The Wilmington morning star., 1946-06-08
Fair Enough
By WESTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright, by King Features Syndicate, Inc.

WI 11IlSl Wv ~ 41O l1dl ldC ANY
leans nowadays enjoy politics as much as we
enjoyed sports in the era of wonderful nom
sense and that sports have fallen to a po-
sition somewhere in the second division, say
about the place that politics occupied back
in the prosperous tWenties.
To De sure, attendance and receipts are
good in the major leagues and tickets for
the heavyweight fight are scalping for $100 a
copy but I observe that the more or less
idle conversation of people runs more to po-
litical personalities and issues than to the
trouble with the Giants, which would have
been a topic of national concern Is years
ago, and that if some committee for or against
this or that hires the garden or Carnegie
hall and puts on a card of ham-and-egg spell
binders, the citizens will tear off the front
of the house to get in and revel in a pleasant
program of hating.
A peculiar thing about this is that these
crowds dent go to be convinced of anything,
being already savagely opposed to the person
or proposition selected for denunciation and
thus are really wasting their time except that,
as I note, they love to hate and therefore
enjoy themselves.
Democrats don't patronize Republican raj
lies or vice versa, feeling that in so doing
they would contribute something to the oppo-
sition's success which is measured by at
tendance. About the only outsiders VINO swell
the house at a big Communist show are the
atrical and night-club trash who get flattering
introduc.ions and applause and 60 away think
ing they are statesmen.
There are a few exceptions, OF course, such
as William C. Fields, the old comedian who
always buys six tickets down front when an
eminent female new dealer plays Hollywood,
one for himself and five for friends to help
him hate her, but, in general, birds of a
feather flock together and really pay money
for this fun. Realizing this, the booking agents
who send talent out over the country have
collected regular stables OF bleeding hearts
and world-savers comparable to the late Leo
P. Flynn's troupe of logical contenders, 10 Of
whom fought in as many cities on a New
Years day Is years ago.
l was talking to a young fellow just out
of the Army in Arizona last winter who was
fixing 10 leave town because there wasn't
any future there in mis- line Of work which
was sport-writing and I told him he was crazy
not to get himself a hall and make a lot
OF money booking in lecturers. A few years
ago, I would have told him to 60 in for
fighters end wrestlers. He said there was no
interest in people just running off at the
mouth but the very next week a well-known
CAB dropped notwithstanding for humanity
and the good old profit motive. and. so !
heard later, picked up about 81, 200 as easy
as breaking sticks, which meant q nice cut
for the promoters, too.
A mutual friend tells me that Mrs. Clare
Booth Luce has to turn down about 500 lecture
dates every month and while YOU have IN
make a certain allowance for looks. still her
looks aren't all, because l keep getting pub
lclty aoout lectures by William Gailmor.
VINO certainty amt pretty and is a notorious
lmposter Of the Moscow line.
Just how, all over Connecticut neonlo .ro
SpeCQldtlnP whether the Rep,1h1;o,,, III $50.
Mrs. Luce their nomination for senator r.
run against Chester Bowles of the OPA
ABOUT the same as the public used r. +.1l,'
up lhe rig lights in the early stages nv won
uerlng whether Dempsey or Tunney would
come to terms with cid Tex. Mrs T,1ca
realy ought to be able to write her ou1u
Iohea % the Republicans and probably will
1e Haatch because she has put in two
49, III Al 'ne lower house in Washington and
announcement that she wouldn't take an.
otner nomination for that Job lust means +h.4
she flgures she has earned this promotion .sI
a contest against BoWles for the se,t 49,.
Aomlfal Thomas Hart has decided IN resign
1ne people In Connecticut, and especiaIlv
~ C.lO.' who run the Democratic marty
III realize that Mrs. Luce is a ferocious cam.
palshef, reHemberlng that she licked not onlv
the state democratic organization in har lact
run Tor Congress but took on Franklin n
ilooseVclt and pinned his ears back too and
all without outside help. They offered her anv.
pooy she might name, even to Tom Dewey
himself, III the last days of the fight because
Henry Wallace had made a dozen sneeches
against her and all the dirty-fightine talent
from The olitico-intellectua underworld ~
Broadway and the radio had flocked in to
run her down and, finally, Mr.. Big himself
They threw everything they had at her and
"hen she finally won, that victory was as
spectacular and exciting to people now turned
to politics as Dempsey's wild knockout over
flrpo mao been to fans of another kind in a
quieter and happier time.
In one OF his speeches., Wallace called her
a sharp-tongued glamor girl of 40 and felt
the slash OF that tongue an hour later with
a turn OF repartee that slit him from here
TO here. Clifton Fadinan. the bull butterfly
OF the radio, got fresh and what happened
to him shouldn't happen to a dog. Dogs are
all right.
l think the Republicans are going to give
it to her, realizing, if they have any sense,
that with Governor Raw Baldwin determined
to retire from public office Clare is the only
one thew have who would have a chance ia
beat Bovles' great publicity. neatly contrived
through the propaganda machine of the
O.P A.. and start heading him off from the
nresidencv in 1913 or 1852. And then, men
as thew used to say at the old Pioneer AC
this here is going to. be a grudge fight ana
the beauty of politics is that everybody can
get in and Will