The Wilmington morning star., 1947-07-04
As Pegler Sees 1t
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
(Copyrigh, 1s47, by King Features syndicate,
-' Hno

(Copyrigh, l947, by King Features syndicate,
Incl
NEW YORK - The interlocking association
Of the Roerich mystical cult and the new
deal. through the medium o. Henry Wallace
and several other leading personalities, has
never been fully revealed in its stealthy real
ity. Wallace was a member OF this group
and he appointed Louis L.. I!orch, its princi-
Pal financial hacker, to very influential jobs
in the Departments Of Agriculture and Com
merce. Old Henry Morgenthau, the father of
Henry the morgue, who was Rooseyelt's Sec
rotary Of the Treasury, fell tor a new ism
called bioshophy and associated with the
suru, or swami, of that outfit, one Frederick
Kettner, whose publications were put out by
the press of Nicholas Konstantin Roerich, at
the Roerich lamasery and museum, also
known as a master institute at 80 River
side drive. Kettner is still in action. I tele-
phoned his office for an appointment but was
told that he was on tour and could not be
reached. This struck me as strange. Most
showmen, lecturers and preachers who work
he road are booked methodical1y and can
be caught by phone, mail or telegram in a
Few hours. The young lady agreed that he
could be compared to q ghost
l then learned that Sol Bloom, the new
dea! congressman whose. district includes the
lamasery, actually had lived in the place
Cor some years. MIR. Bloom is one of the
{ ldtimers of Congress-. He is now n and. he
mas the happy and mature disposition of a
fellow who never took himself too seriously
and lived by the way as he travelled through
life. He was born in Pekin, ILL.,, and was
taken to San Francisco by his parents when
the country west Of the Mississippi was still
frontier. Sol was a Snowman at the first
Chicago World fair in 1893, managing all con-
cesslons including a pitch OH the streets o.
Cairo where. a buXom babe introduced to
western culture a squirm called the hootchy-
kootchy discoursed to the thin walls of a
snake char1ner's reed. "She wriggles and
she's not a worm-for a dime, ten cents
was the wham-sock closing phrase Of the
cultural discourse of the traditional midway
professor at such displays. The professors
themselves were almost as great an attrac-
ton as. the hootch dancers, of whom Mr..
Bloom now reveals there were perhaps as
many as Is.
In Congress, Sol mas been a new dealer,
II course, because he is an organization DEM
ocrat. In justice to him, however, it must
be allowed that his Endorsement of the Roose-
welt program in its entirety was only a neck
sound. He interested himself in unhateful con-
Germs and acted as director of the Washing
ton Bicentennial commission and director
general Of the Sesquicentennial Commission
CT tie Constitution. He is a Mason, Shriner,
Elk, Moose and Red Man, if I may put it
SO. a harmless new dealer as distinguished
from the malignant type.
I telephoned Mr.. Bloom and asked him if
1t were true that he had lived up there in
the temple with the lama himself, meaning
old Roerich, and the disciples.
"Yes.-1,-well, 1,-that is, I mean that is
my official resi- .ence," Sol said. II used to
his wife and son. You are pretty near right
about them according to information 1 have
received"
Mr.. Bloom at this point expressed an in
%teresting personal opinion of the Roerichs
which is the observation of ar old carnival
Snowman who has seen the best of them
close up. fortune-tellers. hypnotists, phrenolo-
gists, astrologers and all.
"Horch is not a bad fellow,' Sol said. 'he
just got interested in Roerich's painting and
stuff. l thought the paintings were terrible
mysee, and every time 1 would look at one
OF them 1 would want to go and get a drink.
I haven't been up there for years now but
l did live there and that's my voting adj
dress.
II heard Roerich was dead some time
ago." Sol said.
I don't like to doubt an OLD friends word,
but Sol is in politics and he certainly was
nesting IN the lamasery, and in very queer
company, and now he tells me that Henry
Wallace never was around in his day.
II didn't even know he was in the pic
ture," he said. They're all nutty, you know"
o1S "oAoSC oAAy d d4OQllO Iii
those days. The lamasery was "dedicated'
with special ceremonies and oratorical set
pieces on Oct. II, 1929, the year with big
panic broke. Mrs. Sina Fos6ick, one of the
faithful then and still, tlatly says she
says she saw Wallace enter the gigantic joss
house several times with his collar turned
Up" It was her impression that he was try
ing to escape recognition. Others have said
Wallace wore dark glasses on those visits.
However, there is no doubt OF mystery now
about his association with Roerich.
The part that I have difficulty believing
in Mr.. Blooms story is his insistence that
he didn't know Wallace was in the circle.
eldn't know Wallace sent Roerich to Asia
for the Department Of Agriculture on a bo-
tanical mission and didn't even know that
Wallace knew Horch. After all, Sol is a con-
gresham and did rise, by seniority, to be-
come chairman of the Committee on Foreign
Affairs. 1t he was that dumb or Indifferent
to Important monkey business right in the
same house where he lived as a cultural as
set of the mystical circle, our foreign rela-
tons were not in the best of hands in his
case.
After Horch broke with Roerich over money
matters, he said that, when he and Mrs.
Horch were paying the bills for this cham
plon moocher of them all. Mrs. Roerich told
MIN and Mrs. Horch, one cay in Vichy, that
her Ole man had a mental power over others
and that If anyone went against him, he had
power enough to kill him with his thoughts.
The Horches swallowed so much of Roerich's
nonsense, and so did Henry Wallace, that it
seems certain that they Fell for this business
OF the mental daggers and blue flames, too.
But Sol says Roerich never did any magic
tricks around him.
HE never gave me any of that mystical
business" says he. 81 never could follow
him, anyway. He gave weird lectures but
never went to them. If you would stay around
that Roerich long enough. he would get you.
never let him look me in the eye. 1 never
let a hypnotist look me in the eye and when
ever he would try it on me I would rim. ,