The Wilmington morning star., 1946-10-18
As Pegler Sees 1t
Bv w%EsTBROOK PEGLER

no,1ncine the abandonment o. price control
on meat, l should like to read one, TOO.
Mr.. Truman was, and remains, Loyalty, in
shirt. the protege and disciple Of one OF the
greediest, meanest rascals IN the history Oh
American politics, Tom Pendergast, OF Kan
sas City. When Pendergast went to prison.
as he deserved to, but for much less lime
than he deserved, Truman renamed ms
friend and, to the limit of his power as a
senator to do so, avenged him by opposing
the reappo:ntment Of Maurice Milligan, an
able and honest federal prosecutor, who had
sent the filthy old monster away and ditched
the gaudy political wagon OH which Truman
had ridden to the local Kansas City county
board and then to the senate. Pendergast was
low and vile, and greed was the passion that
drove him to exploit the prostitution OF young
women from the cities and towns OF the west
ern plains in the brothels of Kansas City
which operated under political license from
the dirty Pendergast organization OF which
Mr.. Truman, always knowingly and never
under any misrepresentation, was an enthusi-
astic and diligent member. He knew what he
was doing and he knew what sort OF man
his loathesome patron was.
Pendergast was SO greedy that he even
robbed the poor, dumb, mental punks, the
wretched, priceless, degraded Kansas City
cops, the firemen, and the men and women
clerks IN public offices by reducing their pay
to compensate his organizations thleving
from the public taxes. He gypped his fellow
gangsters, wherein he was disloyal even to
the code of the underworld OF criminals and
all for money with which to gamble on the
races, at which he was, for a long time, one
of the most extravagant FOOLS in the country.
Mr.. Truman spoke contemptuously Of "sel-
fish men," Senator's TAFT and Wherry, "who,
in the hope of gaining political advantage,
encouraged sellers to gamble on the destruc-
ton Of price control by withholding their
meat animals from the market.
Waving all other poinrs raised in this
passage-he should talk about gamblers and
gambling!
In Pendergast's time, and Truman's, Kan
sas City had more gambling houses than any
other American city outside Nevada, all of
them illegal and all Of them paying their
shake or lug" as Truman's associates call
graft, to the Pendergast machine. Hundreds
Of women sat by the hour, day after day,
squandering the rent and grocery money and
neglecting their children ard their homes,
playing keno in open joints that ran under
Pendergasts p e r m / S s i o n and protection.
Through the uncurtained windows of the
streets you could look into gam
bling joints where dealers served blackjack,
and there were crap games and roulette
tables running with no more concealment
than the restaurant where the mattresses per-
formed a strip show, removing one garment
with each course.
Not only did Truman try to block Mr.. Mil.
ligan and eventually succeed in eliminating
him as a service of revenge for the rogue
whom he called chief, but when Pendergast
died he flew to Kansas City in an Army
plane, at our expense, to pay his final tribute
as though no handsomer duty could have been
found for American young men in the honor
able uniform Of their country whose mission
IN the service was to rebuke, not honor. evil.
AND, lately, although the great crime which
MIR. Mllllgan finally proved was the denial to
citlzens Of the right to vote and to have
their votes honestly counted, Mr.. Truman, as
d gesture In memory OF his departed master,
granted presidential pardons to a number Of
the Jourreymen criminals who had stolen
elections in the masters rame and, incident
ally, for lunar own benefit.
Greed was extraordinarily high in Fender.
CASTS character, both by volume and in
quality, but the familiar hypocritical insinu-
alton 9f the hack politician occurring in this
address to the nation, evokes the observation
that it is a common trait of people OF all
social and financial stations. The poor know
that they are just as greedy as the rich.
u III common man TOeS respond to the
flattering suggestion that, because, somehow.
ne hasn't been successful in gratifying his
greed, greed isn't in him.. But why else did
those women sit and dime their money awav
at the keno tables and the men 20 against
Tom Ptndergast's crap tables and wheels in
places that Harry Truman, the county COM
missioner, knew as well as your tongue knows
the inside of your mouth? They weren't the
quality of Kansas City, but the common man.
and no nan remembers meeting any of them
who said she or he came to lose money MT
to win.
1 am not conceding the point that the stock
raiser who held back his animals on the guess
that waiting would bring higher prices is
guilty of reprehensible greed. I am nassino
it to deal with some of the dishonesties that
came so spectacularly from a follower Of Tom
Pendergast. and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The same group" he said, hated every.
thing Roosevelt stood for.
That there be no mistake, count me AMONG
them. I hated the hypocrisy of a millionaire
who paid starvation wages and rallied at
others who paid better; who scorned the mer.
cenary exploitation Of public office And
nepotism but encouraged and assisted mem.
bers OF his own family to use his nosition
to get rich quick and engineered the swindle
OF creditors who had loaned fortunes on =
mistaken faith in his honor; w o seduced
labor to exchange one set Of chains for an
other; who left his personal EMPLOYEES s1no
eacn IN MS will and who exhorted the com.