The Wilmington morning star., 1947-09-22
AS Pegler Sees 1t
BY WESTBROK PEGLER
Copyright, 1947, By King Features
Syndicate, Inc.)

S~ynOlcate, AuC.J
NEW YORK, Sept. 21-The national gov
eminent is. wasting its own energy and
money in the attempt to deport three for
eign-born unioneers who are suspected OF
beng communists and thus enemies OF
the United States.
These are John Santo, a Roumanian, OF
the Transport Workers union, which IS
forever tormenting New York with slow,
downs. on the buses and W ana
threats of one big paralyzing strike; MI
chael J.. Obermeler, the president OF a
Hotel and Club Servants union OF the
A. e. OF L.. and Ferdinand Smith. a west
Indian Negro, OF the National maritime
union Santo, who has several o1ner
names. and Smith have been charged with
illegal entry as well.
The Supreme Court went far out OF its
way to Illustrate the law in a similar
case case against Harry Bridges. He had been
convicted of communlstic "~attlnatlon =:
The law was passed in a futile effort OF
Il free government to protect itself from
the impudert treacheries Of foreign
enemies coming here. Bridges had been
found guilty by Charles B. Sears, OF New
York, one Of the best judges in the coun-
try. sitting as examiner. FRANCIS b1oole'
the Attorney General, signed an order to
throw Bridges out Of the country. The
entire communist organization went to bat
for Bridges under orders from Moscow.
The best communist hair-splitters and lint
pickers in the country were his to COM
mand. Hundreds of thousands OF circulars
and pamphlets were turned out and sent
to the standard sucker lists begging mon
ev. Incidentally, Bridges and several OF
his unions and committees brought suit
against me and other defendants alleging
libel. They quit last year without one word
of retr action, qualification, or apology and
without a cent of damages.
10 halk Biddle, Bridges sued for a writ
of habeas corpus in the US. District Court
and lost. Then he lost in the court OF ap-
peals. TIL score was now 3 to o IN favor
of the people of the United States, but
they stood no chance in the Supreme
Court. There Hugo Black. the old Ala
bams barn-burner, of the Ku Klux Khan
CT night-riding terrorists, wrote the ma
jorlty opinion holding that Bridges didn't
really affiliate" with the enemies Of our
government. All he did was cooperate"
and anyway he stopped at some hair-Gne
on the lawful side of their illicit final pur-
pose to overthrow the government by VIC
lent instruction.
Frank Murphy often shows off in his
official conduct as garishly as he does in
the nocturnal filters on the dance floors
Of night clubs in Washington and New
York In this case he almost had Mysteries.
Re wrote that police departments and 9TH
er public agencies" and groups o. farm
crs and veterans had 'joined III an I'm
renting effort to deport' a fellow who,
up to the minute when Murphy signed his
name to this nonsense, was, by official
decision, an enemy, deserving the opposi-
ton Of all patriots. Murphy also moaned
about the terrible injustice of d%epriving
an alien of the chance to earn a living
in the United States. l ave yet to be
ko1J ,,LAr1 %hl Io-oir4 horriS{nr oyyor
evinced any concern for hundreds of thou
sands of real American citizens who have
been deprived of their legal right to make
a living by Murphy's political comrades,
the union racketeers and goons. So il may
be taken for granted that the Supreme
Court, out of sheer mischief will save
these three from deportation on appeal.
There is just no doubt that the mem
bers of the communist party are implac-
able enemies and traitors. The House Com
mlttee on un-American Activities has
proved this fact repeatedly from many
angles. incidentally, it is amusing
days to watch the reaction of the New
York Herald Tribune in such incidents.
After the latest report of the committee,
Of the editorial section, two olulnrs wide,
William Shirer said the committee was
trying to make all Americans conform to
its own idea of "Americanism'. What the
committee was doing was simply to show
from the records that the communists are
ruled from Moscow and always in Mos
cows interest and to give the names Of
those who had taken part in their dirty
work. The Herald Tribune seems to be
going after some of the circulation Of the
Daily Worker and Marshall Fields thing.
Strange, dramatic things may happen in
ou- country as the conspiracy warns to
the explosion. The same Supreme Court
decided in another case that there is moth
ing wrong with our law which would per-
nit ANY military commander designated
by the Secretary of War" to throw into
concentration camps all those actors, writ
ers and lawyers, all those communist
unioneers and radio orators and Henry
Wallace, too, who have indicated a toler-
ance or preference for Russia. A corporal
or a buck private could do this. The law
doesn't single out omrnunis or fellow
travellers or immigrants from Russia or
Russie's satellite countries. 1t says "any
person" may be forbidden to remain in"
any place. That means that whenever we
get fed up we can round up those listed
by the congressional committee and stick
theln away in the desert as we did the
Japs. We can confiscate all their money
and property by a provision which says
they may be forbidden to commit. "any
act" and fined 5000 for each ~offense.
In the recent war we applied this law
almost exclusively to Japs. But whenever
we have a mind to we may apply it
seleetively to natives of Bessarahia. Jugo-
s~lavia, Bulgaria, Poland and the Baltic
countries. and their sons and daughters.
We could exempt our friends. 1t is idle
to ask if this wouldn't have some bad
effect. on our democracy" If we ever
do this. we are going to be so mad that
we will be thinking of safety first and
our safety, not theirs, as we did when
General De Witt rounded up the Japs aft
err Pearl Harbor. We came through that
without losing our country or our free