The Wilmington morning star., 1947-09-25
AS Pegler Sees 1t
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
...-Ll 1nAH p1y EirnU EQofJIrQC s

BY WEsTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright, 1947, By King Features Syndi-
cate, Inc.
NEW YORK, Sept. "a. Ed Flynn has
written in his sorry political confessions
that. in his belief, Franklin D. Roosevelt
sent as our ambassador to Germany in
1888 a man whom he didn't even know.
Eleanor the Great revealed by a dumb
accident that she still didn't know Who this
ambassador was even as late as 1910, i've
wears after he died. She thought he was
Harold w. Dodds, the president of Prince
ton university. Actually, he was William
E.. Dodd, a pulling old parasite off the
academic ivy Of the University OF Chicago.
Flynn tells us he was chosen by mistake.
In Berlin he chucked< his weight about,
and defied the nazis to hit him when he
knew he had behind him the greatest ma
ton on earth to. avenge even a split lip.
He closed his life with a contemplate show
of coWardice.
What happened here, anyway?
The time and place and the task called
for a patriotic man of character, dignity
and ability. We had a hundred good men,
all disqualified by Roosevelts personal ha-
tired or the clamor of his subsidized union
GERS and a small element of Baltic and
Balkan political vermin loyal to no coun-
try but protesting democracy" Hitler
then was only a silly he-shrew, but it was
the duty of the American President to send
to Berlin the best man he could find. Had
he done so, our government might have
been able to prevent the war or, at least,
to keep our country safe.
Boss Flynn writes now, II know the
President had never met William r.. Dodd."
There was another child in this Ameri-
can household, which was less typical than
Stain may hope. This was William D..
Dodd, Jr. Our committee on un-American
activities turned him up, engaged in the
broadcast of propaganda to foreign fields
for the Federal Communications Commits
sion. Young Dodd and two other individuals
were named by a law passed by both
houses of Congress as persons to whom
no part of certain appropriations should
be paid. The law was held unconstitutional
and the three were awarded back pay, but
they never did get their jobs back. But
it wasn't the purpose OF Congress to save
the petty amounts involved. The purpose
was to keep these persons out of the gov
eminent.
Old Dodd's name is cited 10 times in the
index of the Committee on un-American
Activities, a development which gives one
to wonder who did plant him as the Ameri-
can ambassador in Berlin. Flynn says Roose-
welt didn't know much about him. But our
communists certainly did and they were
coming W KNOW dIlu eSlGGIu HIS sui, III
daughter and her husband, Alfred K. Stern.
Young Dodd is named 10 times in con-
nection with groups and activities which
the committee held to be fronts for the
communist conspiracy against the United
States, directed from Moscow. Martha's
name occurs Is times and Sterns name
81 times. On a small sign on the premises
of the Stems in the leafy suburbs of West
chester County, N. Y, the name formerly
y,oc q IF Gaoroe Cn1Sas who has "A
citations in the index.
Last winter Stern took part in a march
on Albany organized by the communists
of New York to occupy the legislative
chambers by force. Like Mussolini in his
March on Rome, the takers rode the cush-
ions in comfort.
In William E. Dodd, the Soviet had a
second ambassador in Berlin. He strove
constantly to keep the British and French
hostile to Hitler, which was the obvious
mission of a Soviet ambassador, so that
whenever Germany and Russia, the natur-
al enemies, should have their inevitable
war, Stain would have Britain and France
as allies. Much worse, however, the men
who held credentials from the people OF
the United States missed no opportunity to
create a feeling in which it would be i'm
possible for them to keep out of this war.
He acted in obedience to his personal feel
ings and politics, which were not at all
hostile to despotism. He was actually af-
fectionate toward the Musccvjte horror. He
served Moscow in a manner to deserve
the gaudiest honors, for it was Dodd's
work almost as much as Roosevelt's which
guaranteed Stain as his ally in the i'm
pending war the mightiest but the stupidest
nation in all the sad history of mankind.
Thu regular State Department staff of
the Berlin embassy couldn't handle Dodd.
He had no manne no training. no feel
ing of responsibility for the horrors which
he was amassing for his countrymen, mil
lions of whom then were children.
Dodd was Withdrawn in 1887. on Dec. 8,
1898, at Hanover Courthouse, Va, he ran
down a four-year-old Negro girl in his car
and ran away. He said he thought the
child was not hurt but he did know there
had been a mishap and he did drive on.
The question was not one of responsibility
and blame but of the instructive reaction
of this great humanitarian. He finally
pleaded guilty and was fined $3.50. He died
in February 1910.
Quotations