The Wilmington morning star., 1947-03-18
rs Pegler Sees 1t
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
by King Features Syndicate

sion on the character OF tQo OOVIeC govern. |
ment and the absolute hostility of communism
and communists to the American government
and it's principles that has come from the
White House in IA years. When he said the
existence of Greece was Threatened by the !
terroristic activities OF several thousand arm
ed men, led by communists ne was speak |
ing of agents Of the Russian government. He
was speaking of Soviet conspirators again
when he said 1.-The peoples of a number of
countries have recently had totalitarian re-
gimes forced upon them against their will,
: mentioning Poland, Rumania and Bulgaria by
name. |
When MI. Truman discussed d way of life
based on the will of a minority forcibly i'm |
posed upon the majority and reliant on 'ter-
ror and oppression, a controlled press and
radio, fiHeo elections and the suppression OF
personal freedoms he was referring again
to. Russian communism.
This honesty. in contrast to the sly. policy |
Of the Roosevelt regime. may mean that, at
last, and not an hour too soon, the United
States has recognized an enemy within our
country as well as without. Mr.. Truman had
previously indicated that he rejected Roose-
velt's hospitality to these enemies. He had
cleaned out of some departments of the gov. |
eminent, including even the Cabinet, indivi-
duals who found it possible to abhor Hitler's
despotisn but condone Or justify Stains.
Nevertheless. the menace continues and is !
the worse because our laws and the devious |
ness of the Supreme Court have made it al
most impossible to restrain communists I'M |
less they freely admit that they are COM
munists.
Lewis Schwellenbach, the Secretary of La
Dor. recently conceded not only that COM
munists should be barred from offices in un- !
ions but that the party, itself, should be out +,
.awed. 1t took him a long time to say so and
more daring and fortnight men had been de
nounced by his political comrades OF the new |
deal and the communist fronts for years to' !
saying Just that. They were red-baiters. a /
though there had been something dishonorable
or disloyai in opposing forces which. as he
now says, advocate overthrow OF our gov
eminent.
Remembering Mr. Schwellenbach CHI political
origins and background in the state of Wash
ington where, for years. many communists
have been indistinguishable from m a
Roosevelt democrats. it seems to me that
he has been ineXcusably slow on the uptake.
However. the company of those who engaged
in red-baiting when it was a sport attended
by some risk of abuse, al least, is not fastidi-
Gus and will welcome the brother and give
him his penny.
liz QuSSliOl " = GO ~ hoo DNSi
for years. how to identify a communist.
Schwellenbach said his department had sat
isfied itself by its own standards in the cases
Of six persons and had fired them. In reveal
ing his formula for the guidance of loyal
American members of unions and others, he
might be good enough to state also how these
six got into his department and remained
there since he relieved Madam Perkins. Mil
ton Murray. the president of the American
Newspaper Guild. an org anization plagued by
communists ever since its start, also has pro
fessed an aversion TO these people but the
best he could offer beyond that was a plain
tive appeal to their honor to disclose them
selves That is like appealing to criminals to
give themselves up for, as Mr.. Schwellenbach
said, lone of the first things that a com
munist learns is to deny that he is one" as
though that were his own bright thought for
the day
II is not mere recrimination. but a restate-
ment Of a sad fact, to say that Franklin d.
Roosevelt and his wife, both, complicated the
problem Of eliminating communists from the
government. unions and outwardly conven-
tioral American political parties The Dies
Committee was inept at first and Martin Dies,
its chairman, did practice some of the lrregu-
lar, though not illegal. methods that had been
used before by Samuel Dickstein of New
York. in the earlier committee on subVerslve
activities, and by Hugo Black, now a Justice
of the Supreme Court. when he was carrying
a card in the Ku Klux Khan and running a
scandalous senatorial inquiry. Yet. the Roose-
welt personal following, including all the most
obstreperous and obvious communists. and
their press. were heartened in their campaign
to discredit Dies disclosures, by both the
President and his wife
Mrs. Roosevelt, personally, conducted her
self in a manner to indicate sympathy with
those under inquiry and followed that DEM
onstration by inviting a bunch of them to the
White House. At the chicken salad orgy in
the White House, following the fourth inau-
g%uration. the guests included William Gail
NOR, originally Margolis, a Well-kncWn thief
whose notoriety and rise from the status of
obscure and petty knave in the police rec
ords of New York was due to his consistent
pre- ching of the policies, or line. of the Stall
mist machine in the United States Many IN
dubitable communists were turned up in
many departments of the Roosevelt govern.
ment, but in not. one single case was there
any acknowledgment from the White House
OF the Roosevelt party that their presence
was at all, regrettable or any explanation Of
how they got. there
The decision Of the Supreme Court in the
Harry Bridges deportation case seems to
Illustrate any hope of pinning communism on
anyone.
Bridges was given a long and fair hearing
by Judge Charles B. Sears, a distinguished
JulISl, ullueI an unCndllenSeQ ACT VI congress-. |
AS the minority opinion Of the Supreme Court
said, Judge Sears recommended that he be
deported on two grounds tA) that he was a
member Of the communist party and Oh that
he was ''affiliated' with both the party and
the Marine Workers Industrial Union which
was a part of the communist party
The board Of immigration appeals, OF the
Department of Justice, a body by no means
comparable to Judge Sears in prestige but
more comparable to any bureaucratic group
Of clerks, reversed the judge. Francis Biddle,
the Attorney General, and certainly no redr