The Wilmington morning star., 1946-12-23
As Pegler Sees 1t
BY B PEGLER
Copyright, 1916, by King Features Syno
In

BY PEGLER
oCopyrlght, 1916. by King Features Syndicate,
Inc.)
NEW YORK, Dec. % - The decision OF
the CLIO. and the New York state council OF
the same, to abate the organized disorder of
mass marches on our political temples,
and other recent developments, suggest that.
as Mr.. Doodley said Of the Supreme Court, the
boss unioneers follow the election returns.
The latest of these mechanical fascist
demonstrations, the march on Albany,
wheezed up the hill, fell apart and was repu-
dated even by elements of the juvenile Amer
lean veterans committee, the newspaper COW
erage had calmly revealed the organization
and planning of the demonstration in a way
that inevitably compared it to Benito Musso.
llnls march on Rome, so often derided as a
comfortable Journey, no more spontaneous than
a heavyweight championship fight. The arous-
ed crusaders had not rallied on an impulse
TO stride the road by stages, recruiting a hot
rabble OF hungering revolutionaries as they
went, on the contrary, they met by appoint
ment, rode the train to Albany in reserved
accomodatlons, amusing themselves with po-
ltlcal shop-talk, and were received with polite
and legally correct hauteur by the cops and
civil officers of the elected government of the
stateliest republic Of our sisterhood. Earlier
marches" from the historic hike of General
Jacob Coxey's atterdemalions on through the
larklsh Washington excursion of the veterans
OF World War l to demand a bonus, were
more authentic, although many of those ancient
warriors drove the route in their own cars
and few had scars to show for their conquest
of the hun. Thereafter, We had hunger
Marches Of a Well-fed proletariat who rode
the cushions to rendezvous in the suburbs of
Washington where the communists marshaled
them IN companies and led them straight into
the muzzles of the movie cameras.
When marches 60 by train, each with
his ticket, like commuters, and patronize the
diners, like common bureaucrats, they dis
credit themselves and Illustrate their purpose.
Moreover, as Phillip Murray, of the CIO. has
been reminded, political picketing by mobs
might some time strike st. Patricks Cathedral
Or any other house of worship, and the public
reaction would be severe, Unions of the CIO,
under communist compulsion, have picketed
newspapers in protest against their editorial
policies and the same inspiration might one
day decide that some divine had uttered
fascist sentiments, a feasible supposition,
and take action against religious freedom in
the name of the CIO.
Most of us of the laity have moderately en-
joyed such attentions. 1 know I was more
pleased than grleved when the National Mari
time Union turned out a guard of honor g..
500 strong, in time of war, to serenade my
cherished employers premises with demands
for my discharge. This was a tribute that
L odW Olly III lH0 plCtolCS, OClIlS "a il w
at the time, but my satisfaction was the great
er when it occurred to me to ask in print
a few days later how the NMU could muster
that many hardy beach-combers for political
service when the government was sending
half-trained American boys to sea On the
merchant vessels. The official organ of the II
dustrial Workers of the World, the unrecon.
structed wobblies of the 192o's, further dis
paraged the NMU in an article by an old
veteran of real fighting demonstrations" in
which a man had a chance to get hung by
the indigaantes. He said he had scanned the
pickets and had seen no sailors, but only
typical Union Square reserves, always on call
for such duty.
The minds and the ways of the bolos are
always mysterious and I never figured out
what they expected to gain one-half SO
precious as the argument they lost by that
job of picketing. They knew I wouldn't be fired,
of course, and not even Joe Curran, who often
says he isn't a communist, could have been
dumb enough to miss the fact that a union,
which claimed to be sailing the Murnaansk
run down to the last illiterate Caribbean COM
munist messboy in freedoms cause, would
have trouble explaining this wealth of idle
bum-poWer.
The fact must be as well known to Mr..
Murray as it is to me that most of these rag
tag turnouts have been organized by COM
munist leagues for and against this and that
whose entire purpose is to try boycotts, run
picket lines and collect money to pay the
salaries of the officials. Most of the latter,
by the way, applied for, and many Of them
got, deferment in the draft on the claim that
they were combating ''fascism' on the home
front. When the draft finally blew too strong
On some of the younger bucks. they dived INTO
the OPA and made an even better living sell
ing gasoline coupons and shaking down grocers
and l~unch-Wag On men.
observe that Lewis Merrill, formerly
Louis Cohen, the president of the CLOS Office
Workers Union, has taken still other measures
of compliance with the voters mood recorded
in the recent solemn referendum.
Mr.. Merrill, like Brother Curran, of the
NMU, opposed the late war as fasclsm lmper-
ialism until Russia was attacked, but there,
after called it a peoples war; and bawled
as loudly as Charlie Chaplin himself Tor a
second 'front.' to relieve the pressure on
Russia. Like Curran and Chaplin. the latter
still an alien, by the way, and a refugee from
two wars in the soft asylum OF the onltea
States. Merrill was himself too busy. Win
other matters to take personal part In the
inva sion of Normandy, Sicily, the Riviera or
-