The Wilmington morning star., 1947-09-17
AS Pegler Sees It
By PEGLER

BY PEGLER
Copyright, 1917, BY King Features syndi-
ate, Inc.)
NEW YORK, Sept. 16. - Robert E. Strip
ling, who comes from San Augustine, Tex,
is the best expert we lave in practise on
communism, communists, trojan horseman-
ship and allied political and criminal SUBJ
jects. He is not a MARKHAM scholar in his
own right but he has had so much gymna-
SUM work, so to speak, with most of their
| greatest obfuscationists that he can box
them fancy or dig in and slug, and chase
them right out of The building. He doesn't
bar anyone - playwrights, %unioneers, act
ors or lawyers. Any weight; any color;
commission rules or tomcat style. It is all
the same to him.
Mr.. Stripping is the chief Investigator for
| the Committee on Un-American activities
of the House of Representatives. This is
now a permanent committee. Back in 1884
and 1885 there was a special committee of
which John Mccormick, of Mass, the ma
jority leader until the election of last fall,
was chairman. Mccormick turned the COM
mittee over to Sam Dickstein, a New York
Tammany-new dealer. Dickstein was hell
on nails, and anyone who was openly anti
Semitic was a nazi, but he didn't exert
himself much over communism. Doc j. B.
Matthews, the backslid bolo who came in
as chief investigator for the Dies commit
tee, says that Ill several VOluIllCS VI ISSL-
mony and other evidence bequeathed to the
Dies committee, there were only a few
pages of material concerning the commun-
list treachery. So when the house was fixing
to select a new committee, John Garner,
being an old-line, Owen Wister American,
wanted a different type for chairman. Mar
tin Dies, a Texas congressman, had been
viewing the sitdown strikes with alarm so
Garner and a couple of other deep-South
L 1ry k11~o40 lNvoNo~o+c 0Nf fnOnfhar anH
picked him. Then the bawling and the hol-
lering began from New York. Dickstein
didn't ever get a place on the Dies commit
tee.
Dies had no experience but he learned
fast and he had the luck to get Doc ]. B.
Matthews, the backslid bolo, for his chief
investigator and examiner. When the big
communists came IN, or the htt1e sneaks
who pose as philanthropists and liberals
and run to Mrs. Roosevelt's kind of meet
ings, Doc Matthews knew them personally
and knew their records. He could talk to
them as a Dutch uncle.
The Dies committee proved that the COM
munist had counterfeited American money
in Berlin and showed it in the United
States; that they had deliberately debauch-
ed American youth, girls and boys, by
teaching them tina our old-style morality
was a capitalistic plot to make them con-
form and to deny them life; that the whole
communist movement was "a plot by the
Russian government. including Stain, Molo-
TOW and all those with whom we have been
trying to do business in good ia IN, to de-
stroy our nation.
For that. all connected with the commit
tee took a great deal of abuse. There were
some hot reds in the Newspaper Guild at
the time and some of them managed to get
on the story of the Dies committee hear
ings. Haywood Broun, the president OF the
guild, wrote that Matthews had made a
dramatic charge that little Shirley Temple.
who was just a kid then and the innocent
darling of the civilized world, was a COM
munist. He was just a liar, that is all.
Matthews didn't say anything OF the KING
and he didn't raise his voice.
All he said was that a bunch OF comnun-
lists had induced the kids managers to
let them use her name in a message con-
graduating a communist paper in Paris on
its first anniversary.
That was the kin of press the Dies COM
mittee got, right along.
Dies had brought Stripping up from Texas
for a patronage job as assistant Sergeant
at Arms of the House. Now he took him
along to the Dies committee as assistant
clerk, another country boy job. Stripping
worked along under Matthews, learning
more about communists every day,
developing skill as an investigator which is
| not SO much d 0Il0IlOCh III VI oo, q l11oC-
ter of knowing where to look for records
and where to drop the subpoenaes, dill
gence. intelligence and courage. The Dies
committee expired in December 1914 and
Congressman John S.. Wood, OF Georgia,
and John B.. Rankin, of Mississippi, ran
the new one. They made a poor job OF it.
one reason was that a campaign OF political
spite had been started over the radio on
national hookups on Sunday nights to drive
Stripping into the Army. He was one of
those pre-Pearl Harbor fathers and thou
sands of union racketeers ard ~oboteurs
were being deferred but final Stripping
was taken, when the commit needed
him. He put in Is months as a "ard-blrd.
Commanding officers knew he was politi-
cally hot and the Roosevelt influence was
so strong against him in the war depart
ment that he couldn't even get attached to
a company. He was a homeless, orphan
casual picking up cigarette butts. Then he
suddenly was recognized as an expert, rat
ed up to master sergeant, and. on orders,
set up and taught a course on subversive
activities at Camp Holabird, near Wash
ington. Roosevelt was dead now and Elean-
or the Great had lost most of her old
power. So for the first time, it was per-
missable to teach American soldiers how
to detect and thwart communists. You will
never know what dirty tricks the new deal
resorted to but this was a sample.
Stripling's commanding officer wrote the
War Department that he ought to be dis
charged but added that if he were there
would undoubtedly be a loud clamor of
propaganda from his enemies. Therefore
Stripping had to stick it out until he was
automatically discharged by law after 20
months. The new committee on un-Ameri-
can Activities hired him as chief investi-
gator right away and he. was in charge of
the recent proceedings which sent another
bunch of communists to prison. He got the
evidence.
]. Parnell Thomas. of New Jersey, the
new chairman, lets his chief investigator
run most of the proceedings. You saw what
happened when Senator. Brewster. of Maine,
cot cnaart and rolio.,oa bic xltchar in tho