The Wilmington morning star., 1947-11-26
AS Pegler Sees It
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright, 1947, King Features
CyndiNafe Tnc

Copyright, 1947, King Features
i Syndicate, Inc.
NEW YORK, Nov. 25-We have in the
limited States a few private associations
|embracing roughly ten million citizens,
(which enforce laws and inflict punishments
so harsh that no public government would
undertake to impose them. The ,; Brooklyn
Process in Labor Unions" some years ago
referred to these bodies as 'infrastate gov
|ernments.
This was a study for lawyers of the para
|dox of brutal totalitarian government car
|ried on under the protection and political
patronage of national government which,
at that very time, was interfering IN the
domestic affairs of Germany on the ground
that Hitler's treatment of his chosen VIC
TINS was undemocratic.
"Such infra-state governments are now
Exercising jurisdiction con currently with
the state itself, over millions of Americans
and their families" the article said. This
was an understatement. The jurisdiction of
the unions does not flow quite together
with the governments jurisdiction. It
comes first in most matters. The unions
come first in taxes and loyalty. The ma
|tion, state, city, family and church follow,
mot necessarily in that order. And, until
now, the national government and most of
the state governments have bowed to this
priority
In one of the congressional inquiries dur
ing the war, Congressman Edward Ebert
of New Orleans drew from Harry Posner,
a boss of the United Auto Workers of the
CLIO, the admission that in any crisis he
would put the unions welfare before the
safety of young American fliers who were
fighting the enemy. The United Auto Work
ers is the union of Walter Reuther, who
strangely, has been receiving warn
a1y I,A Loc ~,
now popular attitude of defying the COM
nunists.
Posner had used the name of James Har-
ris in some phases of his furtive career
and was now known as Thomas V. de Lo-
renzo. He was of draft age, and healthy
pugnacious picket-line COON. But he wa;
hiding out the war under the defermen
to its own brown shirts who had the po-
, litical duty of getting up the money for
the partys campaigns and keeping the
Faceless non-entities properly docile. Mr..
Ebert raised such a row over Posner's dec
laration that he would rather let an Amer
lean flier die than sacrifice any interest
i, of the United Auto Workers that, finally,
it was found expedient to draft him.
Until the adoption of the Withholding tax
which is simply the old union checkoff un-
der another title, the unions had first lien
on the earnings of all those millions of
workers. If the worker didn't keep his dues
paid up, and his assessments and shake
downs for clam bake tickets and the like
he found his card pulled" when he came
to work: No matter how urgent the gov
{ ernment's need of his skill in that which
Roosevelt called the 'wah effawt", the un-
ions financial interest took precedence
over the nations peril. That is still true,
and-neck with the unions in the sprint for
the pay window to nick the workers
wages. The government now collects the
income tax by checkoff but so does the
union. However, the government must do
it by law, according to rates adopted by
of the United States. But the unions greed
lis limited only by the conscience of the
|unioneers, who may be gangsters of the
foulest kind. They may never have been
lelected at ALL
John L. Lewis used to point out trium-
| phantly that in some miners villages the
churches also took their tithe by checkoff
This was as false as it was true. They
did, but only by the workers written con-
sent, and a man excluded for non-pay nent
by one congregation could always find an
other church where he could hitch-hike his
religion. He couldn't mooch his way with
another union, though.
An intelligent person would have expect
led the union bosses to moderate their gov
SA111 III 1SCCIlC yCdIS. Lie pCOplG we're
sullen and the rturns of the last congress
|sional election showed that they were fu-
, rious Green, Murray, Tobin and Lewis
were not even good politicians, much less
: labor statesmen. They were too dumb and
t thick to realize that, whatever tt cir urgent
needs had been during the roug .-and.tum.
BILE years, they now had firmly established
their power. They could afford to threat
their subjects as citizens and, more i'm
: portant, treat them as people, not sub-hu-
l man subjects. This sub-hurnan status OF the
. subjects is plainly implied by several un-
electricians, skilled workman with full
membership was equal in voting power to
: a hundred or more unskilled robots doing
dull. stupefying assembly work in fac
tories. I have been told that this was
changed at some wartime conVentlon'
p In the teamsters there is royal and
r noble class distinctly superior to the man
who Jockeys a boxcar full OF explosives
. over icy mountain roads and pays the lux
> urious keep Of his rulers.
The constitution warns the horny-handed
son of toll that if he assaults any member
of this royal and noble class he must stand
= trial before the general executive board
. This is the house of lords, entirely com.
- :, posed of members of the political peerage
8 with an alert sense of their prerogatives
and rank 1t goes without saying that if
! the poor dumb oaf actually has done law
Il less violence to any of these lords he can
:. be punished in the public courts. But the
y teamsters' bosses never have yielded the
n public courts the respect that law-abiding
: Citizens are expected to. They are afraid
that the public courts, weighing the case,
might decide that the prisoner was cruelty
provoked or struck blow in elf-defense.
e And, in any case, the judge might not ap-
: preciate the preciousness of a national Of
h ficer.
e One of the printing trades requires vow
IS which subordinates God to the union and.
= while this is just stupid error that could
not be enforced, the. old boys preserved it