The Wilmington morning star., 1947-08-14
AS Pegler Sees 1t
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER


can has come to mean treason IN the mlnos
of n any Of our people.
"Un-American' is a wide ana VersalAe
term. Some organizations interpret it TO mean
even legitimate and dignified pride OF race
and lineage, which is arbitrarily construed as
racial hatred. Mostly, l think, the true seelng
OF those who hiss race hatred as u polllcal
catclword is not noble democracy OF spirit
but envy and the hatefulness of him who
feels somehow inferior. We hear the accusa-
ton made against stately and aloof Amerl-
cans by persons who reveal their own shame
Of race or envy by adopting English. Irish or
Scotch names.
Even the preaching and propagation OF ra-
cial hatred is not un-American. 1t IS charac-
~teristic. a confirmed, notorious fault OF ours.
If it were un-American and if it were trea-
son, the editors and owners OF several o. the
most influential Negro newspapers in our
country should have been hanged for persis'
tent fermentation of anti-white sentiment dur
ing the war. Treason consists o. levying war
against the United States adhering to our
enemies and giving them aid and comfort.
By a stretch, the fermentation Of racial hatred
might be called treason to the extent that an
enemy should profit by disunity among us,
but that certainly was not in the minds OF
the Founding Fathers.
Political rivalry and religious disa greement
also constitute dissension and disunity. Car
ried 20 extremes, as in the campaign OF 1910
when members OF the Roosevelt adherence
threw wastebaskets at Wendell Willkie and in
1914 when some o. them threatened citizens
in New York for wearing Dewey campaign
buttons, this disunity could give great COM
tort 10 the enemy. Yet if We should make
me existence Of a state o. war with a foreign
erer,y a pretext for suppressing freedom OF
political and religious dissent, then we GER
tsinly would be un-American.
Some Of the pressures and regulations that
are imposed by professional political exploit
ers of the difference between white men and
Negroes are actually grievously insulting to
the Negroes themselves, though apparently
few Negroes detect the supercilious ioea. For
instance, these professionals have karassed
editors so persistently that nowadays some
metropolitan papers will not say that the
s.iclrlp man was a Negro when he was. 1t is
SO silly. II the police were that silly, the cops
in proWl cars would go looking for a white
fellow. This is just trying to pretend that
there is no difference. no outward distinction
between white and black or pink and brown.
But when a great Negro comes along. nobody
has to guess. Nobody is in any doubt about
the color OF Marian Anderson or Joe Louis
Ii is rot hateful racism to call them Negroes.
This propaganda seems to me to mean that
these politicians think the Negroes have no
racial dignity or pride in their race and would
like to be white. That certainly is no ompll-
ment to the Negroes. 1t would be equally in
tefl;gent to say that white people want to be
regarded as Negroes. They certainly do not
and the fact that Negroes suffer from dis
elimination is not the only reason either. The
greatest reason is race. White people like to
be white. 1t is reasonable to suppose that
most Negroes are equally pleased to be Ne
gross.
I was following the treason trial in Boston
of Douglas Chandler. a broken-down newspa-
permar from Baltimore, who got Lie COR
broadcasting Nazi propaganda from Germany
during the war. He said he just dared to
speak the truth as he saw it, but the Depart
inert Of Justice wanted his IFS. blood be-
cause his acts showed ''the black. wicked
aeart Of a traitor"
I didn't hear all the evidence so I have no
conviction and just accept the verdict o. the
jury. But it was no treason to live in Ger
many, to be friendly with the nazis. even to
Hitler himself. to write pro-nazi material and
to broadcast for the nazis right down to the
hour when war became a legal fact. All DUR
irg Roosevelt's illegal war an American had
a legal right to tear him apart to argue the
side Of the Russo-German case. and
to warn our people that if Germany should
90 down the horrible bloody tide Of Bolshe-
visrn would drown the Balkans and probably
all the rest Of Christian Europe. That was
the nazi line, and in view Of the situation that
exists today, wouldn't you agree that they
were right?
If this Chandler warned US that Roosevelt
was letting us in for an eventual war against
Rolshevism in which we would stand as the
last defenders Of Christianity and western civ
~ilization. he might have been trying to do us
a great patriotic service. The fact that we
J:dr't hoor him and u,O1116p'f have hooded
him anyway. makes no difference. And now
that Roosevelt has had his headstrong way
and we have let Russia run wild in the Bal
kans and make another puppet state OF Po-
land, more millions will curse his name in
years to come than tremble and roll their
eyes in pitiable reverence today because he
d sposed Of Hitler. He could have confined
and shut of Stain, too. while he was dispos-
ing of Hitler but he wouldn't. 1t was Roosevelt
who gave Stain diplomatic recognition and
made Russia a great world power.
It was no treason then and it would be no
treason now to preach and extol nazi-fascism
in the United States. I am not discussing the
desirability of such propaganda or the merits
Ct naz'-fascism. But mere unpopularity does
not constitute illegally. Congress has forbid
den al persons to advocate the overthrow of
the government by violence, but the Supreme
Court has held that anyone, even a foreigner,
may advocate every other phase of commu-
nism except that final scene OF insurrection.
SO. Of course, the nazi-fascist enjoys the same
right.
Actually Roosevelt. his wife Harry Hop
kits and others of their party did advocate
manv phases of nazi-tascism. She and Hop
kins went almost all the wav when they pro-
POSED that the government should have the
power to enslave all civilians to the state to
be sent wherever any bu'ldozing Leon Hen
dersor or Harold Ickes should order us indi-
v'1val,v and for whichever spitef,, ro,t:ve
I7::tlerism was not much worse until the war
came. and of course, or condition would
hsve got much worse and never better once
we had accepted his terribly un-American
proposal.
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