The Wilmington morning star., 1947-03-03
AS Pegler Sees 1t
Copyright BY King Features Syndicate, In
BY WEsTBROOK oEGLER.

If is pathetic that at this late date two COM
mittees of Congress-, one of each house, should
have to waste time proving the obvious and
conceded fact that the conduct OF unions to-
ward the individual worker has been brutal
and degrading and commonly includes col
fusion between vicious unioneers and equally
wicked employers. On this latter point the
conduct of certain opulent and heavy-randed
contra who build aqueducts, airports and
tunnels, in the Joe Fay case, has been a spec
tacular illustration. They are rich and ruth
less, most of them politicians and as low as
the gangsters whom they subsidized to ter
rorize the citizens who worked on the Jobs.
Some periured themselves in two trials, one
in New York, the other in Newark In the IN
terests of their accomplish in the dirty work.
Of course they are strongly pro-unlon and
praise the Wagner Act; which permits them to
deal with a crooked u%nioneer and ignore the
workers. The Senate and House committees
needn't summon such people to convince
themselves of this enormous conspiracy
against labor with a capital L, against the
administration Of justice and against the in
egrity of government The records of the New
York and Newark trials of Joe Fay already
have proved the case, but Frank S. Hogan
the New York district attorney who convicted
Fay, doubtless would be delighted to take his
turn as a witness and clarity any points that
may seem obscure.
Not even the American Federation Of Labor,
which once kicked Fay out but let him back
in as a union racketeer, would enter so much
as a technical denial. Yet, again, we find
congressional committees laboring the obvious
in tiny detail.
These incidents occur daily In many COM
munities. Few of them attract notice because
they are as commonplace as hub-scrapeS in
traffic. They are the routine experience Of
Americans.
In Kansas City. a, young man of "a parades
before struck premises in a picket line. The
A. P. reports in a little novelty item that he
wears a sign reading Il am a heel; l crossed
a picket line The story relates that this
citizen is a cab driver who called at a store
to inquire about the development of a roll of
film. The place was p~lcketed. He was given
his choice of paying a $50 fine or plcketlng
for two eight-hour shifts wearing the sign.
The Utica, N. Y. Press carried a picture
of a young woman holding an ice pack to her
nose. She says she quit the union in the plant
where she works and thereafter was perse-
cuted.
They whistled at her and called her
names until finally she couldn't stand it any
more and sort of swung my boots"
This seems to mean that a young girl took
the conservative course of trying to kick men
who were tormenting her, when she should
have brought a shotgun and blown their heads
off. Then" she said, one gallant guardian
VI 1oOOI > SdIlS hi HE III lily 1dle anu 1Ily
nose and this other fellow hit me, too"
We had a charming and typical incident Of
the same kind in New York. The night bell
rang at an undertaker's shop and the pro-
prietor being i'll, his wife, an elderly woman,
put on a robe and went down to the office.
Two men said a friend had died and as she
bent over the desk writing the data she was
hit on the head Reviving later. she crawled
UP the stairs and the cops were called. She
was seriously injured. A note was found on
the desk reading don't buy Boyertown.' This
referred to BoyertoWn caskets, which were hot
cargo a: the time.
In New York, George Wall a laborer, a
veteran of the first World War, died of can
GER, leaving a widow and five children. Dur
ing his illness Of IA months all the family's
savings went. His American Legion post pc
titioned Joe Moreschi, the president of the
Hod-Carrlers and Common Laborers Union,
to grant Mrs. Wall the death benefit. The
~rascality practiced in many locals of this
notorious union is now common knowledge.
The payrolls have become a refuge of rela-
tives Of the big bosses including Moreschi's
and the looting by shakedowns and other IA
mlllar practices is comparable to the worst
in Fay's union. Yet, Moreschi turned down
the petition on the ground that the dying man
was automatically suspended after be fell two
months In arrears in his dues during the time
that he was helpless. Moreschi's letter was
III III IuIdIDl, Will has Deen dQODteQ
by the Hodcarriers, the. Transfers and the
A. F. of L. itself as the scene of its winter
conferences.
Most insurance contracts protect the death
benefits in such circumstance on the wise as
sumption that a worker living on earnings
will be unable to pay during a long, fatal
illness.
In New York, a local of the Bartenders
Union requires the employers to pay to the
1nIn mot tho Individual - ro,,ro11 41, 80 :
per cent. The federal governments social Sc
curity tax on the worker is only l per cent.
The contract says this 5 per cent "may be
spent in any way the union sees fit for the
benefit of the membership"
In the case of the Teamsters the national
bosses decided that it would be for the benefit
of the membership to buy, furnish and main
tain a winter palace for President Dan Tobin.
the bartenders could decide that the interests
of the members would be served through pres
~ervation of the health of the local bosses bv
means CT winter vacations among that element
of the Miami clientele whom j. Edgar Hoover
described as the terminal scum" Their local
boss there is AL Capone's brother-in-law.
In New York, Joe Ryan's union of Long
shoremen of the A. F. Of L. charges, an initia-
ton fee of $500 for checkers on the docks.
Ryan is president for life at $40, 900 a wear
and war veterans, among others, find them
selves in the position of helpless, voiceless
subjects of union plutocrats. 1t is none of their
business what these parasites do with their
money but Ryan is a dignitary and a stall
wart defender of the American way against
Harry Bridges and the invasion of the COM
munists.
Or, again, we find a Westchester county
milk wagon driver fined $525 and the fine
solemnly upheld on a petty and doubtful
charge That is S525. not S .25. and this cap
suled account must ignore the political
muscllng' that set up for persecution and the
! erOnOn1c death pena1tv>, small IRONY, IF in
dustriors, respectable citizens whose actual
offense was that they tried to buck the mob
that took over a union which they helped to
form. The idea here is rot to collect the fines