The Wilmington morning star., 1946-10-22
AS Pegler Sees 1t
BY WEsTBROOK PEGLER

and 60 on tc elect a IepuUiiedh
l948, serious, conscientious men among 1he"
should take early occasion to restore the True
relation between government and the people
and repudjate the ethics and social haDlts o.
the new Zeal. This would moan the resump-
ton of government by consent OF the governed
abandonment of the "cracK down psychoE
ogy put into words by Hugl. Johnson IN
Roosevelt 8 first great fascist experiment. the
N.R.A., and applied to every relation between
government and the people fol- Is years. ana
the withdrawal of the personalities o. govern
ment from the cocktail bars, night CLUBS ana
alcoholic party-life of both Washington and
New York.
Already the Truman are to be thanked Tor
their abolition of the unofficial but pestiferous
and demon alizing post of First Lady IN
which MIS-. Roosevelt welded capricious pow
err, all the while d%isowning any political char
acter, although she recently confesses all
when she WI ote, in a little aside, that she felt
relieved t. have no longer ANY direct re-
sponsiblhty for helping to run the world. :"
There seems to be no likelihood that the wife
of any o. the present leading aspirants for
the republican nomination in 1940 would have
the effrcntery to assume any such "direct
responsibility as a privilege of her husbands
office or that any of these men would be so
uxorious as to let her get away with it if
she tried.
Mrs. Dewey and Mrs. Bricker behaved re-
assuringly ir 1914 and there have been no
alarming signs from any Ct the others, but
caution is advised.
A thing for republicans to remember is that
victory, in this case and in the circumstances
that will beset the party with the mandate,
calls for a sober, almost gloomy, sense of
responsibility and personal honor. This will
be no mere rout of the rasca,s in the old,
conventional sense, by another set of preda-
tory job-givers and job-holders, long denied
and determined to enjoy TO the utmost the
powers, notoriety and luxury OF official and
social life in high places, we have been i'm
posed upon so long by spectacular bar-flies,
eplthetlcians and mountebanks recruited from
mysterious obscurity and bitter Illustration
that many Of the young republican workers
are included among the millions OF Ameri-
cans who never really knew any other atti-
tude in government and in the personal char
acter and conduct of bureaucrats. They prob.
ably will need special schooling in the true
meaning OF duty. Here is a change that will
demand work, not frivolity at night and gaudy
personal publicity in the guttersnipe gossip of
the hour: rlodesty, not vanity, devotion and
patriotism.
Flippancy in the President, himself, toward
responsibilities affecting the lives and fortunes
of the people and the fate of the nation. has
E1N 80 u obAAbSl I'LL iOl
courage and optimism in dark hours. On the
contrary, 1t was cynicism, a reckless con-
tempt For the obligation that a man assumes
when he steps upon the scaftold before the
capitol building and, placing his hand upon
the book, sWears to uphold the Constitution.
Riots were a subject of presidential jest and
panoplied shysters in the Department of Jus
hce Knocked the law to justify evasions of the
laws plain intent by violent men OF the ruling
party's adherence.
1t is 70 exaggeration to say that govern
ment has been cheapened, deprived of the
dignity that office-holders should be careful
to maintain, by the vulg arity even of cabinet
members, among others, in frequenting joints
and permitting silly women in their house
holds to p1 rattle with all corners. The New
York underworld actually has been represent
ed at White House audiences during the period
of degradation and the time finally has ar
rived when gossip of the Supreme Court and
of the State Department flows in a stream of
pollution from movie actors, walters and Sam,
the ~lavatory man, into the columns of daily
papers which augment their professional
Washington coverage with wild and danger
GUS rumors, on the off-chance that one in a
hundred might be half-true. The fact is, how
ever, that the bureaucracy has been enjoying
the more abundant life in such surroundings
for years, with the result that judicial mat
tiers, pOlitlcal decisions and dellCdte mterna-
tional affairs undoubtedly are blabbed, half
understood by the nodding ignoranti and
balled up in the telling as INSIDE material
and "exclusive predictions along with rou-
tine pregnancies, adulteries and motivated
SANDERS.
There is a serious danger that the republi-
cans will start out to take revenge on the
men who Knocked and Inundated them and
made a game of government That they will
be loath to abolish bureaus and jobs because
they will want to fill them with their own
kind and that they will cultivate, rather than
stand Up to the union masters and press
through remedial laws, in the hope of turning
to their own advantage for a term of years
the political organization and financial powers
Of the union treasures.
Revenge is not an important consideration
TO the people and the nation. The great JOB
is to repair the damage, moral as well as
material, wrought by the long term of cynical
greed and the dictatorial 'crack down. spirit,
to revive the peoples confidence in impartial,
honest and serious government, to reduce the
overhead though it hurts the party workers
who want easy and useless jobs and to re-
establish respect for public office as a public
trust in both the holder of the Office and the
voters VINO put him there.
The mission of the next government should
be to govern in a spirit of true honor, within