The Wilmington Morning Star

Fair Enough
By WESTBROOK PEGLER

(Copyright, 1946, By King Features Syndicate)

Philip Murray, the president of the C.I.O., turned out a self-serving publicity release recently, boasting that most members of his unions pay low dues and initiation fees and that 32 of the 36 unions publish financial reports.

"This," he says, "is a very different picture from that which the enemies of labor have loved to convey."

And this, I say, is a fine example of that deceptive and only somewhat truthful propaganda for the gullible which the likes of Murray are forever charging to the likes of me.

In the first place, crookedness, although not unknown in the CIO, being a specialty of the A.F. of L. racketeers, is not a major count in the indictment of his organization. In the second place, the revelation of such corruption and the denunciation and prosecution of notorious scoundrels are services to labor and the union movement for which anyone professing, as Murray does, to be an honest labor leader, should be grateful.

It will be noted that, although he is an old A.F. of L. man himself, and over all these years has been in a position to raise a righteous clamor and drive such vermin out of the House of Labor, he has confined himself to negative and side-long criticisms of his former brethren and has even joined them in attacks on those who did take the initiative and carry through a shocking expose. This task and public service has been made no easier by his own complacency.

Moreover, Mr. Murray is a former subordinate of John L. Lewis in the United Mine Workers, which is about as "democratic" as the communist party and broke with Lewis only over a matter of money when Lewis presented a bill to the C.I.O. for money which Lewis had advanced to the C.I.O. out of the mine workers' treasury. That transaction, of itself, by which the builders of an enormous political machine calmly tapped the wages of the miners for the expense of "organizing" several million other workers, most of them against their will, and by means of riotous brawls that terrorized whole communities, is a measure of this man's character when he invites applause on the ground that his people keep books and don't steal. Incidentally, Murray refused to pay the miners back.

But it is when Murray boasts of "democratic" procedure that he puts himself into direct controversy with the truth unless he does this with a mental reservation which acknowledges that "democracy" means majority rules and the denial of minority rights, which is its correct meaning. Commonly, however, the unioneers of the left wing represent "democracy" as the equivalent of freedom and the recognition of the dignity of man and of his civic rights. And, if Murray uses the word in that sense we can find, on examination of the facts, that his boast is empty.

Sidney Hillman's Clothing Workers Union is one of the pillars of the C.I.O. and David Dubinsky's garment workers was another for a time. Locals of both of these organizations send notices to their members during political campaigns requiring them to attend political rallies disguised as membership meetings and give attention to left-wing candidates for office under penalty of fine for failure. Unions under Murray's general jurisdiction have adopted political resolutions binding on the dissenting members, which were no proper business of any group recognized and favored by federal and state laws solely as agents to represent workers in collective bargaining with employers. And, touching on the subject of assessments, cases are on record in which workers who undertook to resign from one of his unions and thought they had resigned according to their right as American citizens were required to pay as much as $500 a year later for the right to work in closed shops, this being the bill for accumulated dues and other obligations of membership from which they derived no benefit during that time.

It is common practice in some of his unions to "sell" stamps for the legal "defense" of communists and other individuals dangerous to the American government, forcing them on the rank and file by coercive means, although Mr. Murray doubtless would classify these shakedowns as voluntary donations. And if Mr. Murray isn't aware of the case, I will produce a copy of the minutes of his National Maritime Union in which, notwithstanding his statement that all individuals may have fair trials, Joe Curran, president, declared that a racketeer didn't need a trial. A racketeer in the communist ideology which pervades this union is anyone who condemns communism and in one conspicuous case a sailor was set on the beach permanently for offering a resolution to that effect in the union's national convention.

These are a few imperfections of the many that Murray never mentions except to condemn their mention by others as labor baiting. The whole list sums up to a ruthless imposition on millions of nominally free Americans political and spiritual regimentation and a denial of fundamental American rights through terroristic methods.

Both Murray's C.I.O. and the A. F. of L. have adopted vigilante justice enforced by men who were loud in denunciation of the Ku Klux Klan and Hitlerism while they burrowed principles and practices from both. They have tried to suppress criticism where they couldn't answer it and in judging Murray's true attitude toward thievery in its cruder forms you will search the record in vain for any courageous move against the criminals who were his colleagues in the A.F. of L.

QUOTATIONS

Our entire national future hinges on our ability to tap within ourselves the forces of constructive energy which are the key to the greatness of any people. -Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.

We in the United States must use our great strength and power to advance the national well-being by raising the living standards of the American people and strengthening the basis for lasting peace and prosperity. -President Truman.

It is no secret that slowness of sharing atomic energy is a major cause for continued and dangerously increasing tension in the world today. -J. D. Bernal, vice president Association of (British) Scientific Workers.

Can a nation that built and delivered hundreds of billions in armaments be baffled by a trifling task of building a hundred thousand homes a month? -Henry J. Kaiser, industrialist.