becomes an extraordinarily sweet
pleasure they cannot be blamed for that.
Unlike the Roosevelt special, the excursion
Of soiled and grubby and greedy mlsanthropes
who went whooping to Washington baWling
happy days are here again. knocking hon.
esty and sneering at poor Hoover's concern,
the leaders OF the new power indicate a serious
intention to reform and restore government
rather than to play the game Of breakdown.
No Louie McHenry Howe has appeared among
them with a pack on his back, peddling maya
zine pieces by suddenly literary wives and
daughters of new dignitaries and, Of course,
a due proportion of articles by himself. in a
full-linetorcing scheme. If there is a Tommy
the Cork or Benny the Cone or Henry the
Morgue among them he is unrecognized as
yet.
1t would be unwise Of the discredited left
wing to say at any time during this period OF
cooperation that republicans have preferred
to harm the c%ountry's interests merely to en-
barrass Roosevelt's heirs in the White House.
For any such attack would be a reminder to
others that in 1892, when Hoover pleaded for
help and, in effect, offered Roosevelt a re-
ceivership, Roosevelt not only refused to CO.
operate with an almost powerless President,
but created alarms outside the White House to
make his problem worse as though Hoover,
the man himself, m~attered and as though he
selfishly cared.
One of the greatest lies Of the whole cam
paign. Mr.. Hoover once said, was the lie that
the country was in ruins and that Roosevelt
rescued it.
History will record that, with the election
over, the whole country h~esitated awaiting the
new policies,' said a document in which MIR.
Hoover's position was explained after years
of misrepres entation. much OF it scurrllous.
"Rumors spread that Mr.. Roosevelt would de-
value the currency and, in consequence, peo-
pie tried to get their money out of banks and
spectators tried to ship it out of the country.
Mr.. Roosevelt refused to reaffirm the prom
Uses he had made the night before election
not to tinker with the currency and refused to
cooperate in other directions to stem the tide
Of fear. Fear of what? 1t was fear OF the new
deal, not Of a retiring administration. j was
a panic of bank depositors induced by the
new deal and Mr.. Roosevelt.
Having created a sense Of impending COM
motion in the very air Of Washington, Roose-
welt then came out on the gcaffold before the
capitol and said that all his 'countrymen had
to FEAR was fear itself. The course he took to
cure these fears may be Judged by a COM
parison between the national debt when the
nation went to war, and figures lost their
meaning, and the debt under Hoover, when
Roosevelt was criticizing him for extravaganza
and bureaucracy. ".'
Undoubtedly, whether Mr.. Truman agrees
or not, the republicans now will change laws
which conferred on John L.. Lewis the power
to strangle all industry and on the commun-
lists the power to wreck the American mer-
chant fleet probob1u he will b, ooroooh1a for