The Wilmington morning star., 1947-12-17
AS Peqler Sees It
rBROOK PEGLER
BY WESTbROOh fEULEN
copyright, 1947, By King Features
Syndicate, nc.)

(COpyrlgut, 1S46, Dy mig CO"tuAcS
Syndicate, Inc.)
! WASHINGTON, Dec 16-The Hollywood
communists and those glamorouS lgnora-
muses. who went into that second-act Gil,
max on their behalf can not be blamed
for Understanding the powers of COM
mittee of Congress to rebuke contempt for
the congressional authority
1t has been our custom and our mental
habit for so long to ridicule Congress that
actually the members themselves of the
Thomas Committee on un-Amerlcan Activ-
tiles were not sure of their rights and
powers. But they are sure now. Their law
yers looked things up and they are on safe
ground.
The people of the United States really
have unlimited power. some essayisss ~
think the Constitution limits the power OF
the people but they are wrong The people
limit the powers Of the Constitution Ihe&
! made it, They can widen or warp 1t, as
they please.
At present we deny ourselves the pro-
lection of law providing punishment, even
up to the death penalty, for membership
with communists by non-conamun1sts
toward the destruction of our government
by force. There is a superstition that be-
cause thus far we have passed no such
law, we can't.
That is just a superstition Congress
could fix it up tomorrow that as OF GER
tain date all persons convicted of such
membership or such collaboration should
be shot against some designated wall. And
if there was anything in the Constitution
to interfere with that pleasure OF the peo-
pie of the United States expressed through
their representatives Swell, 1t is our Con
stitution, isn't it? We can change it.
Remember, the purpose of that Consti-
tuition is to Ensure domestic tranquility,
provide for the common defense, promote
the general welfare and secure the bless
ings of liberty to ourselves and our pos
terity.
To do that it might be necessary to kill
few spies and traitors.
Then, in the very first article after the
preamble, it sets up our national leglsla-
ture to make laws to effect the high pur-
poses of the preamble.
Now, certainly it wasn't the intention of
the founding fathers that we should pro-
vide special protection for our enemies, al
thought it has often been invoked success
fully to that end. The reason why that
could happen, though, was that we the
people, and a lot of lawyers got all tangled
up in our arguments and forgot that this
document was written for the benefit of
the people of the United States Some
judges, notably Frank Murphy of the pres
ent Supreme Court, have thought that it
! was intended to throw the same protection
about aliens and enemies of our country,
Out CQdC is nonsense.
It's language says 1--WE, the people of the
United States and that certainly didn't
mean Harry Bridges, fo1 example, when
he was still an alien and proven guilty OF
hobnobbing with known enemies Of the ma
ton. He was not one of the people OF the
United States then. He was a foreigner and
our Constitution never was intended to Sc
cure the blessings of liberty to the Aus
tralians, of whom he was one. Or to the
Austrians of whom the Eisler boys are
/ two.
''We the people" have the right to shoot
communists and, if it comes to that, we
can amend our Constitution so as to i'm
pose that penalty retroact;vely But
wouldn't that be Htlerian? I guess it
would, but we would be fools to deny our
selves the benefit of every idea and meas
ure that Hitler favored, just because he
favored it. He believed in nationalism. So
did George Washington, long before him:
Because they represent, "the people,
both houses of Congress nave .he ena gns
and power in themselves 10 man wv a' suh-
answer any question bearing on any 4 suu-
iect under inquiry in the pubic lnteles..
Eor refusal to answer, the witness may oe
kent in the common jail OF the Dlstrlct ol
Columbia until the end OF the session VI
until he decides to talk. In the ola oays
however. when sessions were short, tn1s
might mean only brief punishment, so
in 1857 Congress adopted law proVlolng
for prosecution by the Attorney General
in the federal court and penalty OF not
less than $1OO or more than $l,0OO ilne
and not less than one month nor more 'nan nan
to haul the fellow before the bar OF the
House. Congress still may do that.
Anyway when committee OF the house
asks a Hollywood bolshevik ARE you
communist? "and he refuses to n s r,
ali questions concerning his freedom OF
Il I, nOlltlCSl Tree
dom Weld to the interests of the people.
/ It would give you smile to notice now
the statesmen have sort OF squared tnelr
shoulders and braced up with this new
consciousness that they are down mere as as
6f 6f neope the pre back Of
them and the glamorites from HollyWooSd1 q
and The Daily Worker and Marshall
Fields miserable thing may snarl put tney M
only show how little they understand the
| Americans. ,...,
Some of the communists exposed down
here bv this committee are ferocious enc
mics of the American people and Such oe-
testable ingrates that if you were to throw
them to the people they would be kicked
to death in any neighborhood IN the coun1
try except few red spots In the Guy o OF
New York. One handicap the commit
tee and the "people' is that these hear
) ings are very long and the testimony, =, IN
printed form, is very tedious reading. Inns
is an advantage for the traitors and spies. d.
than ma any Quisling. Qusling wanted his us
$ country to be on the winning team with
, people who were similar in many ways.
National boundaries and sovereignties over
there change by the decade. and IN o0
4 years Norway's people might have merged
E with the victorious Germans.
But refugee ingrates and turn coat i'm
, migrants that the committee turned up
!. owed the American people their very,
s who never have been inside night club
e or a movie or radio studio, who never