The Wilmington morning star., 1947-09-26
AS Pegler Sees 1t
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright, 1947, By King Features Syndi-
cate, Inc.)

warren dl1u 0ClldtO1 Tx AodA1 LOVINGLY Va
California, have corroborated the discovery
by these essays of a very bad new under
world in the amusement trades in Holly
wood, Los Angeles and elsewhere. These
two are primarily concerned, of course,
with the California gangsters, most
of whom either have social entree among
the parvenus or themselves rank as the
Astors and Vanderbilts Of their time and
place.
It is impossible to draw a thin, meander-
ing line to separate the underworld from
the society of legitimate, law-abiding per-
sons. If a man or woman with a clean
record knowingly associates with Lucky Lu-
ciano or Buggy Siegel, that person assumes
certain risks to his reputation. Frank Sina-
ira is so intimate with so many such per-
sons that the burden of proof is on him
should he challenge the aphorism about
birds of a feather. And a journalist on the
underworld beat is supposed to know what
he is doing when he uses his space and his
gratiate questionable public characters:
Ed Sullivan, the underworld reporter of
the New York News, has long shown a
preference for gangsters. He got maudlin
over Frank NARROW, one of the lowest YER
min of his time, some years ago. Only
last winter, when any reporter should have
dug up the facts, he CLOSED over Sinatra's
association with Lucky Luciano, the old
exiled gangster.
Sullivan argued that this playing-around
was not even noteworthy because "some
Of the most reputable citizens of New York
and Chicago met Luciano in Havana" In
the first place, Sinatra did not just "meet"
Luciano. He consorted with him and other
gangsters and one of the festivities was a
round of merry-making in a hotel suite be-
came notorious ever in Hayana and was re-
ferred to recently by one of Sinatra's W
handlers as 'that debauch." Sinatra flew
to Havana with his close friends, the Els
chetti brothers, of Chicago, whose back
ground has been presented here and in
the police records.
In the heyday of Al Capone, thousands
of the "more reputable citizens" made a
celebrity of Capone. He was sought after
so eagerly that a false story was invented
involving Herbert Hoover, which had a ba-
sis of plausibility. This story had it that
the reason why President Hoover sent Ca
pone to prison for cheating on his income
tax was that Mr.. Hoover had walked
through a hotel lobby in Miami Beach alb
solutely unnoticed while Capone was pleas
our most reputable citizens" as the under
world beat measures repute, are so degraded
so insensible of morals and ethics that this
incident could have happened. However,
Mr.. Hoover interfered and set the Treasury
on Capone only after the late Frank Knox
and several other Chicago citizens called on
him at the White House and invoked his help
on the ground that Chicago had collapsed
into civic, political and moral bankruptcy.
They were afraid that anarchy might be
next. He never did encounter Capone any,
where.
Now, although this incident was LECTION,
another of Sinatra's b~iographers, E.. j.
Kahn, Jr., of the New York, reports with
a bit of a smirk that Sinatra actually did
pull off something of the kind in New York.
Mr.. Kahn tells us that in 1914 Sinatra,
who had an Al draft card but never was
called up, was delighted with a boyish
prank he played on Governor Dewey" AS
a large group of republicans were about to
greet their candidate outside the Waldorf,
Sinatra "stole his crowd away simply by
appearing at the entrance himself"
That could be true. Considering the re-
markable avoidance by ali such eulogists
OF the fact that Sinatra was arrested on a
charge Of se3ucing a girl of good repute
when he was about 81 years old and beat
the rap by a strange process of law, one is
not obliged to believe tina: it did happen.
On the whole, Sinatra's s%crapbooks contain
an overwhelming bulk of publicity and very
little news.
But, if it did happen, here we have a
fellow who is actually a member of an
underworld element, exerting an artificial
popularity to disrupt a mild political dem
onstration in honor of a candidate who
votes for the presidency.
Mr.. Kahn got much of his material from
Sinatra's press-agent, George Evans, who
artfully fomented the mass hysteria that
surrounds this ballad singer. And he makes
an announcement which might seriously
disturb many citizens. Mr.. Kahn already
has told us that some of Sinatra's follow
ing believe that his birthday is second in
Importance to only that of Jesus Christ.
There is a weird light playing around Sina-
ira. Hitler affected many Germans much
the same way and madness has been rife
in the world.
Mr.. Kahn tells us that Sinatra's fancy
has already "toyed with" a plan of ''inter-
rupting, if not disturbing, political rallies
being held by American pro-fascists."
"He proposes to attend such right-wing
retinue of SO picked bobby-soxers of dem
onstrated ~lung-power," the article says.
''They are to take seats close to the speak
er's playform. Then, whenever a speaker
utters some thought hat Sinatra deems un-
fit for public consumption, he plans to
touch his right cheek with his right forefin-
ger. At this previously arranged cue. his
chorus would burst into so clamorous a
shrek that no other sound would come
near reaching the audiences ears"
"They'd never hear the guy irving IN
speak," Sinatra once said.
Kahn himself seems to regard as sliber-
alp all citizens who revere Franklin n
Roosevelt and share Kahn's own beliefs
He salutes Sinatra as a champion of s1ib.
eral' causes. Any group of Republican,
might be "pro-fascists" to Kahn and S;na,
ira. But Kahn has the candor to tell ne
that Sinatra goes in the company of toueh
b~odyguards: Hitler also had tough, under
male goons to disrupt political mee+;nes ef
the opposition. We do not know the eo,or
of the shirts that Sinatra's goons will w au.er
IN the campaign of 1913 when his sirlish