The Wilmington morning star., 1947-05-05
As Pegler Sees 1t
RY WESTBROOK PEGLER
yCnvpright by King Features Syndicate,

lace we may turn to the memoirs OF Charles
Nicholson, Charlie the Nike of he first
two Roosevelt administrations, the press agent
of the democratic party, who had his own
latcikcy to the palace and often sat by the
desk of the cosnaic jester. Mr.. Nicholson was
a distinguished Washington journalist in his
day and, though he took service with the
merry band who trod on cur anthills to see
US face about in frantic confusion. he re-
NAMED CAIN as a hermit on a distant hill.
chuckling at us and a little sorry for us and
never iiolatrous. His memoirs were published
in 1914 under the title The Ghost Talks a
reference to the fact, Or superstitution, that
he was the author of some of the rhetorical
r~osettesI that charmed us out of our wits in
the fireside chats.
Only twice, to my knowledge, has reference
been made to a mysterious sheaf OF cores
pondence which those who have seen it might
refer 10 as the Guru letters. They came into
private circulation in the presidential cam
paign of 1910, when Wallace was the nomi-
nee for vice president. Carlisle Bargeron,
also a. Washington reporter, mentioned the
letters first in a book called Confusion on
the Potomac" but raised no echo. A Guru
is a teacher in the language Of an oriental
cul. WHO holds, or at least entertains the hope
that there exists somewhere in the Himalayas
a priesthood of exalted or supernatural or
supernatural mentality, as distant as the stars
above our ken.
We have had evidence that Mr.. Wallace is
not altogether one Of us in his mental and
religious or spiritual makeup. He has been
called a mystic and a quack, but the trouble
here may be only that he dwells on a higher
spiritual plane and has neither the patience
nor the knack to instruct US in a wisdom
that might bring US to his knee.
Discussing the campaign Of 1910, after
Roosevelt, in a telephone talk from the White
House TO Madam Frances Perkins in Chicago,
had nominated Wallace. Mr.. Nicholson tells
US that Harry Hopkins rushed up to the demo-
cratic campaign headquarters in New York
highly excited over "a big batch of letters of
at least doubtful authenticity, supposed to be
from Henry Wallace"
"Faelr general purport was silly rather than
evil" Mr.. Nicholson wrote. AS one of the
earth-bound, I agree that if these were the
same letters that I have seen, they were in
deed silly, not evil. But they were silly in
such a way as to terrify any American who
should contemplate the possibility that a single
heartbeat stood between the United States
and the elevation to the presidency of the au-
thor of those strange writs.
DOUBTLESS some Of them. perhaps all, were
fabrications," Mr.. Nicholson wrote. but with
out telling us why he feels so confident that
they were. To the layman's eye, the hand
writing in these documents seems very
similar 10 Wallace's own veritable hand, a
juvenile, squarish. irregular fist, but, of
course, a forger would initiate the authentic
and Only an expert could give a respectable
opinion.
Continuing, Mr.. Nicholson says: The re-
pub'icans has bought them. we were ad-
vlsed, out were afraid to put them out and
could find no publisher daring enough to take
the responsibility, though they were being
showed N turn, to every publisher hostile to
Roosevelt The obvious strategy of the enc
my was to get US to take notice of the dossier.
by denial or other mention. which might
either provoke an unfavorable curiosity or
gI7c an excuse to force a revelation of its
contents without the danger of liability. Hop
klns suggested expedients which would have
made admirable chapters in an Oppenheim
novel dor he regarded the matter as of
tragic lInportance) but fitted into no con-
.cepuon of practical politics. Ed Flynn. veteran
OF a hundred political battles, refused to be
ratified. He felt that il was Just one of the
incidents of a campaign to be handled like any
foray by the foe. The opposition could not find
a publisher, the democratic national organi-
canon gave them no opening, and so the
storm passed without hysteria al headquarters
and never figured in the campaign
mat is as much as the people ever have
been tolc about these letters. Photostatic
copies have been struck off since and many
anu puOllS1c1S nave
seen them. Wallace has never acknowledged
Or disavoWed them.
wallace, this year. was nominated not nv
the convention in Chicago, but against its
VIII. The gang roared like animals and was
like to mob him when he went out on the
flying fridge to flap his hands and part his
features II an expression that may have been
the serene smile of an exalted man but only
made the sWeaty robots madder.
Mrs. Wallace, sitting a little aback. wept
as fnough in fear to be the widow of a mar
tyred mystic. But, by 1914, as Walter Lipp-
mann so ~tactfully put it just the other day,
1t WIS already clear that Wallace was
psycnologically untitled for prime responsible
ty II time of crisis"
mat Roosevelt eventually saw the Guru
Letters and the queer, symbolic references
to him and others may be taken for grant
ed. He enjoyed gossip and the embarrass-
ment OF his interiors, and the documents
would nave come to his desk in the regular
course. AS to whether he shared Michelson's
belle4 mat some. and possibly all, were forg-
cries he has left US no sign thus far re-
vealed. l frankly do not share il but neither
have | ground for conviction that they were
authentic, and l do believe that so intimate
a member of the inner circle as Charlie Mike
should explain why he rejects them.
Mr.. %Lippmann, like Mr.. Nicholson. NAV
know more than he tells Us, for he now re.
calls further that in 1914, when Roosevelt dis
carded Wallace, he, %Lippnann, wrote that
Henry was "a mystic and isolated man to
whom the real shape of the world is not
clear and that his goodness was unWorldly.
E1i40rio1 Co~~o~f