The Wilmington morning star., 1947-11-18
AS Pegler Sees 1t
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright, 1947, BY King Features
Syndicate, Inc.)

Copyright, 1947, BY King Features
Syndicate, Inc.)
NEW YORK, Nov. II. - In the general
public discussion of communists in the movie
industry, someone on our side OF the queS-
tiOn that is to say, some rlght-m1nded, 1OOl
per cent American, made the mistake OF pro-
posing the repeal of one of the laws of ma
ture. This patriot recalled movies in which
the American banker had been portrayed as
bleak and bloodless rascal who celebrated
Christmas by turning the widow and her
little brood out into the snow. This was held
to be wicked SANDER on a noble school
of Americans, intended to undermine conf
dence in the holy edifice of liberty and so
forth.
Actually this is just familiar working
of the fatal attraction of the plug hat for
the SNOWFALL. The same theme, written and
acted by men and women of respectable
motives, has been applauded for generations.
Horatio Alger was no seditionist but, in Jed
the poor-house boy and many repetitions
of the same artlesS tale, he made the bank
er so downright mean that you were like to
lay down the book and hiss out loud.
In the jargon of the ideologians, the
plug hat and the SNOWFALL are artistic SYM
bols of social contrast. They are easy to
draw, there is nothing wrong with either
side is going to hop up now and say there
ought to be law declaring the SNOWFALL
to be un-American.
But we take some things from some peo-
pie without blink. When others say them,
we get red-necked. And it isn't so much
the things themselves that we resent as the
nasty way some people say them If a fell
low American remarks that we certainly did
give the Indians awful deal, we shrug and
wish it were not SO. But if captured Nazi
on trial before Americans should say that
we set Hitler the example of conquest, repu-
diation of treaties and genocide - the new
gullah for determination of a race we
want to hang him for impudence and are
glad of more plausible excuse.
So it is not merely that the movie in
dustry has treated harshly our bankers, our
Congress, our publishers and our economic
system. We could write and act worse criti-
csms of ourselves. The objection lies against
the fact that certain persons are selected to
write and produce and act so many shows,
with never a film to balance things by
showing the freedom and general abund-
ance of American life under our system. We
have become a breed of guardhouse lawyers
since the thlrtleS, given to arguing cOnStltu-
tional questions in the Stork and our rights
in unemployment in the Little Gem, but we
remain, fundamentally, an impulsive and in
stinctive lot.
do or quit doing something, we find way
to make him nevertheless. thing that
can't be done by law may still be done un-
der law. We have been known to condemn
the boycott as an un-American weapon which
can't discriminate between the guilty and
the blameless and many of our right-mind-
edest Americans came out against it in the
'twenties when the modern Ku Klux Klan
was stunning Catholics Jews and Negroes
as such. Since then, many of the same
Americans themselves have used the boy
colt to suppress opinions which they Op-
pose. And now, our side can do the same to
those Hollywood producers who say they
can't get rid of Communists because they
can't be sure that the Communists in ques-
ton aren't sincere liberals.
They got rid of lot of actresses for
personal revenge, and many individuals in
the writing trade and incidental branches
of the industry have suddenly run into
their iron curtain of economic persecution
inflicted for the most obscure reasons. But
when the subject is writer, musician or
actor who has notoriously run with COM
munists attended their meetings, signed
their manifestoes and given to their collec-
tions, the industry becomes fastidious and
for it's delicate conscience, demands degree
of proof that cannot be produced After all
the United States Supreme Court held that
Harry Bridges was no communist after the
learned referee and the encouragement
had held that he was and two federal courts
had refused to upset that considered judg-
ment. So actually the moving picture in
dustry has the gall to say that it will continue
to employ all communists who deny that
they are or merely refuse to answer.
In favoring these, the industry confers
on them their only Importance. Fire them
and they wither and vanish. They no longer
strut but stink. They can't donate to Henry
Wallaces collections in the bowl as so many
Of them did last spring And, inasmuch as
| the hiring of all such is done by choice, in
: dlvllually, and not from a union hall or
seniority list, the right not to renew con-
tracts is too plain to be doubted even by a
jury.
;. There are only few hundred of them
altosether. 1t they all should perish in some
: wreck that would be dramatic, but the in
t oustry and civilization would carry on. Just
orop them, one by one, over year or two
unit! they are all gone, and the change will
= not be noticeable. There are no real writers
, among them: The best can be replaced out of
q newspaper shops where most of them came
M IL lolh anyway. The actors are not artists but
Mere Mere personalities with facial trademarks.
n @laorlhaily, @ they come and they CO. What
:, ''"ii Ill men, to hurry them a little?
governments greatest need is for
career men. Men with imagination and a
> uost pan to follow after top officials and see
'i''' 'hlngs are done. Imagination and dust
{ pan' and in this big government. bicvcle.
o too