The Wilmington morning star., 1947-06-13
AsPeglerSeesh
By WEsTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright, 1947, by King Features
Syndicate, Inc.)

SynO1Cate, lnc.)
NEW YORK. June 1.-the nuisance of the
Roosevelts continues with undiminished ribal.
dry more than two years after the passing OF
a man who gave us a new article in the
moral code, Superseding the austere and pain
full standard observed by Andrew jackson and
U. S. Grant. The professional democrats still
plod a weary way to Hyde Park on florid
occasions, such as Memorial day, to punch
the clock and commit carnival politics for
tie sake Of the record and to confirm their
own status in the organization. Attendance is
not officially compulsory but is strongly ad-
vised.
The widows constant presence has become
an interesting role in these pageants of for
nailed mopery in view o. the fact that she
was so easily called way from her afflicted
husbands side throughout his twelve years
and somewhat in the White House. A canvass
Of the datelines Of Mrs. Roosevelt's newspaper
column from its beginning in 1888 to the
date OF his death in April, 1945, which found
her in New York and him in Warm Springs,
a thousand miles apart, would show that she
spent no more than one night in four under
the same roof. Other wives and husbands
have given contra sting examples Of unrenAt-
ting attendance in similar circumstances. but
here again we may owe a degree OF emanci-
patton from old ways to the loose-jointed
principles OF conduct established for us by
bis happy and unconventional family.
We find her more ostentatiously devoted
now than she ever was during the most diff
cult years OF his lie. Here again the contrast
with the normal conduct OF average human
beings is interesting because. to use practical
language. the run OF us bury our dead with
respectful rites and seldom 90 back. and GER
t. inly never to holler up politics. The Hyde
Park pennant. postcard and peanut conces-
rions are still open. Address applications TO
he executors.
Robert Patterson, the Secretary Of War,
was detailed to the duty Of making the big
harangue on Memorial day when the poor
fellow might have slept late and shot a mess
Of golf. They have not yet come to the sensl-
Bile expedient Of recording such blab and
hiring one of Jimmy Petrillo's union disc
Jockeys to play it to the faithful.
Quoting the unblushing Patterson. the wild
CIV wrote 'if we stand as the bulWark Of
freedom, if we prosper as q people and out
Of our prosperity extend assistance generous
ly to the less fortunate" and so Forth. We
retained some fragments OF our own free
dom only by rejecting her proposal a few
wears ago that the government oroer us
all. men and women, to assigned tasks under
compulsion. wherever any Ickes. Morgenthau
or Leon Henderson might assign us. About
the same time Harry Hopkins. the gritty
Rasputin. was proposing that not just troops
but civilians be Unfortunately quartered IN
our homes by order of local or neighborhood
asters. and chuckling at the pros
pect of "society leaders" become roomlng
J. ouse keepers. But possibly neither she nor
the uncombed Harry meant a word Of it.
Y was another way Of picking up a little
easy money, and such writings have never
been binding on these e~ssayists from one day
to another.
The lady's quotation Of Patterson's awk-
ward reference to generosity in discussing a
Roosevelt also recalls a paradox. For Patter-
son said this at the grave OF a man whose
son, Jimmy, the eaglet. actually asked for
a ruling that the old man was a soldier on
active service because he was titular COM
mander-in-chie and that the estate therefore
deserved a tax rebate OF a few dollars.
The Jackson day orgies around the country
have become a hila rious mockery now that
the New Deal nas taken over Old Hiekory's
character and personality as their own pri-
vate moose-heads for the clubhouse wall. To
be sure, the little old gamecock introduced
some realistic thoughts on craftsmanship but
he remained, unto the very death, a gentle
man of the most primitive and exacting honar
in all matters of personal debt. They flew
the widow to Hollywood for a Jackson day
PROCLAMATION and some of the high democrats
Of the reformed version came down of a
nausea and had to leave town. Nevertheless,
IN SHdhCQOWH plOCccucQ dI SLJ d COpy. III
receipts seem to have been highly ~satisfac-
tory
All this was ironic under the gaunt and
scowling visage of the dying consumptive who
busted himself to pay off the debts of an
adopted son, Andy, Jr., who was not a swind-
Ter or even a dead-beat but just a spend
thrift and a fool in business. Unlike the saint
ed martyr of the new regime, whose followers
SCRUBBED not to use Old Hickory as a kapok
effigy, Andrew Jackson took no part in Sc
ducing suckers to be taken by his son and
would have blown the man through who dared
10 suggest that he himself might use his
office to swindle the creditors Of their due.
Marquis James. in the best OF the Jackson
biographies, estimates at $40. 600 the amount
mat the old warrior scraped together at var
ious times to bail the young scamp out of
cebt, and he tells us that some of these
owings were debts only in the most technical
sense at that. The same subject naturally re-
calls that U. S. Grant. for all his stupidity
and other faults, was also honest to a degree
that a Roosevelt might consider not just STU
Did but imbecilic. He, too, paid off when
re needn't have and gave up his home in
the process and both he and Jackson hurried
to save their honor by cruel e%xertions while
,hey were suffering the fortunes of dissolution
toward death.
II is no wonder then that the diners used
Jackson's own day as an occasion to honor
Roosevelt as the author of the new dispensa-
ton. Il meant release from the restrictions
and inhibitions long endured by men and
women of honor as the price Of decencv and
self-respect.
Editorial Comment