The Wilmington morning star., 1947-09-24
As<Pegler Sees 1t
RY WESTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright, 1947, By King Features
Syndicate. InC.)

BY WESTBROOK PEGLER
Copyright, 1947, By King Features
Syndicate, 1nc.)
NEW YORK, Sept. 23-On Aug. 23, lS4o,
Eleanor the Great betrayed a rld1culous
confusion which is now explained, IN part,
in the memoirs of Ed Flynn entitled
You're the Boss" MI. Flynn served as
chairman of the national committee. On
that day, in 1915, Eleanor wrote a plug
for a book by one Of her ruddy TRENDS,
Martha Dodd. She does this occasionally.
Another who got a leg up from her mai
esty is Howard Fast, the author OF an
abandoned eulogy of Drug Ito the
%bloody-handed Yugoslavian butcher VINO
killed the five young American liners VINO
hadn't as much as a rock to throw. Fast
recently got three months in prison for
refusing to reveal the financial packing
of the American communist front caued
the Joint Anti-rascist Refugee COMMIT
tee. which Installed Tito as the Muscovite
puppet in Yugoslavia.
In her column of Aug. %, 1945, Eleanor
the Great wrote that "as the daughter
Of President Dodd, OF Princeton, who was
our Ambassador in Berlin in the days
lust before the war;" Martha Dodd had
a good opportunity to observe the people
about whom she writes =,
It is a question just how this absurd
pull ever got by the desk OF the united
Features, which handles this line OF can
ned goods, and past the smart people who
edit the World-Telegram and other papers
which used the copy. Perhaps they helpeo
themselves to the silly assumption that
she knew what she was talking about. Or
possibly this was a day when, all together,
those who were on watch decided to let
her make a show of herself. At any rate,
this thing ran, uncorrected. There fellow
ed a correction which is a true-ife YER
sion of the old one which winds up 1T
must have been a couple OF other lei
lows"
It said: "Mrs. Roosevelt, in her column
of Aug. %. referred to Martha Dodd as
the daughter of the president of Princeton
University and made the comment that
her background equipped her to write the
book which was published recently.
"Martha Dodd is not the daughter OF
Harold w. Dodds, president Of Princeton
University, whom Mrs. Roosevelt referreo
to as the former Ambassador to Germany.
Martha Dodd is the daughter Of William
vers,ty of Chicago. Mrs. Roosevelt also
said President Dodds served as Ambassa-
dor to Germany until just before the war
broke out. William E. Dodd retired as
Ambassador to Germany in 1887 (the war
broke out in 1880 and was succeeded by
Hugh r. Wilson,"
Ed Flynn is discussing Franklin D Roo
seve1t's characteristic manuevering to get
ROYAL S. Copeland out of the Senate and
get Flynn in there in his place. Roosevelt
offered Copeland the Berlin embassy and
offered the senatorial seat to Flynn. Both
were willing, but AL Smith wanted the
Senate place, so the deal collapsed. The
solemn need of a good man in Berlin for
the years just ahead was not known to
many common citizens. But Roosevelt was
President. He had his State Department
for information. He had heard of this fell
low Hitler. It was up to him to send a
good mar to Berlin.
Either Roosevelt didn't have the sense
to appreciate the way of events in Ger
many and plan toward keeping the United
States out of another European war, or
this was another routine demonstration Of
his crimal flippancy.
After the scheme failed "there was
much scurrving around" to find an am
bassador, Flynn writes at this late dav.
too late by years to save a simple life
or warn his fellow Americans, "ana Howe
was given the job of getting a man for
ambassador"
This was Louis McHenry Howe, the ply
sically dirty and smelly gnone who pre-
ceded Harry Hopkins as the White House
Rasputin. He died early in the Pfantas-
maPoria.
"From some source, perhaps out of the
mint of Howe" Flynn continues, "there
came the name Of Professor Dodd. Now
there were two professors Dodd and both
liv d in Chicago. One was Walter F.. Dodd,
who had taught at the University Of Hi
noi5 and at Yale and was then praoticing
law il Chicago. The other was William
E. Dcdd, a professor of history at the
University of Chicago, who mad written
n r. Nor IF hnODc M tho hiC+rrU nf tho
South and also on the Wilson period. I
am not sure but that Howe thought that
one Of them had written a book on Ger
nam I nave always thought that in the
rush to get somebody appointed, the wrong
Dodd was picked. I know the President
had never met William E. Dodd and did
not know much about him. In any event
this story produced the Washington saying
that Ambassador Dodd was the telephone
book Dodd."
Harold W. Dodds, the President of
Princeton, WAS born 20 years later than
William E.. Dodd, who was "a when he
was sent to Germany in 1888 and not
only improvised his own foreign policy but
ran a nasty little one-man campaign
against the nazis in which he tried, with
cons derable success. to match all their
dirty manners with rudeness Of his own.
AS an ambassador he was useless and
worse, but the ASSIGNMENT was good for
the vanity of the old man. He and his
daughter were depicted by their claque of
correspondents in the brave act of breath
ing bold defiance. when the fact was that
not a soul in Germany would have dared
to throw an egg at either of them. The
old man completely thwarted any chance
that the United States might have had,
even with an amateur juggler for Presi-
dent. to solve any matter and avert war
or Feep the United States out of it And.
as Flynn suggests, Roosevelt not only
Dodd altogether. And II years late:, Roo
sevelt's widow. writing. as she often does.
about things she knows absolutely no'hino
about. revealed unWittinglv thnt she didn't
even know who the man was that her hus-