The Wilmington morning star., 1947-06-30
As Pegler Sees 1t
By WESTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright, 1947, by King Features
Syndicate, Inc.)

NEW YORK - We have heard SO much
dispute about unionism and the qualities of
the labor laws since Roosevelt's first election
that even persons of strong mind find that
some old truths have been howled away In
the clamor. In some cases, individuals nave
waived or silently conceded important prin-
ciples just for fear Of being abused as re-
dictionaries, tories or economic royalists.
But not Pegler.
I have enjoyed it 10 years. I have never lost
an rgumen and now I win the debate.
It has been a pleasure to turn up gangsters
and racketeers in the union movement and to
taunt Green, Murray, Lewis and all the rest
of them, and Roosevelt, too, in his day, with
their failure to lift a hand to protect the rank
and file from the likes of Joe Fay, for example.
1t was a nice break of timing that brought
us the overriding vote in the Senate the
same day that the Supreme Court upheld the
conviction CT Fay and James Bove, two Of the
ripest rascals in the movement, and both in
ternational officers of the big A. F. of L. I'M
ions.
I must call attention to the fact that Tom
Clark, our attorney general, has choked up
and lost his voice completely since last jan
uary when Fay was tried in the federal
court in Newark for income tax evasion and
acquitted after a fellow was found on the
jury who had recently been a member of his
union. Clark said the acquittal was a special
kind of damned outrage next day and sent a
man up to Trenton to make an investigation.
But then Bob Hannegan had a conference with
Frank Hague in Florida and the outrage be-
came less and less outrageous day by day.
Tom Meany, the judge in the case, is a Hague
politician who had the Endorsement of all the
Fay union mob when his appointment was
contested. And the U. S. attorney who let
the former member of the union make the
jury and lost the governments case is an
- ~,-:-- D~-o~~-o{ - 49, $1,000 T~l-o
Altogether, the Incident just went to prove that
the national government was not a labor gov
eminent at all but the patron and protector
of the union bosses. In New York, though,
Frank Hogan, a Democrat, too, but a sort of
independent, had fought Fay and Bove for
five years and the verdict on the appeal, con-
flrming their guilt, was a stronger blow for
the freedom of the individual American work
Ell than the combined records of Roosevelt
himself and all the union hierarchy. Roose-
welt delivered them in chains to the racket
GERS, and while Hogan couldn't repeal their
slave law, he did show that the people don't
want to be blackjacked and robbed.
In the big debates over the law to liberate
labor from the chains of the unioneers we
heard them bawling about the right to strike.
to strike, but you could easily get up quite a
worker carrying on about his sacred right
to strike, but you could easily get up quite a
loud chorus in some areas about his right not
to. That right is one of the truths that have
been howled away. It is, theoretically and
morally, an American citizens right to stay
on the job and work if he wants to even
though he should be absolutely alone in a
plant as big as Ford's. But under Roosevelt,
hundreds of thousands of citizens lost millions
of days pay and many went into debt be-
cause individual unioneers and groups of them
personally decided to call strikes. Under
Roosevelt's laws and his system under the
laws that all of the unioneers were defending
as labor's magma charta it has been pos
sible, even customary, for some hoodlum to
walk up to a job, blow a whistle and order
the men off for no reason known to them,
and when that happens, they had better get
off the premises and not rely on the police to
protect them from bodily harm. When we
started debating the new law the unioneers
themselves were honestly surprised to hear
such a naive proposition. They had really for
gotten that the people had any rights at all
in such cases. I am afraid most of the rest
of us had forgotten, too.
Another truth forgotten is that workers
actually have no right to l~~lidays and vaca-
tons 18th pay. Why should an employer give
them pay? Would 5000 employees think of
giving the company a days work or two
weeks work free? Of course, it is possible
to write a clause into a contract providing
for pay for holidays and vacations, but actual
~ juliet WoiheIS VINO Duy Inc product OF The
plant pay this extra expense added to the final
cost. Yet some of the people believe their
union agents when they are told that the
boss is giving them something, willingly or
not.
For years, the working s.lff has been pay
ing, out of his earnings, the lawyers fees and
other expenses of the defense of the Fays and
Doves who have been prosecuted for rob-
bling them or using them as implements to
rob others. This has become a firm custom.
1t happens often and not even the public au-
thorities ever stir themselves to make the
rogues I've it beck. 1t is a tradition of our
unionism and q corruption that sets unionism
apart from the rest of our community, like a
pesthouse. Any other element Of our society
would tie raided at once and prosecutions
would follow for embezzlement or extortion
in similar circumstances The truth is that
this money belongs to the people, but We for
got that long ago.
The truth is, too, that many of the bosses
run magazines and newspapers to glorify
themselves, praise their poll les and works,
to abuse their rivals and misrepresent is
sues to the rank and file, all at the expense
of the members. I know of no other field
in which reasonably intelligent and upright
people would stand for the sort of self-praise
at their expense that is turned out by Dan
Tobin, of the Transfers union, and Dave
Beck, who commands the northwestern pro-
vince of the teamsters. In any other field, it
would be shocking, but we have become ac-
customed to many strange customs in the
union racket.
Quotations