The Wilmington morning star., 1947-03-28
As PeglerS Sees 1t

(Westbrook Pegler will be on vacation
for four weeks. His next column may be
expected in the issue of April 2S.-The
Editor.)
By WESTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright, by King Features Syndicate, Inc.,
A few years ago, In New York, l got a
telephone call from the Rev. Jerome l.. Toner,
a Catholic priest, who was studying labor
and unionism, which are not altogether syn
onynous. and was fixing to write a thesis
on the closed shop for his Phi. D. From memo
ry. l would say that he had been a lumber
jack or longshoreman handling lWnber in the
northwest. He knew a great deal about Dave
Beck, the regional ruler of the teamsters'
union of the A. F. of L., and Mr.. Beck's
system of cooperation with employers in the
stated interests of industrial ard civil peace
but with results comparable to MuSSollnIS
labor relations. He was no more naive about
the hard facts Of life within unions than he
was about life in the barbarian areas where
employers had excluded the unions, by force.
We lunched and ! thought l had taught
Father Toner well, so I reproached myself
for failure when he finally pumped for the
closed shop in a learned, but erroneous, work
and got his degree.
Father Toner is now professor OF industrial
relations at st. Martins college. at Lacey,
Washington, propagating his fallacy, no doubt,
and he recently made a statement In support
Of it before the Senate, committee on Labor
and Public Welfare. l shall refrain from tear
ing it to shreds in this brief essay because
A) it is too long, complex and subtle for
this compass: OBJ l might only convert to
his heresy persons who believe as l do, in
Guiding myself.
Father Toner told the committee that Presi-
dent De Valera had said to him: Il wish
to God that the day had never come when
the misdeeds OF industrial relations became
the headache and heartache OF government.
l wish they had stayed in the economic arena
where they belong"
In other words, "backward, turn back
ward"
Next, my friend quoted from a decision by
Chief Justice Taft in which Mr.. Taft said
that laborers must be given an opportunity
to deal on equality with their employer. He
then came out for industry-wide bargaining.
AS l told him long ago, this only means
that one day, and there can be no better
day than the soonest day, we must give the
worker an opportunity to deal on equality
with the men who run his union. But who
are 'We?' 'We'' means the workers, the citi-
zens.
you know from my book Father
Toner writes me, II do not condemn the
closed shop as an institution but I do, with
you. condemn the individuals who abuse the
closed shop and collective bargaining. While
attending the sick on the lower decks Of the
Queen Elizabeth on the way to Europe during
this last period Of madness called war, I saw
a lot Of rats that disturbed me. But l would
have been frantic if someone had said we
should burn the ship to get rid Of those rats,
and / am talking about the animal kind. I
wish and pray that some Of those men who
like to be called leaders Of labor had half
the honesty and principle that you have. 1t
is not your fault if people get the wrong i'm
pressions from what you say, but it is the
fault Of many labor leaders that workers have
to suffer as they do. I have tried to stress
that the Wagner Act was made to protect
the worker and not the unions. The latter
have taken over the projections given by the
act to the workers to abuse them with it.
And that goes especially when they have a
closed shop"
I quote the benign words about me not in
vanity but by way Of showing that not ali
Of us who disagree on principles are neces-
sarily ferocious, although, even in Congress
and among friends in m walks of
life. fury has destroyed friendship and re-
spect. Another purpose is to call attention to
the fact that some men Of high principle have
not been deceived by those, whether dolts or
rogues, who distort every revelation Of their
own failures and rascalities into attacks on
'labor," meaning people who work.
1 40 UelleVe CudL d HdLlUudI dCC " OluOtLS
the closed shop would cause bloodshed in
many cities and might paralyze the country
with God-only-knows-what awful conse-
quences. To say that a government must face
such crises or fall is impetuous. In this case
we would create the crisis and I would rather
endure the closed shop indefinitely, and mean
while cure some Of the evils which 1t In
flicts, than sacrifice one life.
Father Toner is deceived in believing that
the Wagner Act was made to protect the
worker and not the unions" In the first place
Congress had no right to protect the worker"
in his relations with the employer. For that
very reason the pretext was used IN the Wag-
ner Act of expediting and removing obstruc-
tons to interstate by abating labor
disputes through collective bargaining. Next,
I have to insist that the purpose of the act
was not to protect the worker but to create
and enlarge unions as political factors which
would be, as Francis Biddle, then the At
torney General, incautiously admitted they
were, tied to the new deal, government. If
there ever was any intention to abate labor
disputes the fact was sooh demonstrated that
this law had the opposite effect. We immedi-
ately went into an era of labor disputes more
riotous and expensive than any otner season
Of unrest since the Civil War, and Congress
caught the labor relations board in the act
Of fomenting disputes and lint-plcking for
grievances where none existed. The war peri
cd was even worse than the organizing period
Of the CLIO. except in the matter OF bloody
anarchy and organized terror. That is to say,
the record Of strikes. slowdoWns and studied
waste of people, in a time when homes were
being disrupted to shift men and women
thousands Of miles, was the worst in our
history. We deliberately used about three per-
sons to do the work Of two, and the Wagner
Act was the cause OF this. Many of those
families will never be reunited.
That the act was passed for the political
benefit Of Senator Wagner's party is seen in
the fact that, throughout its life down to now,
the government has exalted, honored and con-
suited men who have been guilty of exploiting