The Wilmington morning star., 1947-01-29
As Pegler Sees 1t
By WEsTBRooK PEGLER
wright, BY King Features Syndicate, Incl

inquired further into the late FRANKLIN u.
Roosevelt's financial interest IN coal mines and
company towns called Graceton and Vnton-
dale. Pa, which officials of the United Mine
Workers have described as teudal comrnuni-
ties in the years prior to the first OF Roose-
velt's labor boards. These are properties OF
the Delano family. Frederic Delano, an uncle
of the late President was, at last reports and
had been for many years, the directing head
of the company. A man in high authority in the
United Mine workers states without quaGfica-
ton that Mrs. Sara Delano Roosevelt. the sis
ter of Frederic and the mother of Franklin,
had a large and. for a long time. very profit
able interest in the mines. / found no 7uthori-
ty who was able to say fatty that President
Roosevelt, himself, was one OF the owners but
there is a letter in existence from Mrs.
Eleanor Roosevelt, written on White House
stationery in June, 1912. in which she said:
MY husband sold all interest in these hold
ings." l take that to mean that he was one
of the owners at one time.
Still, | wanted to learn whether the bad
conditions at Graceton and Vintondale, the sort
of company tuedalism that both the late Presi-
dent and his wife so feelingly deplored in
their castigations ct greedy and h~eartless abb
sentees, actually existed at a time when Mr..
Roosevelt was a mature man and in a position
to oppose the sort of oppression that he public
ly condemned. My informant at the United
Mine Workers said that if it was in my mind
to excuse him on the ground that all this took
place when he was a child or a young man, ]
could just forget that. These conditions con
tinued, he said, throughout the years when
Roosevelt was governor of New York and into
the second year of his first term as President.
He made no initiative move to reform them
even then. John L. Lewis forced the reforms.
The United Mine Workers had never been
able to organize the miners well enough 10
present a strong front against the Delano
3 ,,1x TIL 49,, Lz-l z%-,,-I, 4lo-> ,@z 10 II
1916. 1919 and 1920 but had lost every time.
In 1894. however, when the first OF Roose-
velt's collective bargaining laws was tried,
word was flashed to the organizers in Pennsyl-
VAN. to move in, and organize the miners.
An organizer did start into Graceton ;mme
diately but was met at the town limits by
armed guards who tried to drive him away.
He then telephoned the national heado 1arters
OF the UNIV. in Washington. requesting in
structions. job, L. Lewis instructed him to
warn the local executives of the Delano prop.
erty that if he was not admitted to the town
and permitted to recruit mion members within
two hours, he, Lewis. would issue a public
statement. 1t is surmised that the COMPANY
executives got in torch with Uncle Frederic
Delano at his office in the State Department.
where he held the title of chairman Of the
National Resources Planning Board and that
he passed the word to let down the bar. At
any rate, the organizer walked in. the miners
joined the union and Lewis never had TO issue
a Statement which would have depicted Presi-
dent Roosevelt's own family as an uncommon
ly rough and inveterate opponent of organized
labor.
This informant said Graceton was a town N
which the company controlled the people from
the cradle to the grave.
"A company doctor delivered you into the
world, you lived on company property and
traded at company stores until you died and
then you were buried by the company he
said.
In the first decade Of the century, miners
lmmigrated or were imported from Austria
Hungary They were mostly Slavs. 1t was the
practise in those years of unrestricted imml
grafton to bring IN patches of Europeans and
put them to work in mines and mills and per.
init them. theoretically, to work out their pas
sage money. Historians have held, however.
that many OF them never were able to get
out of debt and. being ignorant and afraid, be
came serfS in the land of promise.
After my inquiry at the headquarters CT
the UNIV, 1 telephoned an official Of the
union in Pittsburgh who had tackled Graceton
repeatedly during the years of exclusion, but
finally walked in, after the threat by Lewis
you bet l did the job" he said. IT had 500
or 600 volunteers from the surrounding towns
and we just went down here and freed the
men. The guards were just overwhelmed.
liz WdSL l CNCl d 1lSt uSut. ABDUL S4U
miners joined us.
"A township road ran through the town but
the armed guards used to stop you at the
town line on the public road. We would be
harrassed II we just walked through the town.
I lived handy by and if you walked through
on a nice Sunday afternoon, five or six guards
would step up and insult you. They controlled
it. 1t was outright feudalism. They controlled
the courts and they would find you guilty o.
some trumped up charged like disturbing the
peace. L never could find out if F.D.R. owned
part of it, but Frederic Delano told me his
sister, Roosevelt's mother, owned a lot Of the
bonds. Later, in 1889 when l was trying to
collect wages due the miners Chese n~egotia-
tons took place in the State Department in
Washington) Delano said he and his sister
Roosevelt's mother) owned Graceton. He said
the mine was not paying then but in one year
alone it had paid 100 per cent. He had taken
out plenty. He paid the back wages.
"At Vintondale. when we tried to go in, the
guards threw logs across the road to block it.
But we walked in with 300 men and captured
the place. We got about 500 members after l
took it up with John Lewis. Before that the
guards would fall in with you and follow you
wherever you went"
This organizer. a regional official of the
u. M. w., said that after the union. had won,
miners sometimes would give President Roose-
welt entire credit for their victory over the
company.
II would always say who the hell ever
gave you that information?' !" He said. None
OF Roosevelt's biographers, whether affection
ate or objective, has ever discussed the fami-
ly's ownership of these properties and the
company's conduct in relation to the workers.
My view is that historians, who one day will
try to evaluate Roosevelt tor the permanent
record, will be frustrated and that his his.
torlcal character will be falsified if only the
DertunCtOry inflammation and the frib,,4oe ~ III.
p%roteges are left available for study. Mrs.
Sara Roosevelt's income from these mines and
company stores contributed to the luxurious
life that her son enjoyed until he was elected
President. He inherited most Of her wealth.
The version of conditins and events offered