The Wilmington morning star., 1947-06-04
AsPeglerSeesh
copyright, by King Features Syndicate inc')
nv WSTBROOK PEGLER

fCopyripht. by King Features Syndicate, Incl
By WSTBROOK PEGLER
NEW YORK, June 3.-The award OF a Gee
Grafton called the medal of merit to Phillip
MURRAY. the president of the C. l. o., has
been announced by the War Department. The
dispatch from Washington says this was zone
in recognition of Murray's services In the
field of labor during World War II.
This is not the first instance of the award
|of a strictly political decoration to a civilian
by the War Department: But it Is the mos
shocking and should be the last. The practice
of the department in the bestowal Of decora-
lions to soldiers as well as to civilians should
now be challenged and revised.
This was a pernlcious bureaucracy under
Stimson and Patterson together and later ua-
der Patterson alone. Commissions were nan
ded to draft dodgers who thus not only es-
capped the perils of war but were spared
even the rigors Of basic training and the
social handicaps of the enlisted soldier. These
counterfeits, risen to the fictitious rank OF
colonel by an automatic boosting process that
promoted a man irresistibly unless he were
convicted of a felony, now are claiming the
last dot and comma of their unearned priv
ileges and exemptions under the G.. l.
Bill of Rights. They should be 6 Had to have
saved their lives. They were shameless takers
in war and they will be parasites as long as
they live. The nation would have been far
better off if they had been given political
exemptions at the very beginning like that
on Joe Curran, the president of the
National Maritime Union Of the c. l. o.
The disclosure in the trial of ex-Congress-
man May of the use of political influence
in the military trial of an officer charged
With cowardice was followed by testimony
tina. Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt butted in to get
a commission for a fat man who had hap
pencd to be a friend of her late brother,
Hall Roosevelt. Hall was the bird dog, or
finder, who pointed suckers to be trimmed
by Elliott Roosevelt with the assistance of
his revered old man. Hall froze on John
Hartford, who gave up 5000, 900, and it GER
tainly wasn't Halls fault that Elliott and the
old master himself were unable to swind.e
old Charlie Harwood of his $25, 600. Hall found
Charlie, warmed him up nicely and finally
gave him the rush act and got the dough
for Elliott. He was a high-class con-man, as
students of this artistic branch Of the sport
of taking chumps will agree when it is noted
that HARDWOOD, a lawyer and a federal judge,
no less, was so hoped up and confused by
Halls spiel that he didn't even know whether
he had loaned his money or invested in a
purchase of stock. Hall handled this phase
of the gyp with the art of a champion. 1t
was F. D. r. who fell Town in the final
delicate task Of inducing the sap to give up
his collateral for two cents on the dollar.
The fact that Mrs. Roosevelt's fat protege
was an old friend of her late brother should
have been no recommendation and, under an
administration, would have been held
against him. But the War Department was
a sordid thing and still is, as the award to
Murray shows. During the war, American
soldiers got lectures in unionism disguised as
Democracy and those who wanted to go
to the officers schools were we'll advised 10
nrPtenH at 1a9ct that thov ho1iauaL 4I,A,o
traitorous heresies.
Otherwise, they didn't know what they
were fighting for and were obviously unfit
for commissions. during that time also the
Rabbi Margolis, convicted as a COM
mon thief and reborn under the name of
Gallmor, was invited to several of the Army's
hospitals to lecture psycho-neurotics on his
own brave fight to victory over some thing
called a "compulsion neurosis." This made
MIN steal automobiles. His line was generally
parallel to that of the communists, but Amer
lean soldiers had to sit and take this from
a convicted rogue whose very rascality had
him from the duty of serving in
the war.
Certainly all this was no series of individual
accidents. There were too many such things.
Robert Patterson himself, who became secre.
tary after Stimson ran away to escape from
honest appraisal of his own dereliction in the
Pearl Harbor case. remarked one day that
ali ne knew about the Abraham Lincoln bri-
gade Of the Spanish Army was that many of
its members fought bravely against the fas-
clsts. That was a false statement by a man
whose uniformed subordinates could be sent
to prison and forever disgraced for the same
offense. Patterson knew that the Abraham
Lincoln brigade was a communist outfit or
gained in our country in violation of our laws.
Americans who were seduced into it were
murdered in Spain when they learned they
were in a Communist division and applied for
release.
In another case, similar to Phil Murray's
the War Department had the indecency to
hang a cheap medal on a refugee from Ger
many born Johannes Stahl but known among
us as Steel and known solely as an irritant
of much the same theological klnd as Gall
NOR, the thief. Like Gailmor and Curran, he
performed no military service, although a
more resourceful patriot might have found a
way to put himself at grips with the des-
picable nazi.
The award to Murray fortunately Will cheap
en- AMI discredit itself. He served the C.. l. y.
in the war, and the C. I. o was guilty OF
some Of the most disgraceful acts OF Prseo
and cynicism in American history. 1t was a
refuge Of towards who got exemption on the