Casey: Sneers and smut
By Lee Casey, the Rocky Mountain News
I am becoming excessively weary of listening to unfunny off-color anecdotes, most of them well-worn, about President and Mrs. Roosevelt.
To be sure, this is a campaign year, and in a campaign, we are told, everything goes. Such is the American way. We have always indulged in jesting and even sneering at those in high office.
It is true that some of the current anecdotes have survived the campaigns of 1932, of 1936 and 1940. But, as for these representing any kind of American tradition, even a bad one, I just don’t believe it.
That abuse that was heaped upon Abraham Lincoln offers no parallel. That abuse, unjustified as it proved to be, at least was done in the open. It came from newspapers, from ministers and from politicians speaking in public – in short, from individuals and publications that could be held accountable for their words and acts. It was all wrong, as we now know, but at least it was not speaking.
The lip-to-ear attacks upon President and Mrs. Roosevelt are both wrong and sneaking. They are especially offensive because, for the first time in American history so far as I can discover, these sneaking attacks are being made upon a woman.
Pegler’s duty
Let me try to be very clear upon one point. I’m not remotely suggesting that Mrs. Roosevelt’s activities, insofar as they have a public bearing, should not be subject to the closest scrutiny, examination and criticism. She is different from any other mistress of the White House in that she has deliberately made herself a political figure. Her words and deeds are, therefore, deserving of the same approval or disapproval as the words and deeds of any man or woman in public life.
Westbrook Pegler has been emphatic about this, in accord with his duty as a commentator upon national affairs. He has challenged, and properly challenged, Mrs. Roosevelt’s occupancy under a priority order of a place on a military transport plane. He has challenged, and properly challenged, her right to make distant journeys in military planes as a representative of the American Red Cross. He has challenged Mrs. Roosevelt’s partiality in labor disputes, has charged that her affiliation with groups sympathetic with communism has tended to give administrative sanction to the communist movement.
All this has been done directly, openly – and forcefully, Mr. Pegler has criticized and challenged Mrs. Roosevelt in her public capacity. That is not only his right but his duty. That is the business he is in.
Bogus wit
Mr. Pegler’s way and not the way of innuendo, is the true American way.
The slyness, the bogus wit – yes, and the smut – are not characteristic of this country. Those who use such methods are this country’s disgrace.
Some of the supposed witticisms designed to besmirch the President and his wife touch upon the interest both he and Mrs. Roosevelt have shown in protecting the rights of minority groups of citizens. The intended effect is to belittle and sneer at the fact that President and Mrs. Roosevelt are showing the same interest in the welfare of their fellow-citizens that is characteristic of any civilized human being.
The whispering campaign against Al Smith when he was a candidate was slimy enough. So was that against Warren G. Harding. This one is more pernicious than either because it carries smut along with slander. It is doubly despicable because it is hidden. As Edmund Burke asked, who can refute a sneer?
Approval or disapproval of the administration’s policies has nothing to do with one’s attitude toward this sniping from undercover. Decent people owe it to their own decency to refuse to listen to such pernicious chatter. It seems to me the campaign of falsehood and malice disguised as humor should come to a sudden end.