Pegler: On the election
By Westbrook Pegler
New York –
Some of us seem to think that our British and Russian friends, as a matter of politeness, tact and good sense, ought to put out of their minds entirely the subject of the presidential election in the USA this year or, if that is impossible, to say nothing about it.
This is asking too much, because this decision of the American people is very important to them as well as to us.
Naturally, they favor President Roosevelt, because he has been extremely cooperative since the fall of France and before, and they know him well and are pretty sure what he will do.
Tom Dewey they know only by reputation, and he might have some new ideas which would trim some of Mr. Roosevelt’s open-handed generosity to the rest of the world and might want to get positive commitments from our allies as to what we are to get back for what we give.
He is definite where Mr. Roosevelt is vague and would want to put something down in writing in place of the emotional, political generalities exchanged hitherto by men whose word is not necessarily binding on their peoples after they die or lose office, such as Mr. Churchill’s gaudy promises of everlasting cooperation given at an hour when things were going very badly for Britain and he had to do a job of salesmanship.
Communist intrusion
This interest is not an intrusion in our domestic politics, except in the case of the Communists. Naturally, they will raise a fuss for the President because he is so good to them on the home front, permitting them to dirty up our labor relations, and they can be sure that if and when Governor Dewey should take over, he would give the entire government a thorough delousing of the fellow travelers.
Nor do I accept as a fact the pretense that the international Communist organization has been dissolved or that Stalin has abandoned the old custom, admitted in our treaty of recognition, of maintaining agents among us to promote his interests. It is just that this is a normal condition among us, encouraged by the New Deal for all these years, and not a special impudence in this election year.
The Communists are gluttons for humiliation. Stalin boots them around, slams doors on them and leaves them out on a limb every few weeks, but they love the guy with the suffering submission of a drunkard’s dog and whimper for more of the same.
So far, we have always handled this Communist interference like an easy infield out, and their noisy support of Mr. Roosevelt’s more outrageous moves, such as the Montgomery Ward case, probably makes more votes for Governor Dewey than for their man.
Churchill’s experience
Churchill is one who really knows what foreign interference is. He was a victim of it himself back in the ‘30s when his anti-Nazi potboilers pecked out in the role of journalist had earned him a high priority on Hitler’s blacklist and he couldn’t get anything to do in the government lest this be taken by the Führer as a deliberately unfriendly act. He is in no position to try anything like that on us in this campaign, but there is no reason why an Englishman shouldn’t say he hopes President Roosevelt will be reelected.
That we should be sensitive about such expressions will seem inconsistent to other peoples who see us now in Italy fumbling around trying to invent some new form of government for the lower part of the boot and hear our pundits muttering about the re-education of the Germans toward democracy and freedom which they hate. We are even going to try the miracle of unifying France, whether with a club or through bribery we haven’t yet made up our minds.
Just so they say what they have to say in their own countries, our gallant allies should have our permission to sound off at will. And Republicans should be the last to complain, because such expressions are sure to favor Mr. Roosevelt and the more emphatic they are, the more sales-resistance they arouse to the detriment of their own purpose.