The Wilmington morning star., 1947-10-10
AS Pegler Sees It
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright, 1947, BY King Features
Syndicate, Inc.)

occurred and the world would be that
much better off today. The trend of cur
rent events and barroom repartee between
the official journalism of the Russian state
and whomsoever the Russians can entice
into argument here is toward a third war.
In this war, the United States and Rus
STA would be the main aries. Thus,
for the first time, after two practice bouts
imbued with false sentiments, the. West
ern world would openly, and in our W
name and lp our own cause, engage the
eastern.
Twice the United States has fought for
the survival Of primary European contest
ants to whom we were u~nreasonably par
tial. To be sure, Pershing preserved the
nationality of his regiments, but we sided
into the first war as underStudleS OF the
veteran British and French soldiers n
with a distinct understanding that our
mission was to save Britain and France
from a whipping and some nameless pun
ishment. Again, in the second war we not
only furnished the tools to the great re-
duction of our wealth, but went belligerent
and provided the fighting punch that GER
tainly settled the war. If it had been true
that the British were fighting our war, the
long spell of indecision while they were
bleeding and we were getting up our nerve
would have been a disgrace to us. It
wasn't true, of course, but we have learn
ed only recently that the Nazis had good
reason to punish us if we had confined
our participation to acknowledgement help
and heckling. It now turns out that
our Roosevelt sent an ambassador to Ger
many in 1888 whose whole purpose was
to organize Britain, France and our coun-
try against Germany for the sake of Rus
STA. Russia was Germany's natural enemy
and day by day, now, we better under
stand why the Germans hated and feared
the Bolsheviki.
The intentions of the Kaiser, revealed
after the first war, were predatory, in
considerate and brutal, but practical and
not unusual. So were the intentions of
Britain, France and Russia. TIL Germans
would have absorbed Holland, Belgium
and a little more of France. They would
have let the British off with some humilia-
ton and the loss of some property in
Africa. The British, being nimble, versa
tile and pietistical, would have adjusted
themselves spiritually in a few years.
The treatment Of France here deserves
only superficial consideration. She has
been s~lovenly inefficient, ill-tempered and
her own worst enemy and in 1914 she
started a career as a political and eco
nomic parasite. This is now her principal
vocation.
III o11y SooCy IlC vi hlS oASS
would not have created the Bolshevik mon
ster of Lenin and Trotsky had we attend
ed to our own business in that war. 1t
was only by the desperate connlvance OF
the Germans in the days of the kalser's
decline that the Bolsheviks were enabled
to take over Russia. Our country, there
fore, was responsible for the creation OF
the power which now taunts us to fight.
Even if the creation of this power were
~ poo{Lirr ~ h. ~ro11l ~ uyo yypn11 houo
forfeited all credit because our assistance
to the Bolsheviks was unintentional and
unforeseen. We had made matters desper-
ate for the Germans, who therefore helped
the Communists, who then obligingly dis
solved the Eastern front, permitting the
Germans to shift so many divisions to
the West but not enough to win. Actually,
we went so far as to fire off a few
rifles at the Russians at Archangel and in
Siberia. Thus we may be placarded in
their postoffices and railroad stations as
historic enemies of the revolution, wanted
dead or alive.
The Bolshevik revolution actually was a
tremendous backflip into the dark ages.
1t was an insensate massacre, continued
for years. All the superior Russians who
couldn't escape to become cab-starters,
maid servants and gigolos in Paris, Lon
don and New York were slaughtered. The
british Jumps who had been cropping their
way toward civilization in the new free
dom granted by the cars were now caught
up by new masters, more savage than
any that their ancestors had known The
Russian peasant and the dull, dumb, urban
slob were organized to enslave themselves
in a new and much worse thralldom. The
cars never thought of playing it down
that work was an obligation of the person
to the state. On the contrary, incidence
was one of the quantity charming char
acteristics of the Russian robot. ~1neffici-
ency was a highly specialized Russian
folk art. The oaf liberated himself to be-
come a toiler with a fixed and allotted
position in the states industrial plan,
whether in a mine, a lumber camp or a
b%uttonhole plant. The very jargon of the
new slavery emphasized the hideous name
of work. Ivan was no longer a man but
a worker or a toiler. He had better work
olutionists and may be exiled, shot or
thrown down an old we'll and stoned.
In reverse, the Muscovite system was
tested in the United States in the skip
strikes of the motor industry. John L..
Lewis was organizing the CLIO. under the
patronage of Franklin D. Roosevelt Henry
Ford had found that a certain number
of men with a minimum OF intelligence,
each giving a wrench a certain twist three
times a minute, eight hours a day, could
turn out flivvers by the hundred. The Boil
sheviks had decided that if just one face
less man in this long line of numbered
n~onentities should fail to twist the bolt
with his wrench, the whole business clank-
ed to a chaotic stop. One could Illustrate
thousands all the way back to the forests
and the mines.
The Bolsheviks would shoot a skip-strik-
or. The Americans, under Roosevelt, ex-
cused him on the ground that there was
only orange soda on the eye-wash wagon
when he wanted a grape, and the labor
relations board made the employer pay
full wages to all the others who were
thrown out Of work by the stoppage. These
Iaeieions were given by Communists