The Wilmington morning star., 1947-07-10
AsPeglerSeesH
By WEsTBROOK PEGLER

NEW YORK, July 9.-Many of us will re
member the photographs which showed Adolf
Hitler's brown shirts, big fellows, bullying witt
muscle, wearing high, square-bil caps witt
chin-straps and high boots and carrying
dog-whips. These were the brutes who rails
ed Hitler to power.
Many of us will remember also the Roose
welt brown shirts who trampled the law II
Michigan, Ohio and other states in the days
when the c. 1. o. was being organized. Blu
there are a multitude, possibly millions, o.
US who will stubbornly refuse to admit tina
those goons were Roosevelt brown shirts,
Hitler's brown shirts were evil brutes. Blu
these pickets of John l.. Lewis, then chair
man of the c. l. O.. and chief OF staff Of it,
fighting forces, were represented as as under
privile ged, horny-handed workmen on strike
for the more abundant life. Some Of us were
briefly taken in but saw through the fraud.
Millions of Germans loved Hitler and some
love him still. Millions Of Americans idolized
Roosevelt. To some his very name is sacred
to this day. The Hitlerites are "fanatics'' and
may be prosecuted. The idolators OF Roose'
welt are liberals and 'progressives" and will
put up with no irreverence.
Actually, there were no strikes at all in
this great tide of organized insurrectionary dis
orders. The great majority of these people
wanted to work. But the pickets operated
in teams, as Hitler's. brown shirts did, and a
few rioters or insurrectos directed by officers
and Sergeants with a plan can outnumber 3
whole community.
They have the advantage Of knowing what
they intend to do. The unorganized populace
does not know friend from foe, has no plar
because the initiative is with the rioters and
is constantly beaten over the ears with loud
speaker harrangues exhorting it to welcome
the rioters as its friends and deliverers. Sur
roriSo Alarm naaA1y thu ~o1ioA 4A q faint of
Maple and Fourth and. when they are on
their way and committed, turn loose the real
attack at the gear plant across town. Throw
bricks and rocks through the quiet hone OF
Mike Swift, a stubborn center of resistance,
with threatening notes attached, scattering
glass over their bed and the children's cots
in the dead of night.
Join up or we will cut little Mikes ears
of and mail them to you in a hox!"
Mrs. Swift: your husband is a rat and a
scab and a traitor to the working people. II
you value the lives Of your children, heed this
Warning!"
We all thought this was simply terrible in
Germany. But when it happened in our own
country, few of our people saw the parallel.
We thought the Germans motives were bad
and that the motives Of our own brown shirts
were, at least in a general way, altruistic.
But, from the very beginning, we heard very
little discussion Of the real grievances OF the
Germans. They were arrogant and we didn't
like them. They always were very inhospi-
table to immigrants and particularly to east.
ern Jews. We have been inhospitable to Hin
dus, Chinese and Japanese for many years.
We deport Mexicans all the time. But that is
our own business. So is everybody else's
business.
Those military forerunners Of our Army
combat teams were not employees of those
plants which they attacked. We had adopted
a national law forbidding employers to import
strikebreakerS across state lines, but this
was strictly E new deal law intended to cripple
the defense and favor Roosevelt's brown shirts
in the field. Therefore the importation OF
picket teams, and captains and colonies OF
the goons, from 4 front in Pennsylvania to
a front in Michigan, or from the communist
headquarters in New York to any active front
was not forbidden. The pickets were profes-
SIGNALS or revolutionary zealots who fight for
the Joy of bloodletting and the exciting sounds
Of frightened or angry cries, kissing flames
and crashing glass. Some were just paid
m~ercenarics and freebooters.
Like Hitler's brown shirts, they wore uni
forms, too. There are many spools Of old
movies, shot from factory windows and places
across the street, showing the method of those
riots and showing the uniform fore-and-af
caps worn for recognition in combat. THESE
caps bore a union device and the officers Of
the teams Wore distinctive piping on theirs.
1T was a militarized insurrection. But, in
Michigan, Frank. Murphy, then governor ane
now a justice of the Supreme Court, flinchec
in the presence of these mobs, or did a Quis
ling. And, in Washington, Roosevelt told me
all this was just multiple assault, multiple dis.
orderly conduct, multiple malicious mischief
each case to be Investigated and prosecuted
by itself. But meanwhile the goons would
vanish. Then would a small own stand the
expense of requisiticning and deporting sou
defendants from Oregon, California and New
York. and the cost of legal appeals, just to
try them for threatening language, throwing
stones, tipping over automobiles and punching
humble citizens?
True. we couldn't 10 business Nth Hitler