The Wilmington morning star., 1946-08-21
Fair Enough
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright, By King Features Syndicate Inc

way OF ASKING VINO ever heard OF MIN! mas
retired from the National Labor Relations
Board after serving five years. By way OF
farewell, he proposed four restrictive amend
ments to the Wagner Act. None of these sug-
gestions is new and the four of them to-
gether couldn't begin to reconcile this evil
monument to a time-serving old Tammany re-
tainer with the Constitution Of the United
States and the principles of equal justice I'M
der law.
Reilly would drprive the board of its present
power 10 prosecute and render final judgment
IN the union cases in which it's first appears
as the complaining party. 1t may be hard for
many Americans to realize that this is &C
tually the present law of their country but
that is the case, nevertheless. That is what
Senator Robert F. Wagner, of New York, and
an ~ex-judge he, at that, knowingly fought FOR
when he was steering his Hitlerian monstrosi-
ty through the Senate and bowling with clown
ish solemnity to the left which hailed him,
with knowing derision, as a champion of la
Dor. 1t will be even more difficult to believe
that moreover, the decisions of this hot-eyed
kangaroo court are final and not renewable
except when a loaded Supreme Court, at it's
own, erratic and motivated pleasure, decides
to visit the dungeons and watch the rats
MUNICH TIE martyrs.
The original board included Edwin S. Smith,
Of whom the Dies Committee reported that he
had been deeply involved in the communist
movement in this country of many years.
when his term EXPIRED the comnitte
reported officially to Congress, 1.-The President
failed 10 send his renewal of appointment to
the Senate because Smith had made ton
bald a record as a communist to have the
slightest chance of confirmation. After leav-
ing, he became first an organizer tor the CLIO
and then executive director of the National
council OF American-Soviet friendship" This
organization was described as a communist
front.
The original secretary of the board, Nathan
Witt, was cited in many connections by the
Dies omnltt and a report to Congress by
the Smith committee, appointed to investigate
the board, contained accusations of incompe-
tence and bias. He resigned and reappeared
briefly in New York several months ago as
adviser to a group of longshoremen of the
American Federation of Labor who had been
seduced by conspirators to strike
against their own union. The strike failed when
it was revealed to the more intelligent rebels
that they were being used to establish a beach
head on the New York waterfront for the COM
blnatlon of West coast communist stevedores
and communist Atlantic seafaring unions.
Such, in part, was the Original Labor Re-
latlons Board knowingly selected by Franklin
d. Roosevelt in 1885 to prosecute and badger
American citizens, both employers and work
ers, to solicit complaints and provoke trouble.
tp prosecute, convict and pass sentence and
tp promote the CLIO and the communist trea-
son
1here never has been, even down to now.
a pretense that this was an impartial board
nor a denial of the obvious fact that defend
ants were presumed to be guilty, and couldn't
be found innocent even though they proved
they were. The defendants always are en-
nIOVprC 1hnrn &c ~ ~N.s. Wy.
law that an employee may ever bring charges
against a union.
AS a remedy IN this particular, Reilly offers
the restrained proposal that the powers to
prosecute, to try and to punish its own o.
ponents be lifted and transferred to the De.
partnent OF Labor. Inasmuch as this DEPART
ment also exists only to serve the unions. in
cluolng the foulest rackets and traitorous con-
splracles, the reform here would be imagin-
airy. And in the normal course. the Labor De-
partment's team of prosecutors and Judges
would be composed of the same stealthy.
malignant bigots whose ferocities were az
posed by the Smith committee.
IN the conversion of the OPA to something
ostensloly else, in recent days, it has been
seen again that, in the new deal kllx. the
personnel do not change but only change Jobs
IN mat instance it was argued that it
would have been sin to waste the experience
u hC LSd1OIS u uP lRA
me same would be said to justify the transfer
OF labor board t~orquemadas to the Denart.
ment OF Labor to continue their old familiar
program.
Reilly agrees, after five years. that the STA.
tus OF foremen, as to whether thew NAV be
un1onlzed or not, should be "clarified." That
IS handsome Of him to be sure, though if SIG.
gests that he himself has never read the law
which he has been administering. For that
law plainly holds that foremen stand outside
the act because they represent the EMPLOYERS
interests. It was the board itself that f1o,,ted
this plain language and created q doubt not
IN the text, but in its own devious mind
The other two recommendations nresented
with such v1rtuous eclat are not worth the
paper on which to discuss them. being trivial
and more like diversions than sincere admis-
sions of fault.
The trouble is with the Wagner act itself
whole and entire.
conceived in mischief and dedicated TO tho
destruction OF the principles OF Justice, it made
poutlcal proteges of unions without deeininq
unions or prescribing even a minimum of de-
cehcy IN their character and administration
supporting to guarantee to workers the right
to bargain collectively through agents of their
own choice, it has authorized unions, employ.
ers and the board to select those bargaining
agents for millions of unwilling citizens. 1t
mas been an accomplish in the robbery and
persecution of those millions not daring to
deny in SO many words the right of the in
dividual American to drive his own bargain