The Chicago Star

Pro-fascists achieve
Who runs Chicago Boys Clubs?

By STAN MACEK

Why did the Chicago Boys Clubs, Inc., choose Gen. Robert E. Wood of Sears Roebuck & Co. as their "Man of the Year"?

The Boys Clubs have done a great deal of good work. They have brought adequate recreational facilities for the first time to hundreds of boys in poor neighborhoods -- boys who previously could play only in the streets and alleys.

But that doesn't explain why the boys should have chosen for their award Gen. Wood, a leader in American Action and other fascist organizations.

A CHECK by The Chicago Star indicated why Wood was chosen. The boys didn't select him. The board of directors did.

The head of this board is William H. Regnery, who once employed Joe McWilliams, notorious pro-fascist, at a salary of $100 a day. According to Mrs. Elizabeth Dilling Stokes, Regnery, a leader in the America First movement, was questioned early in the war by a federal grand jury investigating seditious activities here.

The other Chicagoans who help shape the policies of the Boys Clubs are equally interesting. For example, there's James S. Kemper, national treasurer of the Republican Party and a leader in American Action, the new top-level fascist outfit. Kemper used to sponsor radio broadcasts by the anti-Semitic Upton Close.

ANOTHER is Sewell L. Avery, the fanatically anti-labor head of Montgomery Ward & Co., whose union-busting activities obstructed the war effort three years ago.

These three are typical of the leadership of the Boys Clubs. On a national scale, for instance, Herbert Hoover is chairman of the board of directors. And just to emphasize the anti-labor, anti-democratic character of the leadership, it might be noted that the bankers and rich manufacturers who head the organization consented to let one outsider in because he was considered safely reactionary. He is J. Edgar Hoover, head of the strike-breaking FBI.

ARE THESE just coincidences? Perhaps, in view of the constructive achievements of the Boys Clubs.

But a closer look indicates that there may be more to it.

Here's just one example:

A couple of years ago the Chicago Action Council was forced to publicly denounce the Old Town Boys Club, 1300 Newberry, which excluded Negroes, Mexicans, and others.

THERE were also ugly rumors about a shakedown racket which a person connected with the leadership of the club operated.

The same person also encouraged the activities of a gang of young storm-troopers in the neighborhood. The youngsters, who wore black arm bands, engaged in window-smashing attacks against Jewish-owned stores, and scrawled anti-Semitic slogans on walls and windows.

The dangerous situation was finally cleared up by the Chicago Action Council, which organized mass protests.

Is this the kind of "democracy" that Sewell Avery, William Regnery, Gen. Wood, Herbert Hoover, and J. Edgar Hoover want to teach the kids?