The Wilmington morning star., 1947-12-15
AS Pegler Sees It
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
copyright, 1947, By King Features
Svndicate Inc)

|
BY WEsTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright, 1947, By King Features
Syndicate, Inc.)
WASHINGTON, Dec. IA. - The movie
industry has firmly determined to eliminate
from its payrolls ten persons who recently
were hailed before the United States Con-
gress and refused to say whether they were
members of the communist party, SUBJ
versive organization.
If my ears do not deceive me, the mag
mates and their counsel meant these dis
missals to be accepted as proof that they
had cleaned house, absolutely, little later,
to be sure, but better late than never. That
makes the score: ten babies down; 100 more
to 60.
| Illusion is the great art of the moving
pictures. / hope the masters do not deceive
themselves but that is as it may be. One
thing I can tell you plain, however: they
haven't deceived the committee on un-Amer-
lean activities.
They did not proceed against these ten
until the industry had been dragged in leg
irons and handcuffs so to speak, before the
committee. The agents of the industry tried
to ridicule the committee but the fact final
States that this committee represented and
actually personified them. 1t is a Com
mittee of the House of Representatives.
Say that last again. Representatives.
These men are elected by direct vote of
the people of the United States to "rep-
resent" them. They are most representative
of the American people than the sneering
wood realized. They look just like so many
people of the United States. Some of the
members make amusing little mistakes in
grammar and figures of speech. Those Hol-
lywood intellectuals can sneer at these Slips
but that is where they make great mis-
take, themselves. Many of the people of the
United States also use double negatives
and jumbled metaphors and they will not
thank you for curling lip at them. They
will make you sorry.
| All of sudden, the men wro represent
ed the industry stopped short and went into
a solemn, frightened huddle in New York
The people" were good and sore at them
for paying unbelievable salaries to men
who were in a position to poison the stream
of culture and make it a sewer by the time
, if flowed through the theatres on thousand
main streets; who refused even to say
whether they were for or against the Unit
ed States The people" were supporting
their Representatives" and they showed
their sentiments in letters to the editors,
ers in Hollywood. They were starting to
show it at the box-office, too.
They were good and tired OF being
lectured on "Americanism" by malicious doc
trinaires who either came here from Europe
or stretched an ear toward Europe for their
guidance. The racial and social problems
of the United States are peculiar and our
own, and are not to be dealt with peaceable
by iron rules devised by Europeans with
the very purpose of causing petty angers,
tiny in themselves but only as the head of
match is tiny, and with equally fearful
potentialities The Americans were sore at
Hollywood for scolding them an, native
American customs and traditions. Sore at
Hollywood for advertising them to the world
as failures at self-governrnent and advertis-
ing the abundant life of the United States as
a system composed 80 per cent of poverty
and 10 per cent of disgusting vulgarity and
cruel greed.
The most revolving vulgarity in the
United States was not observed in the moral
family circles of the decent well-to-do, de-
picted in the movies as the idle rich, but in
the palaces and ranch-houses and camps and
gambling resorts of the moving picture set.
Now, if Hollywood had an intelligent
respect for the dignity and pride of the peo-
pie of the United States, the industry would
have taken the initiative, itself, long ago,
to eliminate the communists.
Well, how does Hollywood usually get
rid of people who, for reasons of personal
vengeance are marked for elimination? By
nodding them out that is how. It has been
done for years.
Sorry nothing today"
Nobody in Hollywood needed telling
how to get rid of anyone without a trace
and without risk of legal process It is an
old Hollywood art and custom.
But the industry wouldn't take the
initiative and when the committee called
the hearings the Hollywood giants were
still confident that by posing legalistic prob
lens and repeating old European memory
gems about unfettered art and freedom OF
expression they could fool the people and
continue on.
This time, though the Representatives"
of the people" were sure-footed, cool and
aggressive. They took no monkey business.
They were ready to prove with communist
party cards and other party records that
group of pampered voluntaries, forever
snarling about our wicked system and the
denial of opportunity, were communists.
And so the industry curled up and quit
and tried to make a virtue of an act done
under compulsion. It fired ten men.
But there are still hundred left At
least hundred.
The industry apparently hopes that the
committee will forget them and take off
after some other suspects.
But the Representatives" of the "peo-
ple'' are not asleep but lust soulnting. wait
ling to see whether HOLLYWOOD will do the
rest of the job honestlv and voluntarily. 1t
, is much too early to cheer While the mourner
on the bench is bawling repentance but with
Ibis wicked mind on a rendezvous with sin a
} mile out of town come sundown.