The Wilmington morning star., 1946-09-18
As Pegler Sees 1t
Bv PEGLER

ideals and sentiments Of the American peo-
pie"
This was an arbitrary and debatable dc
tum. Americans for generations had evlnceo
a desire to hand down their wealth, little or
great, to their families. State legislatures ana
national Congress had created taxes on
estates and inheritances but this was not
necessarily proof that the people had decided
to .repudiate the old custom. The debates and
the propaganda revealed, on the contrary, an
intention to use the money thus acquired for
the going expenses of government and to re-
duce the economic power of dead hands
over large areas of industry and large groups
of workers. Emotional resentment was clear
ly revealed against the grotuesque luxury pro-
vlded for idle and supercillious heirs, by con-
trast with the bleak condition of workers
whose toll continued to create the income.
Several generations of Roosevelts and Delanos
were among these parasites.
BY his use of the qualifying word vast
in his discussion of fortunes, Mr.. Roosevelt
established a bridge by which he could re-
treat to safe ground when he should be chal-
lenged during his life and a beneficiary of a
custom which he condemned and, historically,
after his own death, as one who practised an
evil which he had deplored. To a man who
can leave only So 1000 to his family. an estate
of $780, 900 is vast although the income on
conservative investments might be no more
than $50 a week which, nowadays, is below
the ceiling OF poverty in most urban areas.
however. a person with a fortune of a mil
ION has always been regarded as a rich man
and Mr.. Roosevelt was by inheritance, a mil.
.lionaire.
1.-THE desire to provide security for ones
self and ones family is natural and whole
some," he said. But it is adequately served
by a reasonable inheritance"
By the will of his mother, Mr.. Roosevelt
received nins-tenths Of her entire estate of
81, oo9, S72. net.
The proponents Of taxation to reduce vast
estates had resented the manner by which
many such accumulations had been establish
ed. 1t was argued that even though the meth
DDS had been legal they were, in many cases,
immoral because the founders had been
shrewd fellows who felt out gaps in the laws
and took advantage Of them. Or the rich men
had paid low wages to the workers. Roose-
Welt, himself, at Hyde Park, paid starvation
wages.
To 20 no further back than the Presidents
maternal grandfather. Warren Delano, who
died in 1898, we find that he left an estate Of
81, 1888, 600.
President Roosevelt had condemned the in
heritance Of vast estates derived from the
exertions of the people. He may have believed
that equally large fortunes, derived from vices
and misfortunes OF humanity were morally SUI
perior but he never touched on that subject
although he was still alive and campaigning
for his fourth term when the disclosure came
that Grandfather Warren Delano had been an
opium smuggler in the China trade.
Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelts Autobiography
never dealt with the sources OF any OF the
fortunes handed down on both sides OF ue
and no biographer OF any Roosevelt
ever discovered or had the fidelity to report
that Warren Delano was an opium smuggler.
Nor is there any more than the sketchlest
reference to the fact that James Roosevelt,
the Presidents father, had profiteered in the
tragedy of the Southern states after the Civil
war. James Roosevelt had been Il money
changer in his own sons angry meaning OF
the term employed in his first inaugural ad-
dress In 1888.
James Roosevelt was an organizer ana serv-
ed for two years as president OF the southern
Railway Securities Co., an early investment
trust created to pick up at cheap prices the
control of railroads Of the South through the
acquisition Of bonds previously voted by IL
literate Negro legislators under the control OF
the carpet-baggers. The frauds upon the i'm
poverished white taxpayers were in part re
sponsible for the Ku Klux Khan, for the rail-
roads had been state properties before the
war.
Karl Schriftgeisser, in his The Amazing
Roosevelt Family writes that James Roose-
welt 'helped in the postwar housekeeping OF
the carpetbaggers which resulted in the or
ganization of the Southern Railway system
and the Louisville and Nashville and that
sit has been estimated that he accumulated
a fortune OF $500, 900 from his railroad ven
lures" :!
Thus James Roosevelt, in housekeeping the
carpet : baggers, was a beneficiary of their
ruthless cleaning of the South, the effect OF
which were still felt when Franklin D. Roose-
welt became president and a member of his
cabinet Knocked the South because some OF
its children had no shoes.
Moreover, Franklin DIS father was no work
er and the sweat of those who toll enabled
the hunts at Pau, aud the grouse in Scotland"
as Schriftgeisser says.
Back in New YorI, the biographer con-
tinues, He was a popular figure in society.
He was a patron of the Patriarch's ball when
the ineffable Ward McAllister was telling the
Mrs. Aston who was nice and who wasn't. He
knew the garish Actor Mansion we'll"
Franklin Roosevelt was still a millionaire
when he died. Leaving only $500 each to his
personal employees ard not more than $40 a
week for all purposes for his faithful secre-
tary of long service, Missy LIE Hand, who,
perhaps fortunately, for her, did not live to