Facts and Fascism, by George Seldes

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CHAPTER III: POISON PEN PEGLER

IT IS the opinion of many persons and organizations that one of the most widely known and read newspaper columnists, Westbrook Pegler, is aiding the Axis rather than the United States in this war; it is a fact that the New York Newspaper Guild, the organization of thousands of Pegler's colleagues, so stated when it sent President Roosevelt a documentation of twelve instances out of Pegler's writings.

It is a fact that newspapers, columnists, radio orators and others who form public opinion have served the Axis propaganda. It is also true that too frequently those who know and who make these charges do not name names. They, therefore, emasculate their own words.

For example, here is the director of the U.S. Conciliation Service, Dr. John S. Steelman, who states:

"Careless recital of the dramatic side of strikes in the press and on the screen and over the radio has given too many people the impression that our war efforts are being held up in a serious way because of willful strife in a major part of American industry. This is a dangerous lie that serves the purpose of the Axis, but serves no good end among us." Dr. Steelman knows the culprits, but he is not in a position to name them. He is aware that Kaltenborn on the radio, Pegler in the newspapers, the entire Hearst and Howard press are those guilty of careless recitals about strikes.

On the other hand here is the statement issued by the conference directors of C.I.O. editors (Washington, April 11, 1942):

"Labor has been subjected to an infamous campaign of misrepresentation, for the purpose of cutting wages, destroying union organization, and in advancing the profits of special interest groups. Most of the daily press has joined in this campaign, together with such radio commentators as H.V. Kaltenborn and others of his type. This anti-labor propaganda campaign, if not directly inspired by Axis agents and American appeasers, at any rate plays their game by striking at national unity and undermining labor morale."

Again, the official organ of the National Maritime Union, The Pilot, states that "Pegler's sales talk has the made-in-Berlin label."

Again, the National Maritime Union, holding its 1943 convention and confirming its pledge to place the winning of the war above everything else, passed a resolution naming the leading fascist organization in the country and the twelve leading fascists, namely: The National Association of Manufacturers, Senators Nye, Wheeler and Tom Connally, the Texas polltaxer of anti-labor bill fame; Representatives Martin Dies, Hamilton Fish and Howard Smith, the notorious Virginia polltaxer of anti-labor bill fame; the great chain publishers, Hearst, Howard, Patterson and McCormick; and the clerical fascist leaders, Father Coughlin and the Rev. Gerald L.K. Smith, and the elements of the Christian Front and Ku Klux Klan which follow them.

No better list could be written. The most powerful force on it is the NAM; the most powerful individuals are the four publishers who in turn employ a hundred brasscheck columnists to spread their American fascist ideologies.


The U.S. Treasury says Pegler is a liar; so does the labor press; but 8,000,000 Americans read his daily poison. -- "PEGLER LIES! -- OLD "POISON PEN" On the Loose Again!; Richmond Times-Dispatch, Roosevelt. Wallace and Pegler; PEGLER LIES; N.Y. Protests Pegler to FDR; ACA Brother, Now In Army Raps Pegler For Lies Against Seamen; AFL-CIO UNIONS SEEK REMOVAL OF PEGLER AS THREAT TO WAR EFFORT; PEGLER IS A LIAR!

The columnists have risen to great power. The editorial page of the newspapers has fallen into disrepute as the American people have realized more and more that it represents not honest opinion but the prostitute views of the paymasters of the editors and publishers -- advertisers, the special interests, the Big Money, the well-known ruling families of the nation. Somehow or other the view spread that there was a certain amount of independence and integrity among the newspaper columnists. This view, of course, is based on the fact that there is a percentage of honest columnists, perhaps a higher percentage than among editorial writers. One may not agree with Walter Lippmann, Dorothy Thompson, Johannes Steel, Samuel Grafton and two or three others, but there is no reason to challenge their bona fides, and a few outstanding names have given columnists in general a good reputation for reliability. The truth is that most columnists inhabit the same gilt-edged bordellos and counting rooms and country clubs as the newspaper owners, and are no better or worse in the history of harlotry.

The best columnist was Heywood Broun, and he was fired by the New York World, the most liberal paper in the country, at the time he defended Sacco and Vanzetti. Just before his death he was fired from the World Telegram by Roy Howard for no ther reason than that he was a liberal columnist, and Howard had swung far towards the true international reaction which in Italy Mussolini named Fascism. Secretary of the Interior Ickes, an old newspaperman himself, quotes Broun saying: "Three or four well-known syndicated columnists wield more influence than the average lawmaker in Washington," and, Ickes adds: "Of all the columnists, Sokolsky is probably the only one who is paid directly and openly by Big Business to act as its spokesman."

Mr. Ickes made a list of columnists, their circulation, and their salaries, and in return for the journalistic material I furnished him in his debate with Frank Gannett on the freedom (and integrity) of the press, I am helping myself to his table (from his book, America's House of Lords, page 96):



Broun, Carter and Johnson have died since this list was made out. Pegler has gotten into 120 newspapers with 8,000,000 circulation and his salary from Howard, $25,000, is augmented by half of the proceeds of syndication rights, giving him a total of $65,000.

In this list the only great liberal was Broun. Miss Thompson and Mr. Lippmann are fair weather liberals, neither having the courage to break a lance or lose an eye in the war against American reaction although both are ardent fighters against Faraway Fascism. Pearson takes no part in politics -- Allen is in the army. Walter Winchell is the most syndicated of all columnists but Mr. Ickes chose to exclude him, not realizing perhaps that Winchell does devote a part of his gossip columns to political, social and other matters, which makes him a power in this country.

The list then shows: Carter, a notorious labor-baiter who was put off the air for years on the protest of unions and who, after promising to behave, still smears organized labor frequently; Clapper, who is probably too scared of his job with Roy Howard to be the liberal his friends say he was personally; Kent, a typical servant of the special interests; Lawrence, one of the worst of reactionaries; Paul Mallon, who has been denounced as a liar by Mr. Ickes (See Time, Apri1 24, 1939) and who is a typical Hearstling; Sokolsky, exposed by the La Follette Committee as a NAM agent; Mark Sullivan, another spokesman for Big Money; Lippmann and Miss Thompson and Westbrook Pegler.

It can fairly be said that the two columnists who have the most influence in the country are Lippmann and Pegler: Lippmann influences all men of intelligence, Pegler is the monitor of the morons. Lippmann has one of the best minds in America, Pegler is a mental hoodlum. He has absolutely no education, no culture, no literary quality, no intelligence, no knowledge of economics, no knowledge of most of the things he writes about outside sports and plain news sensations; he is, in short, a sort of glorified moron himself and, therefore, so successful in finding an audience of eight million who believe in not only his daily propaganda but in the numerous lies which he tells without any apparent knowledge that he is lying.

U.S. TREASURY EXPOSES A PEGLER LIE

The use of the colossal lie has been acclaimed by Hitler as a fascist method. Apparently the Peglerian mind, which was capable of advocating lynching years ago, must now employ a Nazi trick in the campaign against the welfare of the American people. Everything the Roosevelt administration has done has been attacked by Pegler for the simple reason (as Broun disclosed) that "he was bitten by an income tax return," and in January, 1943, Pegler engaged in falsehood in order to smear the government.

Exhibit A: In his papers of January 2 Pegler wrote a column beginning: "Mr. Morgenthau, the Secretary of the Treasury, is sensitive to aspersions on the ethics and fairness of his income tax reviewers, who are, as has been observed before, masters of a repertoire of sly and shady shyster tricks of interpretation, having the color if not the odor, of legality." This statement, like some 90 per cent of all Pegler statements, is not a matter of fact, nor a matter of opinion, but a matter of prejudice and bias, unfair enough to violate the code of ethics of journalism, under which all Pegler papers are supposed to operate.

The Pegler column then continues: "We have before us a plain case of larceny from millions of citizens of all income brackets committed by the Treasury, apparently with the knowledge and approval of Secretary Morgenthau and certainly on his responsibility."

If this statement is true, those accused of larceny should be in jail. If this statement is untrue, then the person who makes it is spreading a falsehood. However, since the statement is directed against a government official, the maker cannot apparently be sued for libel.

The Pegler statement continues: "In passing the 5 per cent victory tax, Congress said unmistakably that it was to be a tax on 1943 income. Yet, the Treasury Department, in violation of the will and intent of Congress, and of the law, has usurped the Congressional legislative power and decided that all pay checks ... delivered after midnight Thursday, shall be taxable at 5 per cent even though most or all of the money was earned before the first of the year.

"In simple words, the Treasury decided to steal this money from the people and to make the employers parties to the theft by compelling them to withhold the tax and turn it in.

"Theft is the only word for it. It is a bold and cynical defiance of law and morality. ..." Next paragraphs contain phrases : "amount ... stolen," "victims of larceny," "swipe the dough," and "not taxation but larceny."

Exhibit B: Pegler column, January 19, began: "Apparently more in sorrowful patience with a miserable sinner than in mighty anger, the Treasury Department sends me Press Service Bulletin No. 34-80, which purports to put me in error in accusing the department of plain larceny in its plan to collect the 5 per cent tax on individual income earned in 1942.

"Taking something that belongs to someone else ... is stealing, and in violation of a well known commandment, and as done by the Treasury Department of the U.S.A. is a bad example to the people who might reasonably decide to take up stealing as a regular line of work and get into serious trouble, in all in innocence. ... "

It is the general rule of departments of the U.S. Government to ignore misstatements and falsehood. However, this was a matter affecting millions of people, an urgent matter, and a correction was necessary. Therefore the Treasury had to expose Pegler as a liar. It sent the following letter to Pegler's syndicate:

"TREASURY DEPARTMENT

"Washington

January 26, 1943

"Mr. George V. Carlin, Manager,

"United Feature Syndicate, Inc.,

"220 East 42nd Street, New York.

"Dear Mr. Carlin:

"I have just read Westbrook Pegler's column in today's Washington Daily News, the second in which he has given circulation to serious misinformation with respect to the Victory Tax and has made grave charges against the Treasury Department.

"Whatever Mr. Pegler's motives may be, his repetition of erroneous assertions is likely to spread confusion in the minds of taxpayers and may seriously interfere with the collection of wartime taxes.

"Because the facts in this connection have been brought to Mr. Pegler's attention by telephone and letter following the publication of his first column on the subject in the News of Jan. 1, I am writing to demand, in behalf of the Treasury Department, that a copy of this letter be made available to all of your subscribers who receive the Pegler column.

"Mr. Pegler in both instances accuses the Treasury Department of 'theft' and 'larceny' because the withholding tax out of which the Victory tax will be paid was applied to some wages earned at the end of 1942 but paid early this year. He argued that withholding should have been applied only against wages earned in 1943.

"I feel warranted, therefore, in asking those newspapers which print this column to present their readers the simple facts which he has insisted on distorting.

"The second paragraph of today's column, discussing the authority under which the tax is collected, contains a complete misstatement of fact in the sentence, 'It does not say that this tax shall be collected on any income occurring before December 31.' On the contrary, the section of the statute covering the withholding sets forth very clearly, 'The provisions of this section shall take effect on January 1, 1943, and shall be applicable to all wages ... paid on or after such date.' The law makes the time of payment the test -- not the time during which the wage was earned.

"Any inspection of this portion of the Revenue Act, or any attempt to have checked its application with the Bureau of Internal Revenue, would have shown Mr. Pegler that the total amounts collected through the withholding tax will be completely credited against such individual's Victory Tax liability at the end of this year. As a result, there cannot possibly be any question of 'theft' from any taxpayer of a portion of income not intended to be covered by Congress.

"In spite of explanations, Mr. Pegler also has persisted in presenting as synonymous a tax and a method of tax collection. Twice in today's column he refers to the 'withholding or Victory tax.' The fact is that the Victory tax will be due on March 15, 1944, on all income other than capital gains and interest from tax-exempt securities, much of that income not now being subjected to the withholding provisions of the law.

"I hope that by the distribution of this letter you will be able to undo some of the harm that has undoubtedly been done by Mr. Pegler's persistent misrepresentation.

"(Signed) CHARLES SCHWARZ,

"Director of Public Relations,

"Treasury Department, Washington, D.C."

There is not a newspaperman in America who does not know that Pegler wilfully and persistently misrepresents. But no newspaper likes to have itself and its most cherished columnist called a liar in public, and the 120 newspapers which were asked by the U.S. Treasury to publish its condemnation of Pegler either suppressed the letter, killed parts of it, or buried parts of it in that graveyard of journalistic skullduggery and hypocrisy, the "Letters to the Editor" department.

In the document above the three paragraphs to which attention is especially called are those suppressed by the Los Angeles Times, the most notorious anti-labor paper in the country.

A few newspapers are deserving of some credit: the Treasury informs the present writer that it has received a few letters from editors saying that upon reading Pegler's columns on the Victory Tax they realized he was lying and they did not run the stuff those two days. But not one newspaper threw Pegler out because of his persistent misrepresentations.

So long as Pegler makes it his main business to attack labor, liberals, the New Deal, he remains the leading columnist of our press, whose editors are not morons or hoodlums but who are on the contrary very smart gentlemen who know how to use a panderer to that sort of mind.

PEGLER AS A FASCIST STOOGE

Pegler answers every description of a perfect fascist journalist. In 1933, when he went from sports to columning, the first piece he wrote was in favor of lynching. There followed a consultation with Roy Howard, and it was decided to hold the pro-lynching column up. However, it was run within the week, and the blame must be shared equally by the two hoodlum-minded journalists.

Incidentally, the lynching in question was of white men in San Jose, California. However, since then Pegler has come out against the Anti-Lynching Bill and he has repeatedly attacked the Negro people.

September 15, 1940, the Guild Reporter, official organ of newspapermen, reported that James P. Kirby, Cleveland Press unit, "has hurled the lie back at Westbrook Pegler ... giving documentary proof of his charges." Said Kirby: "To Mr. Pegler's denial that he defended lynching I quote from his column of December 13, 1933, in which he said: 'As one of the rabble, I will admit that I said fine, that is swell, when the papers came up that recent day telling of the lynching of two men who killed the young fellow in California, and I haven't changed my mind yet.'"

Pegler topped his pro-lynching column with a pro-murder column March 31, 1942. Referring to a dirty smear of Interior Secretary Ickes by a Bridgeport (Conn.) paper, Pegler wrote: "I don't blame Ickes for resenting the editorial but I do insist that he should have gone right up to Bridgeport, sought out the editor and shot him dead. Or he might have knocked his head off with a ball-bat. I say this seriously. ... Had Ickes killed the editor he would have performed a valuable service for the community in general and for the press in particular...."


Poison Pen Pegler -- Pegler likes lynching, too. -- New York World-Telegram, New York, Wednesday, December 18, 1933 -- Fair Enough by WESTBROOK PEGLER: As one member of the rabble, I will admit that I said "Fine, that is swell," when the papers came up that recent day, telling of the lynching of the two men who killed the young fellow in California, and that I haven't changed my mind yet for all the storm of right-mindedness which has blown up since. I know how storms of right-mindedness are made.

For years Pegler has smeared Mr. Ickes in revenge for Mr. Ickes' statement that "Pegler is less discriminating than [Hugh] Johnson, and much more irresponsible." Mr. lckes had also said that Pegler "Jumps from false premises to falser conclusions." Also, that "Pegler ... is the Mrs. Dilling of columnists. When invective and vituperation fail him, he flatteringly imitates Colonel McCormick by calling the object of his diatribes a 'communist.' ... According to Pegler's code that man is a 'communist' whom he does not like personally or with whose political views he is not in accord. Luckily, few columnists are as unstable in their thinking."

However, Mr. Ickes did not take Pegler's advice to commit a common murder. But he did write to the Bridgeport publisher (instead of suing him for slander). Mr. Ickes' letter in full follows:

"Mr. Robert M. Sperry,

"Publisher, Bridgeport Life.

"A man whom I do not know has sent to me a tear sheet from your issue of Saturday, July 26, 1941. My correspondent speaks of your 'filthy mind and paper' and he also seems to think that you are a coward. Undoubtedly, he is right on all scores. The impression seems to be that the filth in this editorial surged up from the cesspool that passes with you for a mind. However, it doesn't much matter whether you actually wrote the thing or not; as a publisher you are responsible.

"I don't know you and I had never heard of you until this letter came. Now, although I still have never met you, I feel that I know you very well as a cowardly, skulking cur. I can see you in my mind's eye eating your own vomit with relish but enjoying even more the savor of the excrement in the pigsty in which you root for choice morsels. It is, undoubtedly, perfectly natural for you to think the putrid thoughts which you naturally express in the language of the gutter.

"Very truly yours,

"HAROLD ICKES"

The Sperry editorial which caused this reply from Ickes is unprintable.

Much more important, however, than Pegler's lie about the Victory Tax, or Pegler's endorsement of lynching, or even the reprint of Pegler anti-labor propaganda by notorious fascist organizations, such as the Associated Industries of Cleveland, is the Pegler line of war thinking which caused the New York Newspaper Guild to protest.

Between June, 1941, and December 7, 1942, Pegler expressed the hope that Germany and Russia would exterminate each other. It is true that when Pegler covered the Olympic Games in Germany in 1936 he wrote several columns against Hitler, but as between Germany and Russia, Pegler did not hide his preference for the former. However, America was not in the war when Pegler wrote he feared the liberal New Deal and the few gains labor had made under it more than he feared Hitler. But since December 7, Pegler has followed the line which Director of Facts and Figures MacLeish denounced before the publishers' convention as defeatism and divisionism. In attacking America's Allies, in attacking labor, in attacking the Negroes, Pegler has done what Hitler predicted would aid his propaganda in America.

The New York Newspaper Guild, which upholds the Broun tradition, on May 21, 1942, acting on information that Pegler was appearing in the official Army publication, Stars and Stripes, protested to the Commander-in- Chief, President Roosevelt. The Guild statement said:

"The Newspaper Guild of New York membership on May 13 urged discontinuance of publication of a column by Westbrook Pegler ... in Stars and Stripes. ...

"Calling the attention of President Roosevelt to a report that Pegler was among the contributors to this soldier paper, the Guild charged that this columnist had since December 7 cast doubt on the wisdom of a United Nations victory, and by his writings in domestic newspapers had served the cause of disunity. Copies of the resolutions were directed to Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall, Mr. Philip Murray and Mr. William Green."

The Guild resolution said in part:

"As citizens, as working newspapermen, and as trade unionists concerned with the ethics of our profession, with the patriotic duty to support the war effort, and conscious of the obligation of a union of newspapermen to keep up morale, the Newspaper Guild of New York's membership lodges this protest against continued publication of Mr. Pegler's articles intended for American soldiers facing Hitler across the English Channel.

"Mr. Pegler has actually raised a question as to whether a victory of the United Nations against the Fascist Axis would be worthwhile. ... Mr. Pegler by his written word since December 7 has given circulation to opinions, views and distortions of fact which would result in setting one group of people against other groups instead of knitting all the people more firmly together for the united war effort essential to the conduct of the war.

"In support of this appeal, and in justification of the assertions involving Mr. Pegler, the Guild appends sample exhibitions of his written words since December
7:
"December 8, 1941. Pegler ... warns: 'We all know that most of the arguments that American boys would not be sent to a foreign war were campaign trickery.'

"December 11. Pegler accuses the government of treachery; 'Dealing off the bottom of the deck, the national government betrayed every worker in the country in the decision of the packed arbitration board to grant Lewis the closed shop in the so-called captive mines. ... The whole transaction reeked of treachery.'

"December 17. Casts doubts on the aims of our Allies: 'Our people are not going to believe that our gallant Allies of Russia are fighting for the four freedoms. ...'

"January 6, 1942. Casts doubt on our own aims and discourages cooperation between capital and labor. 'The [automotive] industry is sure to be socialized now and God only knows who will get it when the war is over, but the odds are that it will never be turned back to the stockholders. ...'

"January 22. Unity ... disastrous: 'A unified or combined organization of the C.I.O. and the A. F. of L. under the present laws and under the leadership of any of the men now prominent in union politics would be disastrous to every American worker."

"January 29. Charges President is moving toward totalitarian state: 'The President is using the bosses of the A. F. of L. and C.I.O. for his own political purposes which plainly and irresistibly tend toward a totalitarian state. ...'

"February 18. He tends to tear down our support of an ally; 'They [the Russians] are the most practical patriots of all, fighting for Russia only, and it is inconceivable that they would prolong the war a single hour beyond some point at which they decided that a truce or peace would best serve the interests of Soviet Russia.'

"[March. Pegler on vacation.]

"April 4. He again attempts to divide our own people: 'The bitter fact is that the whole American people ... are never allowed to forget that they are being used to create a new internal force, governed by a few personalities who are contributing nothing to the war, which plans to inherit the government after the war is won.'

"May 1. Divisionist attempt: 'If our side wins the war, Russia will plan the peace of the European continent, and on the basis of all Russia's past performances we can confidently assume that in Germany it will be a peace not much different from that which Hitler has imposed on Poland. ...'

"May 5. Doubts own war efforts: 'The obliteration of Germany ... would be a drastic way of preserving civilization, but the only question is whether the real war aim of the U.S. justifies the only positive means of securing that aim.'

"May 13. Cynicism toward our own democratic institutions: 'The Senate is our Reichstag. ... The Senate is protecting a gigantic political racket. ... The Senate is a very arrogant organization, blown up with pomposity and indifferent to the will and interest of the people."

Ever since this protest was filed Mr. Pegler concentrated on baiting labor. In this way he continues to be of service to the divisionists.

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CHAPTER IV: WALLACE'S SUPPRESSED SPEECH

"The press is the hired agent of a monied system, and set up for no other purpose than to tell lies, where its interests are involved. One can trust nobody and nothing." -- The Letters of Henry Adams, Vol. II, p. 99.

IF THE American press were at least frank about its being a commercial institution, as many of its leaders and owners, notably William Allen White, have admitted, then one of the main indictments against it would fall flat on the ground: the indictment of hypocrisy. When Mr. White said that journalism was once a profession, "a noble calling; now it is an 8 per cent investment and an industry," none of the hundreds of commercialized publishers would agree with him. If, however, the American Newspaper Publishers Association (the Lords of the Press) were to come out openly with a statement that it was in business for profits and that the code of ethics (adopted by the editors, not owners) in 1923 was a dead letter, since it has never been honored, the atmosphere would at least be cleared of the greatest piece of hypocrisy in the American panorama.

Of all the hypocrisies of American journalism the greatest is the claim of a free press, coupled with a barrage of editorials, news stories, cartoons and orations deriding the dictator countries for the manner in which their newspapers follow the orders, wishes, and whims of the ruling party. But it is a fact that about 95 per cent -- perhaps it is 98 per cent or even 99 per cent -- of the American press is also dictated to, and also follows the wishes of a superior power, which Henry Adams has named the "monied system."

The commercial press, in another of its brazen hypocritical proclamations, points with pride to the fact that it is free because it upholds a free system in which there are two political parties. But there is probably not one member of the A.N.P.A. who does not know that the Republican and Democratic parties both feed out of the same bag provided by the monied system, and that the same persons frequently subscribe funds to both major parties, and that where the list frequently differs the same interests are represented. They know this very well, and they also know very well that the press has never given honest news coverage to the formation, platform and campaign of any third party which was independent enough not to feed on the same money.

Furthermore, the A.N.P.A. knows that where there is a choice between the two parties, when one is more liberal than the other, when one gives the majority of the American people (labor) a new deal or a square deal or a better deal, the press turns against that party to the extent of 85 to 95 per cent. If one leaves out of the accounting certain rock bound papers, such as the rock ribbed southern Democrats and the granite ribbed Vermonters, then the tally for the various Roosevelt campaigns has shown that he was attacked, abused, unsupported by 85 to 95 per cent of the press, and that he was even suppressed in certain big papers including the Chicago Tribune. Moreover, all this was done without an official order from a fascist dictator. It was not quite 100 per cent; and so we might say that although we have no press dictator as in fascist countries, the American press is already about 85 to 95 per cent totalitarian on certain issues.

In my opinion this is a fair estimate. There are various polls and reliable estimates and weekly and monthly surveys on the editorial viewpoints of the American press. They show divided opinion on many things. But when the issue is the general welfare of the many against the increased profits of the few, when it is liberty and democracy versus special privilege, the American press is so unanimously on the side of the latter that it can be said that without being dictated to by a fascist dictator it follows the line of native American Fascism.

There is no doubt but that the most important fascist force in the nation is the National Association of Manufacturers, since this organization of the 9,000 biggest businesses is in the control of only 207 powerful men who use it for anti-social purposes. In the year 1935 the La Follette Committee's report said, "the NAM had opposed the principal legislative measures sponsored by the national administration ... National Labor Relations Act [the Wagner Act, the Magna Carta of labor, which the NAM is still trying to have repealed or emasculated], Social Security Act, the Banking Act, the Utility Holding Company Act. ..." This fact alone does not show the fascist ideology of the NAM, but it does show that this most powerful lobby in Washington worked against every piece of legislation aiding and protecting the people of the country, and worked for special privilege and profits.

Any test of the alignment on these same measures will show that the press was more than 50 per cent for the program of the NAM, in some cases 98 per cent. Between 1935 and 1939, when the Global War broke out, the New York Times ran an average of 12 editorials a year in favor of the NAM policy of repealing or amending and hamstringing the Wagner Act, and more venal papers were even worse. Of course, no one wrote or phoned Sulzberger of the Times, McCormick of the Chicago Tribune, Mr. Hearst and Mr. Howard and the other imposing reactionaries and gave them instructions to attack the Wagner Act, or the Social Security Act or, indeed, any piece of legislation of the Roosevelt administration which disinterested persons favored and which favored the general welfare. Neither an American Mussolini nor the publicity department of the NAM took any action, and yet the great newspaper chains which enslave the American mind all rattled with the uniform sound which Mussolini once described as so pleasing to his journalistic-dictatorial ears.

Let us consider some examples of the behavior of the American press in handling and suppressing big news stories. They will show that it is not necessary to have a fascist dictator in our Country to get totalitarianism -- or at least 85 to 95 per cent of it -- in the press. Here are a few instances.

It would be the greatest crime in the history of civilization to ask our men to give their arms and their legs, their eyes, their health and their lives for a cause that did not justify it. There is today a cause which justifies the risk and the sacrifice: it is the cause of destroying Fascism, which is the enemy of the good life. Vice President Henry Wallace realized this, and in the great days of confusion of May, 1942, he delivered his now famous speech on The Century of the Common Man.

Mr. Wallace said that this was a war between a free world and a slave world. This war is part of the "march of freedom of the past 150 years." This war is "a people's revolution" taking up where the "American Revolution of 1775, the French Revolution of 1792, the Latin American revolutions of the Bolivarian era, the German Revolution of 1848 and the Russian Revolution of 1917" left off.

"Everywhere the common people are on the march," proclaimed Mr. Wallace.

The Vice President is also aware of the profits in Fascism for the few. He said: "The demagogue is the curse of the modern world, and of all the demagogues the worst are those financed by well-meaning wealthy men who sincerely believe that their wealth is likely to be safer if they can hire men with political 'it' to change the sign posts and lure the people back into slavery of the most degraded kind."

Mr. Wallace also advocated the Four Freedoms, the last two being Freedom from Fear and Freedom from Want. These are of course the economic freedoms, and since they imply a better world for the many they have scared the living pocketbooks out of the few.

The most important fact of all about the Wallace speech is that it was the big declaration of the war program of the nation, and as such was entitled to most of the front page of every honest newspaper from coast to coast.

Actually it was about 95 per cent suppressed and distorted. A dozen liberal newspapers ran the speech in full, some a week or two late when public pressure demanded it. In the nation's capital the speech was so badly reported that an industrial Concern (Latex Corp.) paid to have it inserted as an ad. (We have said much about the evils of advertising; this is a rare instance of its social value.) In the metropolis where the speech was heard over the radio, only one paper, PM, ran the text. Only PM headlined the great statement on the war -- the war between a slave world and a free world; the war as a continuation of the American and other revolutions for the rights of all people. This is how the metropolitan press handled the story:

Howard's World-Telegram; one-third column; "Wallace Sees Possibility of Raid on Alaska."

Hearst's Mirror; one-half column; "Axis May Soon Hit at Alaska, Says Wallace."

Hearst's Journal-American; one-quarter column; "Attack on Alaska Seen by Wallace."

Patterson's News; two-thirds of a column; "Wallace Sees Alaska Target of Jap Attack."

These are four papers owned by men who favored appeasing Japan and who published Nazi and Italian fascist propaganda in their papers ever since 1922; they are three of the four publishers (the other is McCormick of the Chicago Tribune) named as suspects following the MacLeish speech before the publishers' New York convention in which he charged treason and near-treason in the press.

The anti-fascist press did little better. The Post ran one-third of a column, mostly on Alaska; the Times ran four-fifths of a column, with Alaska in the head and lead; the Herald Tribune ran one and one-half columns with an Alaska lead but mentioned the free world theme; the Brooklyn Eagle ran one-half column on Alaska.

An apologist for the press is Raymond Clapper, Howard columnist, who while praising Wallace suggested that the speech "was lost in the shuffle of the news desks of the country, like Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. ... Every newspaper office and press association desk muffs a play now and then. Instead of there having been a plot to suppress this most significant address, I suspect that most newspapermen who handled it are kicking themselves for having missed the story. I go into this because there are people who can't see anything around newspaper offices but dark suppression plots. They mistake a muffed play for sinister intent."

This is nonsense, if not worse. The Vice-President's office sent out "hold-for-release" copies days earlier. If Clapper were not always a paid apologist for Roy Howard and his venal papers his present apology might sound better.

The suppression of the speech (and publication of the Alaska paragraph cannot support a claim the story was reported) was followed immediately by a series of apologies by the brasscheck writers of the Clapper type, and from June, 1942, to date by a series of attacks on Wallace and his ideas which reached a high point in the National Association of Manufacturers' convention of December, 1942. The attack still continues. It must be noted that the very newspapers which suppressed the news are the leaders in attacking the views.

It can be said factually that the vast majority of our newspapers have sought to poison the public mind against the Wallace declarations. In doing so they have also degraded our war aims. All our native fascist, near-fascist, anti-labor and reactionary columnists, headed by Westbrook Pegler, joined all the corrupt editorial writers and radio speakers who until this day continue the NAM propaganda campaign against the Century of the Common Man. Here are some samples of the attack:

WESTBROOK PEGLER (a fair sample of the illiterate writings of a hoodlum mentality):

"This nonsense about the war aims of the United States is beginning to get out of control, so, before we become a lot of confirmed political hopheads walking around in a dream of international and interracial fellowship and love, it should be stated with such force as to snap us out of our daze that the fighters and people of the United States are at war for the sole purpose of defending this country from a combination of enemies who touched off the fight by a treacherous attack under cover of protestations of friendship."

PAUL MALLON (Hearst service): used his May 26 column to sneer at Wallace.

"HEPTISAX" (Rodney Gilbert) in his New York Herald Tribune column said Wallace's speech suggested "asinine world improvement"; he called it "this perambulating Iowa pipe dream." The peace of the Common man, Heptisax said, was propaganda. Finally the writer for the $50,000,000 paper showed his disgust for both ideas of education and milk for the common people.

FRANK R. KENT (Baltimore Sun) wrote:

"The strenuous effort to make Vice President Wallace into a superman has been pushed just a little too far. ... The overpraise brought the inevitable reaction. Some of his associates in the Senate have begun to laugh. ...The radicals also went into hysterics about it [the Wallace speech]. ... The whole thing has become ridiculous. ... "

New Orleans Item (editorial) said it favored education and milk for all but declared this is visionary and impossible.

"Who," it asked, "would pay the bills for educating, feeding and making democrats of all these mixed and myriad breeds ... if we conformed to the Wallace dream?"

New York Daily News (editorial) decided that Wallace was "vague," that his idea was "a lovely thing to talk about and to dream about," but "we can assure the talkers and the dreamers, however, that when and if they try to bring these dreams into cold, solid reality after the war, they will fan up a fight in this country which will make the recent isolationist-interventionist fight look like a mere warm-up."

Chicago Tribune suppressed the Wallace speech, ignored it editorially, but referred to Wallace once as "mystic -- engaged in dreams."

Arizona Daily Star, Tucson:

Wallace's Suppressed Speech

"Will such a plan embracing racial equality and removal of our tariff and immigration barriers work out? Will the people of America support a people's revolution? But even more than that Mr. Wallace and his followers will probably find out that such a plan will lead to a 'people's revolution' all right, but not the kind he has in mind."

LYNN LANDRUM, The Dallas News' own Pegler:

"You supposed you were really fighting to keep things the way they are in the United States instead of proposing any bloody crusade to ram freedom down the throats of the rest of the world."

San Diego Union-Tribune: "Wallace's speech sounds wonderful but, insofar as its being practical is concerned, it is so much oratorical flapdoodle."

"DING" (J.N. Darling, cartoonist; New York Herald Tribune, Des Moines Register) drew a vicious cartoon making fun of Wallace. So many readers protested that Darling had to write a letter of apology (Register, July 1). Darling spends most of his time doing anti-labor cartoons.

HARRY M. BEARDSLEY, Chicago Daily News, wrote a three-column attack on the Wallace speech (June 5.)

THOMAS F. WO0DLOCK, clerico-fascist columnist, and RAYMOND MOLEY, New Deal renegade, both wrote their columns in the Wall Street Journal in opposition to Wallace, Welles, Milo Perkins and others who have expressed idealism for the coming peace, rather than hope for big business triumphs. Editorially the Wall Street Journal said (June 6) that whereas it approved the Atlantic Charter, it opposed "additional promises so far reaching as to be either meaningless or dangerous." These included "demanding higher social and economic standards." Then Wall Street's speaker came across with a brand new idea: "There are not four but five freedoms for which the war must be fought. The fifth is the freedom of any people to reject the first four." (In other words, freedom not to have freedom, which equals Fascism.)

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CHAPTER V: THE PRESS AND WAR PROFITEERS

No PRESS and propaganda department of a fascist regime could be more successful than is the American self- styled free press in doing the double job of attacking labor while suppressing the news of the real traitors and saboteurs of the great Global War production effort.

The profit system, Free Enterprise, are the great golden calves and sacred bulls of the American press. It is now certain that the editorials it published after the Munitions Committee disclosed corruption for profit in the World War and the support it gave Mr. Bernard M. Baruch who published his program entitled "Take the Profits Out of War" were also items for the dossier of journalistic hypocrisy. Even if all the lies and biased reports against labor in this war were fair and true they would not have a fraction of the importance that the treason has which was committed by certain corporations and industries before and after Pearl Harbor -- treason for profits protected by the press. Yet the history of our wartime journalism shows clearly two trends: one of slander, libel and daily attack on labor; the other defense and whitewash of the elements which have committed treason for money: the war profit makers.

The documentary evidence of this treason can be found in the reports made either to government departments and agencies or by Congressional committees. Notable are the reports of Thurman Arnold, assistant attorney general, the Tolan Committee, the Bone patents investigation, the several and most important Truman Committee reports. Together they indict General Motors, the DuPonts, Chrysler, Ford, Aluminum Corporation, the Mellons, Standard Oil and in short the elite of big business of what may be termed industrial treason. In fact it was Senator Truman who said "This is treason" when testimony before him showed that the synthetic rubber cartel agreements between Standard Oil and I.G. Farben had prevented the manufacture of rubber in our country.

Only two important newspapers headlined the treason charge. The January, 1942, report of the Special Senate Committee Investigating National Defense named names, notably Bethlehem Steel and Aluminum Corporation, but in Chicago the Tribune and the Hearst Herald-American suppressed them. The report was official and could not be ignored. Nevertheless the most important paper in the country, the New York Times, suppressed the names of General Motors, Chrysler, Ford, Alcoa, Bethlehem Steel, these being among its advertisers.

The Tolan House Committee report, also suppressed or played down or buried, said:

"The testimony before the committee was almost universal that production to date has been a failure, measured against the available facilities and the visible needs for military purposes.

"The largest and most efficient manufacturing facilities are not being used in the armament effort. At the same time, the system of contract awards in effect excludes from production the facilities of tens of thousands of small producers. As a result, the mass production of critical military materials is awaiting, to a considerable extent, the completion of new plants. Thus, when speed in production is vital to the nation, the potentially greatest arsenals stand unused and their unemployed workers are waiting for new plants to open. The battles of today cannot be waged with deliveries from the plants of tomorrow."

Assistant Attorney General Thurman Arnold's report to Congress said in part:

"Looking back over 10 months of defense effort we can now see how much it has been hampered by the attitude of powerful private groups dominating basic industries who have feared to expand their production because expansion would endanger their future control of industry. These groups have been afraid to develop new production themselves. They have been afraid to let others come into the field."

The worst criminal of all was the auto industry. It simply had insisted on pleasure cars as usual; it had promised conversion of some plants but even after Pearl Harbor it was found that 80% of the industry was still manufacturing civilian cars. In mid-January, 1942, I asked leaders of the industry and leading members of Congress: "Can the present management of the automobile industry be relied on to convert the industry to a full war effort? Do you think the government should take over? What limit would you set before demanding that the government step in?" Among the replies, all favoring government operation, was the following from George Addes, international secretary-treasurer of United Automobile Workers and member of the seven- man board set up under Knudsen's Office of Production Management to "advise" on conversion of auto plants:

"From the attitude conveyed in the recent conferences held in Washington between labor, industry and government, industry cannot be relied upon to convert its facilities to full war effort unless government or the President of the United States issues an executive order to that effect.

"On that matter of government taking over industries, it is my thought that government should harness or conscript industry as it has harnessed or conscripted labor, if management refuses to have its facilities converted and under way within the next thirty or sixty days. It is quite evident that labor has sacrificed far more than industry and will no doubt continue to make those sacrifices for the duration."

The fact remains that the auto industry, the oil industry, the aluminum industry, the steel industry; and many great corporations sabotaged America before and after Pearl Harbor, and that crime continued up to the moment of writing. Here are some of the highlights of what profiteering, also known as Free Enterprise, did to undermine the war against Fascism:

SCANDAL IN AVIATION

Before Pearl Harbor the biggest scandal was in aviation. The government in 1940 had awarded $85,000,000 for 4,000 planes, but Secretary Stimson said only thirty-three planes had been produced by Aug. 9, 1940. Knudsen, to the contrary, said that 45% of the Army and 75% of the Navy plane funds had been awarded. What was the truth? The truth was there were no planes. The "awards" had been made, but the aviation firms, many dominated by Knudsen's General Motors, refused to take the contracts. There were awards, but no planes. "Only a thin verbal partition separated him [Knudsen] from falsehood," concluded I.F. Stone in his book, Business As Usual.

Why were almost no planes built in 1940? Because Big Business staged the greatest financial sit-down in American history and the newspapers, busy shouting against labor, suppressed all mention of it. For six months, from May to October, 1940, there was a sit-down of money and industry, aviation being used as a "front" by Big Business to break the President's plan (even at the cost of national safety) and get special tax privileges on defense contracts. "Unlike the strike of labor," says Stone, "the sit-down strike of capital in the summer of 1940 had the support of the nation's great newspapers, of the War and Navy Departments, and of the new Defense Commission." The notorious merchants of death, the DuPonts, are a major factor in aviation; DuPonts control General Motors; General Motors' Knudsen refused to break the aviation sit-down, but fooled the American people with a tricky statement about "awards" for planes.

Curiously enough, in World War I the industry which came closest to committing treason was the auto industry. Auto companies actually refused in the last half of 1918 to cut production to 25% of 1917. Bernard Baruch's war industries board threatened to seize their coal and iron but the war ended before the showdown.

According to Stone, Knudsen's General Motors in this war has again sabotaged defense. In 1940 its defense production was only 3-1/2%; in the first quarter of 1941 only 8%. Why the failure? Because producing defense goods -- and General Motors had then the second largest order in America, next to Bethlehem -- meant building new plants, and General Motors preferred instead to hog the orders and produce civilian autos. At the same time it put a full page ad in the papers saying it would not produce new models in 1943. But it went ahead with new models for 1942.

Curtiss-Wright and Hitler. At the moment of writing Senator Truman's latest report against the Curtiss-Wright company is a national sensation. But among the little known facts is the Munitions Investigation report showing that Curtiss-Wright is the actual originator of the Stuka bombing idea and that when Hitler came into power Curtiss Wright joined the DuPonts, Pratt & Whitney, and others in secretly arming Naziism for world conquest. The evidence includes a letter sent in January, 1934, by the president of Curtiss Wright to his salesmen in foreign lands. It says:

"We have been nosing around in the bureau in Washington and find that they hold as most strictly confidential their divebombing tactics, and procedure, and they frown upon our even mentioning dive-bombing in connection with the Hawks, or any other airplanes to any foreign powers.

"It is also unwise and unethical at this time, and probably for some time to come, for us to indicate that we know anything about the technique and tactics of dive-bombing.

"It may be all right ... to put on a dive-bombing show, to show the strength of the airplanes -- but to refer in contracts to dive-bombing or endeavor to teach dive-bombing is what I am cautioning against doing."

This was an open order to the salesmen of Curtiss Wright planes to put on shows of dive-bombing and let foreign nations, including Hitler-Germany, learn the secrets which were being guarded by the Navy Department, which had invented the technique before Hitler came into power. The Curtiss Wright Company committed the equivalent of an act of treason in order to sell its airplanes abroad. It helped make Hitler.

"It is apparent," reads the Senate report, "that American aviation companies did their part to assist Germany's air armament. It seems apparent also that there was not an adequate check on the foreign shipments by ... the War and Navy Departments."

The first six months in 1933 the sales figures took a tremendous jump to $1,445,000. Pratt & Whitney was exposed as one of the largest smugglers of planes to Hitler. The Nye report then states that by May, 1934, a year after Hitler took over, he had bought parts for making 2,500 modern bombing and fighting planes chiefly from Pratt & Whitney, Curtiss Wright and Douglas Aircraft. He also got planes from Vickers and from Armstrong-Sidley, in England, and was already rated "superior in the air to France, Russia, England or any other European power."

Anaconda. One of the worst cases in American history of a corporation "defrauding the government and endangering the lives of American soldiers," was exposed in Attorney General Biddle's indictment of Anaconda Wire & Cable Co., whose Marion, Indiana, branch had sold the United States $6,000,000 worth of telephone wire and cable for war purposes, and had previously sold the Russian government wire which was 50% defective and which no doubt resulted in the death of many soldiers.

One newspaper (the Milwaukee Journal) suggested that the death penalty for corporation heads responsible for sabotaging the war should be instituted. The newspapers, generally speaking, did their best to bury the Anaconda scandal. It broke about New Year's Day, and it is the custom of the newspapers -- one of their most corrupt customs -- to hold up Big Business for good-will advertisements for a special supplement (known in the trade as a racketeering job) to celebrate the passing of a commercial year. There were no indignant editorials in the big New York papers -- the Times, the Herald Tribune, the Hearst Journal-American -- but their annual business supplements each had a full page advertisement signed by Anaconda of Montana and listing all affiliates, including Anaconda Wire & Cable, Andes Copper, Chile Copper, Greene Cananea, American Brass and International Smelting & Refining Co. The ad contained this phrase: "The Army-Navy 'E' pennant for excellence in production flies over eight plants." And wooden crosses surmount the graves of soldiers murdered by Anaconda for profit.

The press, of course, is equaled by the radio in venality. December 21, 1942, the date of the Anaconda scandal, several non-sponsored news broadcasts had the Anaconda indictment as the biggest news of the day. Not so Lowell Thomas. His broadcast (for the Pews of Sunoco) had no mention of the copper firm. Both Sunoco and Anaconda are members and subsidizers of the NAM, and Mr. Thomas had done jobs of work both for the NAM and for General Motors, the DuPont controlled auto firm which is one of the main pillars of NAM Free Enterprise.

TREASON IN RUBBER

It was March 26, 1942, that Senator Truman applied the word "treason" to the Standard Oil, after listening to Mr. Arnold's testimony. Immediately afterward Standard Oil began a nationwide advertising and propaganda campaign, asking every editorial writer, publisher, columnist, radio commentator and other makers of public opinion to whitewash it. Many who received money did so.

An excellent example of usual newspaper and magazine venality was shown in the indecent rush of our leading paper, the New York Times, and leading newsweekly, Time, to defend Standard Oil from the treason charge.

Time, April 6, said Standard Oil had been smeared, said its treason "turned out to be strictly of the dinner-table variety," poked fun at Thurman Arnold's "horrific" charges, and tried to answer everyone of them. This was on page 16. On page 89 Time carried a $5,000 Standard Oil ad.

The New York Times, April 2, main editorial whitewashed Standard Oil. Reading it one can conclude either that the entire press which does not take advertising lied, or that the New York Times and Time, which live on the money which Standard Oil and other corporations give to them, are lying today.

The day after the Times whitewash Assistant Secretary of State A.A. Berle testified Standard Oil refused to stop fueling Nazi and Fascist airplanes in Brazil until the United States put enemy plane companies on a blacklist.

Standard Oil's Farish never denied he shipped oil to a Japanese navy which made possible the attack on Pearl Harbor and Japan's ability to resist the Anglo-American Navies today. He excused himself by saying that Standard Oil was "an international concern."

Standard Oil supplied Franco during the Spanish Fascist uprising. Standard Oil supplied Franco-Spain after 1939, National Maritime Union men giving testimony that oil went to Germany and Italy, for use against France and Britain.

Technically, Standard Oil was not committing treason then because the United States was not at war. This will be interesting news to the men on Bataan and the men in the United States Navy.

U.S. Cartridge Co. The facts about U.S. Cartridge were unearthed by the St. Louis Star-Times, one of the few brave crusading papers left in our country. (The Associated Press did not pick this story up and send it to its 1,200 subscribers, as it did the Akran Beacon-Journal Guadalcanal lie.)

Julius Klein and Ralph O'Leary, of the Star-Times, submitted their findings to the Office of Censorship, Washington, which made no objection to publication. The story is copyright. It says in part:

"Evidence indicating that thousands of defective cartridges manufactured at the St. Louis Ordnance Plant passed through plant inspection as good ammunition and might, unless stopped short of the war fronts, imperil the lives of United States fighters, has been obtained by the Star-Times through an independent investigation. ...

"The Star-Times has learned that picked agents of the F.B.I. for weeks have been making a sweeping investigation into complaints they too have received that defective shells are being passed through company inspection at the ammunition works.

"This plant, one of the largest small-arms ammunition factories in the world, is operated for the government by the U.S. Cartridge Co., subsidiary of the Western Cartridge Company of East Alton, Illinois. ...

"Evidence in possession of the Star-Times includes sworn statements by members of the U.S. Cartridge Co.'s inspection staff in the ordnance plant charging various types of imperfections in the cartridges produced there. The plant manufactures .50-caliber cartridges for machine guns and .30-caliber shells for rifles and machine guns. ... The charges of faulty ammunition in each instance involve company inspection and production and are not made against government inspection.

"Five company employees have given affidavits to the Star-Times charging manufacture of defective ammunition. ..."

It is not necessary here to explain the defects and the methods by which cartridges liable to explode within the rifle were passed. What is important is this: that the Department of Justice has taken up the case after an attempt to whitewash the corporation was made, according to a broadcast by Drew Pearson. Important also is this fact: no less than twelve persons, working men and women in the plant and inspectors who risked losing their jobs and livelihood, voluntarily came to the Star-Times office and signed sworn affidavits.

This is one of the thousands of proofs that the working men and women of our country place true patriotism above everything else, whereas many of our biggest corporations have been proven by United States investigations to place profits above patriotism.

U.S. Steel, Bethlehem Steel, etc. The main element needed for war is steel. A book could be written giving the documentary evidence of the sabotage of our war by our steel corporations. In case the reader does not have access to non-commercial newspapers, here are a few headlines indicating the nature of the story:

"SABOTAGE OF WAR PROGRAM CHARGED TO STEEL MAGNATES
"More Interested in Keeping Monopoly Than With Beating Axis, Senator O'Mahoney Declares"
-- Labor, July 7, 1942.

"TRUMAN ACCUSES STEEL COMPANIES OF 'SABOTAGE'
"Senator Black Charges That Big Corporations Hamstring Production"
-- PM, June 6, 1942.

"STEEL SHORTAGE SCANDAL INDICATED AS COMPANIES FIGHT EXPANSION"
-- Federated Press, October 17, 1941.

"BLAME FOR STEEL SHORTAGE PLACED ON TRUST DOORSTEP"
-- Labor, June 30, 1942.

"BIG STEEL CONCERNS REFUSE TO FILL UNCLE SAM'S ORDERS"
-- Labor, April 28, 1942.

Under the above heading the report is:

"It has become clear as the noonday sun that the vicious attack which has been made on the nation's workers in recent weeks was actually a red herring designed to divert attention from treasonable sabotage of the nation's war program by Big Business, which is being exposed by Congressional committees and defense agencies.

"Proof of that statement may reasonably be drawn from sensational and unbelievably shocking disclosures of a cold-blooded betrayal of national welfare by men whose only flag is the dollar sign. ... One of the most shameful chapters in our history.

"1. The Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corporation, subsidiary of U.S. Steel, and the Jones & Laughlin Steel Company were charged by the War Production Board with having refused to fill government armament orders while diverting iron and steel to favorite civilian customers for non-essential purposes. The result is that shipbuilding and other war construction have been held up.

"2. The President directed the Navy to take over three plants of the Brewster Aero Company, accused of sabotaging the aviation program. ...

"3. The United States faces a shortage of critical war materials because many outstanding industrial concerns have contracts with German monopolists restricting production here. ..."

General Electric. Senator Bone's Patents Investigation Committee heard testimony April 16, 1942, that until Pearl Harbor the General Electric Co. observed an agreement with the Krupp Co. of Essen, Germany, under which the Nazi trust was permitted to limit American use of a vital element in arms production. The man who admitted this was Dr. Zay Jeffries, head of W.P.B. metallurgy committee, chairman of General Electric's subsidiary, Carboloy Co. The vital element is known as Pantena, or carboloy, or cemented tungsten carbide, which is almost as hard as diamonds and used for machine tools.

Aluminum Corporation (Mellon-Davis-Duke families)."If America loses the war it can thank the Aluminum Corporation of America." -- Secretary of Interior Ickes, June 26, 1941. By its cartel agreement with I.G. Farben, controlled by Hitler, Alcoa sabotaged the aluminum program of the U.S. air force. The Truman Committee heard testimony that Alcoa's representative, A.H. Bunker, $1-a-year head of the aluminum section of O.P.M., prevented work on our $600,000,000 aluminum expansion program. Congressman Pierce of Oregon said in May, 1941: "To date, 137 days or 37-1/2% of a year's production has been wasted in the effort to protect Alcoa's monopolistic position. ... This delay, translated into planes, means 10,000 fighters or 1,665 bombers."

This, of course, is the answer to the boys on Guadalcanal and in Tunisia, and not absenteeism, the 48-hour week, or wage increases to meet the cost of living.

AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY

The big three of the auto industry, General Motors, Chrysler and Ford, refused to convert to war production, refused to extend plants, refused to give up civilian production, insisted on government cash and business as usual, thus delaying war production of tanks, guns and planes, while labor offered excellent war plans.

The pro-auto magazine, United States News, which carries big ads and boosts corporations, nevertheless admitted: "Today, 20% of U.S. effort is devoted to defense, 80% to meeting civilian demands. ... Next year: armaments ... will average 30% ... leaving 70% for civilian demands." -- Dec. 12, 1941.

United Automobile Workers Union President Thomas testified before the Tolan Committee that "of 1,577 machine tools in thirty-four Detroit plants, 337 are idle ... not working more than 35% of capacity"; he urged coordination of unused equipment "... producing arms to frustrate Nazi designs for world domination." This was forty-seven days before Pearl Harbor. Autoworkers Secretary Addes on December 22 reported 64% machine tool idleness, "a crime against civilization and democracy in this critical hour." Very naturally Charles Coughlin's Social Justice, following the Nazi line, demanded that "the metropolitan dailies which have profited most from the automobile advertising dollar should campaign against the curtailment of production of American motor cars." (July 28, 1941.) Any shortage of guns and tanks is due to General Motors, Ford and Chrysler delay, not the autoworkers.

Ford. Delay in constructing Willow Run was due to management (and mismanagement), not labor. One of the major scandals was old man Henry Ford's decision to keep adequate workers' housing away from Willow Run -- he plans to tear down the place when the emergency is over and return the land to his dearly beloved squirrels. The newspaper announcements, that the assembly line for bombers at Willow Run was in full operation and planes were being turned out so many per day, were all fakes. It was not until mid-1943 that the Willow Run works began operating efficiently.

Tank Failure. Mismanagement was blamed by the C.I.O. United Autoworkers for the failure, up to May, 1943, of the General Motors Tank Arsenal at Los Angeles to produce any finished tanks, although many men worked at their jobs. The union was forced to file a brief against General Motors with the War Production Board; it disclosed, incidentally, that when Lieut.-Gen. Knudsen (former head of General Motors) made an official inspection of the Tank Arsenal, General Motors officials put on a fake show -- the old Potemkin village trick. They had the men install and remove the same tank treads fifty-seven times, likewise the motors, giving Knudsen the impression that fifty-seven tanks were being produced, instead of one.

On April 21 "Time Views the News" (WQXR, New York), admitted the fact, known in Army circles, that one of our major failures was the much-advertised tank known as the M-7. Production had been stopped, the news commentator announced, but he did not name the company making the M-7.

It was General Motors.

General Motors ads saying that the M-7 was a wonderful tank and was chasing the Japanese and the Italians and the Germans to perdition were still running in the newspapers when the War Department ordered them abandoned as being no good whatever.

As for the Army and Navy "E" pennants, the fact is that many of them are part of a racket, as Space & Time, advertising newsletter, first disclosed. Big advertising men in Washington arrange to award the Army and Navy pennants to war manufacturers who place advertisements in the right newspapers via the right advertising agents.

The Buick local of the C.I.O. believes the "E" pennant should be given for 100% cooperation between management and labor. General Motors, however, refused to recognize the Labor-Management Committee at the Buick plant, refused to permit the union a voice in deciding the merits of suggestions which labor supplies for increasing production, refused to comply with the W.L.B. order for maintenance of membership, refused to obey the law and pay women the same rates as men for the same work and, finally, refused to utilize fully for winning the war the machinery and manpower labor offered. Local 599 of the United Automobile Workers, Flint, Michigan, therefore refused to participate in the "E" pennant award ceremonies; they called them a fraud.


THE LIES!, THE DENIAL! HERE'S HOW THEY PLAY UP THE TRUTH! -- AKRON BEACON JOURNAL, Thursday, January 21, 1943: Ship 'Strike" Ires Guadalcanal Fighters; NEW YORK JOURNAL AMERICAN, Friday, January 22, 1943: Union Crew on Holiday; Ill Marines Unload Ships; ORDER PROBE OF CIO SCANDAL IN GUADALCANAL; Probe Seamen's 'Strike' in Pacific; Marines Unload in CIO 'Holiday'; HOUSE INQUIRY BEGUN INTO CIO PACIFIC SCANDAL; LABOR CODDLING BLAMES FOR CIO SHIP SCANDAL; Denies Sailors Shirked: WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 (INS). -- The Navy Department made public a report of Admiral Halsey, in which the commander of U.S. forces in the South Pacific asserted merchant seamen have never failed to discharge cargo from vessels at Guadalcanal.

One of the great lies of this war and part of the newspaper campaign to smear labor -- while defending the corporations which produced defective war materials and robbed the nation. The Guadalcanal story was a fake; it originated in the Akron Beacon-Journal, was spread throughout the country by the Hearst press, and others.

TREASON IN THE SHIPS

When the history of what America did to rid the world of Fascism is written, one of the truly great pages will be that devoted to the maritime unions.

At the date of this writing they have given 4,500 lives to carrying the munitions of war across the Atlantic and Pacific to our own men, to Britain, China and Russia. They have suffered many wounded, and their list of torpedoed survivors is 12,000.

In proportion to the small number of men in this service the casualty list of the unions is many times as high as that in any service, not excepting aviation, tanks, or submarines.

On the other hand the shipowners and in several instances the ship construction companies and the ship lessees have committed crimes of profiteering tantamount to treason in wartime.

"An orgy of profiteering that staggers imagination" is how the I.L.W.U. Dispatcher reports the official revelations of war profiteering by the shipowners, made before the Congressional Merchant Marine subcommittee. James V. Hayes, general counsel, gave proof to the subcommitee that profits from a single trip of some vessels involved were enough to pay the entire book value of the ships many times over.

Eighty-one privately owned merchant ships made ninety trips to the Red Sea receiving charter hire of $21,364,880, it was testified. Profit was many times the cost price of these eighty-one ships. The American Export Line sent six ships on six trips. Profit was announced at $1,572,144; cost of ships was $232,350.

Two American Foreign Steamship Corp. ships worth $895,974 made a profit of $481,128 on two trips. Two American President Line, Ltd., ships worth $307,828 made $814,242 profit on three trips. Ten Luckenback ships valued at $1,426,857 made $8,879,729 on twelve trips. And so on.

Another report showed $26,874,176 profit on ninety trips. American Merchant Marine Institute lawyer J.J. Burns protested that the figures did not include overhead and depreciation of about $2,500,000 but that wouldn't change profiteering figures much.

Every labor union leader in America except John L. Lewis has plans to speed up victory. President Murray of the C.I.O., President Harry Bridges of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union, President Joe Curran of the Maritime Union have presented the government complete detailed plans for helping victory. Says Bridges:

"If this war is to be won before millions of American and allied lives are wasted there has to be an integrated plan for shipping and a single, authoritative agency to administer it. The proper cargo has to be on the dock and properly sorted when a ship arrives. The required manpower has to be on hand and at the right place. The required number of seamen have to be ready to sail. The ship has to be dispatched to a port that can accommodate discharge of its cargo without delay. Provision has to be made for the skilled manpower to unload it at the foreign port. These things and a thousand others that need to be dovetailed require blueprinting of the highest order.

"Blueprinting isn't being done. Ships carry sand ballast to Africa and bring ballast back. Ships shop for low-fee piers. Ships wait at piers while somebody digs through red tape to find the heavy cargo that goes in first. Ships wait while prying agencies investigate seamen. Ships wait while longshore labor is being wasted at other piers.

"And ships carry booze and bananas, birdseed and artificial flowers while munitions pile up in warehouses. This space isn't long enough to begin a list of the delays and waste.

In peace time the shipowners have an incentive for meeting schedules. It is the way they hold their business. Today they have no incentive. The government guarantees them a profit and they suffer no penalty for failing to deliver the goods on time. Naturally, they favor their old customers and that is how toothpicks and wine get crowded into shipping space so vitally needed for war supplies.

"The big failure of the War Shipping Administration to date has been its lack of a centralized plan. It hasn't called in labor or permitted labor to participate in its policies. In fact, it has no policy to speak of.

"The time has come for a plan to make the whole shipping industry operate as one integrated unit, regardless of the sacrifice it may demand of labor and the owners."

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CHAPTER VI: THE SUPPRESSED TOBACCO STORY

FEW persons are aware that the two largest advertisers in the country are the manufacturers of the most expensive and the least expensive products, namely automobiles and cigarets. It is, therefore, natural that the press which protected the automobile industry during the first three years of war scandals should give the same protection to one of the most harmful of all industries, the tobacco manufacturers. The story of tobacco is told here to illustrate its power in dictating to the press, and also to satisfy the request of thousands who were unable to obtain the special issue (and 10,000 additional reprints) of the In Fact story. The entire report of Dr. Raymond Pearl is included in the Appendix.

"War is booming the Tobacco Business," say recent press reports; no less than 20,000,000,000 (twenty billion) cigarets are being made and smoked a month. Press and radio urge you to remember the fighters against Fascism by sending them tobacco.

But the American press and radio -- at least 99% of each -- have suppressed the facts, scientifically established, that the more tobacco a person uses the earlier he dies. Tobacco impairs the health of all users, moderate and heavy. But the tobacco companies spend fortunes -- four (Camels, Lucky Strikes, Chesterfields and Old Golds)spend $50,000,000 annually -- to keep the American public in ignorance.

The story is sensational. It must be said here that the term sensational is generally used against a newspaper to characterize it as yellow, biased, unfair, given to overplaying news. But sensational news can also be news really worth playing up, such as, for example, the discovery of the electric light, or the American landing in Sicily. These were sensational news items which no paper need be ashamed for headlining, whereas the Hearst press and the New York Daily News, which played up the Errol Flynn rape case for almost as much space as the Rommel defeat in Africa, were illustrating the sensationalism of yellow journalism.

Certainly the first scientific, documented report from the head of the biology department of Johns Hopkins University listing tobacco as first in impairing life, as causing users, of whom there are tens of millions in America alone, to die earlier than non-users, was a first-class story, a big story, and in a scientific way a sensational story, and worth the front page of any paper not corrupted by cigaret advertising. But to this day the story is suppressed by 99% of our commercial newspaper and magazine press, and if used at all in the other 1% (which is doubtful) it is buried or played down so effectively that not one-tenth of 1% of America's newspaper readers have ever heard of it.

And here is the evidence of the venality of the press as regards tobacco -- an industry which pays the press much more than $50,000,000 a year.

In February, 1938, Dr. Raymond Pearl, then head biologist at Johns Hopkins University, gave the New York Academy of Medicine the scientific results of a study of the life histories of some 7,000 Johns Hopkins cases which, for newspapers, should have constituted a story "to scare the life out of tobacco manufacturers and make the tobacco users' flesh creep," as Time commented.

In brief, Dr. Pearl discovered that smoking shortens life. Between the ages of 30 and 60, 61% more heavy smokers die than non-smokers. A human being's span of life is impaired in direct proportion to the amount of tobacco he uses, but the impairment among even light smokers is "measurable and significant."

The Associated Press, United Press and special correspondents of New York papers heard Dr. Pearl tell the story. But a paragraph or two buried under less important matter, in one or two papers, was all that the great free press of America cared to make known to its readers, the consumers of 200,000,000,000 cigarets a year.

When the Town Meeting of the Air announced a debate, "Do We Have a Free Press?" January 16, 1939, the present writer sent to Secretary of the Interior Ickes documentary evidence proving quite the opposite. In the debate Mr. Ickes easily bested Frank Gannett, chain newspaper owner. During the question period someone asked for examples of news suppression and Mr. Ickes mentioned a few casually, adding, "I understand that at Johns Hopkins University there is a very sensational finding resulting from a study of the effect of cigaret smoking that has not yet appeared, so far as I know, in any newspaper in the United States. I wonder if that is because the tobacco companies are such large advertisers."

The statement was correct. Research had proved that although the A.P., U.P. and I.N.S. had sent the story to every paper in America, although New York science reporters were present and Science Service had sent all advance account to numerous big papers, 98% of the big city press, the press which takes the cigaret advertising, suppressed the story.

But because Mr. Ickes had said "in any newspaper" that same press threw a journalistic bombshell. It attacked and smeared Mr. Ickes, it lied outright and printed half-lies which are harder to nail, it distorted and faked the news, published untrue editorials and generally presented to America the spectacle of as corrupt a press as that usually charged to fascist nations.

The tobacco story, to be exact, appeared in some country papers, and one or two big city papers. Here is what happened in the "great free press metropolis of New York:

Herald Tribune, totally suppressed.

Sun, totally suppressed.

News, totally suppressed.

Mirror, totally suppressed.

Post, totally suppressed.

Journal-American, totally suppressed.

World Telegram carried a few lines.

Times carried a few lines.

The World Telegram and the Times carried a three-fourth and half column story respectively, dealing first with the effect on long life or hard work and alcohol, then, at the end of the story, tobacco. This is all the Times had to say, and that at the bottom of the first column on page 19:

"Professor Pearl also presented the 'first life tables ever constituted' to show relation between tobacco and longevity. The tables showed, he said, 'that smoking is associated with a definite impairment of longevity.'

"This impairment, he added, is proportional to the habitual amount of tobacco usage in smoking, being great for the heavy smokers and less for moderate smokers. But even in the case of the moderate smoker, he said, the impairment in longevity is 'sufficient to be measurable and significant.'"

The tables had been seen by the press. The leading authority in America, if not in the world, had made a great discovery and presented the first scientific study in a controversial matter in which some 50,000,000 Americans consuming billions of cigarets were interested, and 75% of the New York press suppressed the story, 25% half-suppressed it, 100% of the press manhandled it.

The Federated Press, serving the labor press (which gets precious little cigaret advertising) reported that the Herald Tribune not only suppressed the tobacco story but claimed it never saw it. The F.P. said: "Wilbur Forrest, executive editor (said) his paper had been scooped on the tobacco story. Asked how an Associated Press member could be scooped on an A.P. story, he explained that the Herald Tribune does not get the A.P. local service. This excuse was punctured by A.P. executives, who insisted that the story went not only to the Herald Tribune but also to other New York papers that failed to print a line."

A large part of the controversy hinged on Dr. Pearl. In preparing the evidence, the present writer wrote Dr. Pearl, who replied:

"I may say that the newspaper coverage on my statement regarding the association between tobacco smoking and longevity was very widespread. Without taking the trouble to count them, for which I have not the time to spare, I should say that the point was amply and promptly reported in no less than 250 daily and weekly newspapers in this Country."

Inasmuch as a search at the New York Public Library revealed that no San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Cincinnati newspaper, or, in fact, any big newspaper besides the Washington Post, had covered the story, Dr. Pearl was asked to name two or three newspapers, outside of country dailies and country weeklies (which are not subsidized by tobacco advertising), which ran his story. He refused to answer.

There are 200 big daily papers in America, some 1,700 smaller dailes and many thousand weeklies. Apparently Dr. Pearl had 249 country paper clippings plus the Washington Post. Science Service, asked to look through its files, found only the Washington Post story and the two buried references in New York.

But no sooner had Ickes mentioned Dr. Pearl than the A.P. rushed out a column story which the Times headlined: "Contradicts Ickes on Tobacco Story -- Johns Hopkins Biologist Says Report ... Was Widely Published. -- 'No Press Suppression.'"

Six cigaret companies grossed $200,000,000 in 1937 (SEC report). A combined profit after all charges of $83,000,000 that year was reported by the Census of American Listed Corporations (April 5, 1939).

The major companies' advertising bill a year on four brands is:



The newspapers, Editor & Publisher, Saturday Evening Post, all say that advertising has nothing to do with editorial policy. The facts are:

1. The cigaret companies spend more than $50,000,000 a year.

2. News inimical to tobacco is not published.

3. Ninety-nine percent of the American press suppresses government fraud orders against advertisers.

The tobacco advertisers share with peacetime automobile advertisers first place in spending money in newspapers and magazines. This is without doubt the reason the press suppressed the story. The press is therefore part of a system spreading actual poison throughout America. As for the poison of reaction (Fascism) the evidence is just as thoroughly documented.

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Conclusion: VICTORY OVER FASCISM

IF WE take the "one world" view, the global view -- regardless of the brilliant sneers of rattlebrained lady Congressmen who are too far removed from the men and women who are working and fighting for the Century of the Common Man to do more than make newspaper remarks -- then we see that Fascism is being beaten back on every front and that the year of victory is near.

If we take the national view, the panorama is not so brilliant: at the moment of writing the Congress has reached one of its lowest levels of intelligence and honesty. The men elected with the money of the DuPonts, the Pews, the Mellon-Aluminum family and the other leaders of the NAM, have noted the reactionary trend in politics and dared openly to vote a dozen bills against the welfare of the majority and for the benefit of their paymasters. They passed the so-called 75% Ruml Income Tax bill, they killed the President's $67,200 salary limitation order (falsely called a $25,000 limitation by the press), they killed grade labeling, although a great part of the success of the maintenance of prices depended on it, they killed planning boards and the youth administration and they finally passed the Smith-Connally Anti-Labor bill which more than any other measure of the time approached typical Hitlerite and Mussolinian Fascism.

The Duce said, years ago, that two forces were striving for world mastery, Fascism and Democracy; it is "Either We or They." The answer is now being given on every battlefield on the five continents, the seven seas, and all the air over them. It is the Duce's "They" who will win, it is "We," the democracies.

Thus the greatest drive and the greatest war in history which has been paid for by men and organizations owning a vast part of the world's wealth and covetous of all of it, will come to an end with the destruction of the world's special interests. A world ends for Privilege, the great day dawns for the peoples of the earth.

Unless our own State Department fascisti and the reactionaries in American political life, in business, and in the armed forces interfere, the outlook is brilliant for the restoration of all the old freedoms to European peoples and the additional freedoms from fear and from want -- the economic freedoms which can be won for the democratic Many with no harm to anyone but the fascist Few.

All the enemies of the people of the world are united behind the Fascist International. When that is broken we will have come the main part of the way to a practical reality which previously had been regarded as a dream of idealists. Of course this will be possible only if Fascism (reaction) does not exist in disguise and wrapped in new flags and sheltered by wealth and power and accepted by peoples accustomed to being betrayed by rulers and the propaganda organs of these rulers, the world's corrupted press.

Fascism is Reaction. When we destroy international Fascism we must at the same time destroy national Fascism, we must replace the reactionary forces at home with truly democratic forces which will represent all of us.

Victory over foreign Fascism is certain. All of us will share in that. The American soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines will have fought in a war which will never be regretted. The thousands who gave their lives, notably the seamen of the Atlantic and Pacific, will have made a sacrifice equally as great as that of armed men, and even in greater proportions. And those of us who did anything at all to fight and destroy Fascism will reap a reward of satisfaction as well.

We, however, will also inherit the job left unfinished on the battlefield: it is we, the civilians, and the soldiers who will again become civilians, who will have to continue to fight native Fascism for many years. We will do this in the elections, in Congress, in the labor unions, in the press, in the churches, in the schools -- everywhere. Otherwise we will stupidly have dropped the victory won in Africa, in Italy, in Germany and in Japan.

And since that victory will go down in history as the greatest to benefit mankind in all recorded time, it must cheer all of us on to fight the remaining enemies of a free people at home.

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Appendices

APPENDIX I: WHAT IS FASCISM?

MUSSOLINI: "Fascism, which did not fear to call itself reactionary when many liberals of today were prone before the triumphant beast [Democracy], has not today any impediment against declaring itself illiberal and anti-liberal. ... Fascism knows no idol, worships no faith; it has once passed, and, if needful, will turn to pass again over the more or less decomposed body of the Goddess of Liberty." (Gerarchia, March, 1923.)

PALME DUTT: "The fascist system is a system of direct dictatorship, ideologically masked by the 'national idea.' ... It is a system that resorts to a popular form of social demagogy (anti-Semitism, occasional sorties against usurer's capital and gestures of impatience with the parliamentary 'yelling shop') in order to utilize the discontent of the petit-bourgeois, the intellectual and other strata of society; and to corruption through the building up of a compact and well-paid hierarchy of fascist units, a party apparatus and a bureaucracy. At the same time, Fascism strives to permeate the working class by recruiting the most backward strata of the workers to its ranks, by playing upon their discontent, by taking advantage of the inaction of Social-democracy, etc. ..."

"The combination of social demagogy, corruption and active White terror, in conjunction with extreme imperialist aggression in the sphere of foreign politics, are the characteristic features of Fascism. In periods of acute crisis for the bourgeoisie, Fascism resorts to anti-capitalistic phraseology, but, after it has established itself at the helm of state, it casts aside its anti-capitalist rattle, and discloses itself as a terrorist dictatorship of big capital."

"Fascism is the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinist and most imperialist elements of finance capital." -- 13th Plenum of Executive Committee of the Communist International, Moscow, 1933.

RAYMOND GRAM SWING: "Fascism is a reorganization of society to maintain unequal distribution of economic power and a substitution of barbaric values for individualist civilization."-"Forerunners of American Fascism."

HEYWOOD BROUN: "I am quite ready to admit that the word Fascism has been used very loosely. Sometimes we call a man a Fascist simply because we dislike him, for one reason or another. And so I'll try to be pretty literal in outlining some of the evidence which I see as the actual danger of Fascism in America. First of all, we need a definition. Fascism is a dictatorship from the extreme Right, or to put it a little more closely into our local idiom, a government which is run by a small group of large industrialists and financial lords. Of course, if you want to go back into recent history) the influence of big business has always been present in our federal government. But there have been some checks on its control. I am going to ask latitude to insist that we might have Fascism even though we maintained the pretense of democratic machinery. The mere presence of a Supreme Court, a House of Representatives, a Senate and a President would not be sufficient protection against the utter centralization of power in the hands of a few men who might hold no office at all. Even in the case of Hitler, many shrewd observers feel that he is no more than a front man and that his power is derived from the large munitions and steel barons of Germany. ... Now one of the first steps which Fascism must take in any land in order to capture power is to disrupt and destroy the labor movement. ... I think it is not unfair to say that any business man in America, or public leader, who goes out to break unions, is laying foundations for Fascism." (May, 1936.)

APPENDIX 2: WHO OWNS AMERICA?

THE Temporary National Economic Committee, headed by Senator O'Mahoney of Wyoming, in its Monograph 29 ("The Distribution of Ownership in the 200 Non-Financial Corporations"), supplemented by Monograph 26 ("Economic Power and Political Pressures"), shows clearly that a handful of men and companies (Big Business, the Big Money, the NAM) own, control, boss and rule America in a manner which approaches the rule of Germany, Italy, and other fascist countries by similar elements.

Monograph 29, page 116, shows that of the 200 ruling families of America there are thirteen which top them all. Here is the official table:

TABLE 6

Identified stockholdings in 200 largest non-financial corporations of thirteen family-interest groups with holdings of over $50,000,000.



Includes only holdings of family members and family-endowed foundations in stock of 200 largest non- financial corporations insofar as they were identified among twenty largest record shareholdings. Values represent in most cases market values at December 31, 1937; otherwise (particularly for Ford) book values.

In other words, this vast accumulation of wealth (which means vast power) does not represent the totality. The Ford family fortune is estimated at two billion dollars, which is four times the amount of stock held in their own corporation. The same multiple probably applies to the other twelve.

APPENDIX 3: WHO OWNS GERMANY?

AT THE start of the second World War the 25 most important landowners in Germany were:

GERMANY'S BIGGEST LANDOWNERS



Kaiser Wilhelm II's family: 97,000 hectares
Prince of Pless: 50,000 hectares
Prince of Hohenlohe: 48,500 hectares
Prince of Hohenzollern-Siegmaringen: 46,000 hectares
Prince of Solms-Baruth: 38,700 hectares
Ernst von Stolberg-Wernigerode: 36,700 hectares
Duke of Ratibor and Prince Hohenlohe-Schilling fuerst: 31,100 hectares*
Duke of Anhalt-Dessau: 29,300 hectares
Count Thiele Winkler: 28,000 hectares*
Duke of Ahrenberg-Nordikirchen: 27,800 hectares
Count Schaffgotsch: 26,800 hectares*
Leopold Prince of Prussia: 25,000 hectares
Count von Bruehl: 22,900 hectares
Count Fink von Finkenstein: 21,000 hectares
Prince Frederick Henry of Prussia: 17,100 hectares
Duke Albrecht of Wurttemberg: 16,100 hectares
Prince Schaumburg-Lippe: 15,700 hectares
Family of Field Marshal von Kleist: 15,200 hectares
Prince Henkell von Donnersmarck: 15,000 hectares*
Grand Duke of Oldenburg: 13,800 hectares
Prince Richard Sayn-Wittgenstein: 12,000 hectares
Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha: 10,400 hectares
Hereditary Prince Josias of Waldeck: 10,000 hectares
Prince Philipp of Hesse: 7,000 hectares
* One hectare equals: 2.47 acres.

CAPITAL OF JOINT STOCK COMPANIES



PERCENTAGE OF THE TOTAL CAPITAL



CAPITAL OF LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANIES



PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL CAPITAL



* NOTE: -- The Silesian magnates knew what they were doing when they greeted with enthusiasm Hitler's war against Poland. By the partitioning of Upper Silesia in 1921 Count Thiele-Winkler had lost 15,900 hectares, the princes and counts of Donnersmarck 37,000 hectares, the Prince of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, 18,700 hectares, the count of Ballestrem, 4,900 hectares, and the Duke of Ratibor 2,600 hectares to Poland. In 1940 all their property on Polish soil was again restored to them.

(Reprinted from Albert Norden's The Thugs of Europe, with permission.)

APPENDIX 4: NAM: AMERICAN FASCISM

(Digest of Senate Report No.6, part 3, 76th Congress, 1st session.)

"A subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor, Senator Robert M. La Follette Jr., Wisc., Chairman. ...

"The committee found that the purchasing and storing of 'arsenals' of firearms and tear and sickening-gas weapons is a common practice of large employers of labor who refuse to bargain collectively with legitimate labor unions and that there exists a large business of supplying gas weapons to industry. ... During the years 1933 through June, 1937, $1,255,392.55 worth of tear and sickening gas was purchased by employers and law-enforcement agencies, 'chiefly during or in anticipation of strikes.' The committee noted that:

"'... all of the largest individual purchasers are corporations and that their totals far surpass those of large law-enforcement purchasers. In fact, the largest purchaser of gas equipment in the country, the Republic Steel Corp., bought four times as much as the largest law-enforcement purchaser.'"

The largest industrial purchasers of gas munitions were found to be:

Republic Steel Corp., $79,712.42 ( Girdler; Vice-President and director of the NAM).

U.S. Steel, $62,208.12 (Contributed $41,450 to NAM in four years).

Bethlehem Steel, $36,173.69 (Contributed $29,250 to NAM in four years).

Youngstown Sheet & Tube, $28,385.39 (Contributor to NAM).

General Motors, $24,626.78 (Contributed $66,000 to NAM).

Anthracite Institute, $17,457.

Goodyear, $16,912 (Contributor to NAM and Associated Industries).

National Steel, $12,085 (of Weirton; E.T. Weir of the NAM, president).

Auto-Light, $11,351 (Contributed $4,800 to NAM in four years).

Goodrich, $7,740 (Contributed $2,600 to NAM in four years).

Pennsylvania Railroad, $7,466 (Contributed $10,000 to NAM in four years).

Chrysler, $7,000 (Contributed $35,400 to NAM in four years).

Thompson Products, $6,867 (F.C. Crawford, president of the NAM).

Seattle Chamber of Commerce, $5,873.

Waterfront Employers Union, San Francisco, $5,512.

Columbian Enameling, Terre Haute, $5,482.

Spang Chalfant, Ambridge, Pa., $5,281 (Contributed $5,750 to NAM in four years).

APPENDIX 5: ROSTER OF THE SIXTH COLUMN PRESS



 
APPENDIX 6: TOBACCO SMOKING AND LONGEVITY

By DR. RAYMOND PEARL, Johns Hopkins University IN THE customary way of life man has long been habituated to the routine usage of various substances and materials that are not physiologically necessary to his continued existence. Tea, coffee, alcohol, tobacco, opium and the betel nut are statistically among the more conspicuous examples of such materials. If all six are included together as a group it is probably safe to say that well over 90 percent of all adult human beings habitually made use of one or more of the component materials included in the group. All of them contain substances of considerable pharmacologic potency if exhibited in appropriate dosage. Widespread and long-continued experience, however, has shown that the moderate usage of any of these materials, if measurably deleterious at all, is not so immediately or strikingly harmful physiologically as to weigh seriously against the pleasures felt to be derived from indulgence, in the opinion of vast numbers of human beings. The situation so created is an extremely complex one behavioristically, and not a simple physiological matter, as it is sometimes a little naively thought to be. Purely hedonistic elements in behavior, which are present in lower animals as well as in man, have a real importance. Indeed they frequently override, in their motivational aspects, reason as well as purely reflex physiological inhibiting factors. There are undoubtedly great numbers of human beings who would continue the habitual use of a particular material they liked, even though it were absolutely and beyond any question or argument proved to be somewhat deleterious to them. Most of them would rationalize this behavior by the balancing type of argument -- that the keen pleasure outweighed the relatively (in their view) smaller harm.

The student of longevity is not primarily interested in the behavioristic aspects of the situation under discussion. His concern is to appraise quantitatively, with the greatest attainable accuracy, the effect of each of these habitual usages upon the duration of life. This problem is necessarily statistical in its nature, for in the ordinary way of usage the effect upon longevity of any of the materials mentioned is not sufficiently strong or immediate to be disentangled in the individual from the effects of other and more powerful factors that are involved, such as infections, for example. An approximate evaluation of the statistical effect of these minor and secondary factors influencing longevity can, however, be reached by the application of actuarial methods (life table construction) to groups of individuals. For the maximum effectiveness of this methodology in the premises, the groups to be compared should be each as heterogeneous or random as possible in their compositions relative to all other characteristics except the one of degree of habitual usage of the particular material under discussion, and as homogeneous as possible relative to that. We shall then have a dispersed and counterbalancing effect within each group of all such factors as economic and social status, occupational and racial differences, etc., the plus variants relative to each such factor offsetting more or less evenly the minus variants; while there will be a concentrated, uni-directional and statistically cumulative effect, if any, of the habitual usage factor under test, since all components of a group will be alike in respect of it.

The purpose of this paper is to report a part of the results of an investigation of the influence of tobacco upon human longevity, planned and carried out along the lines indicated above. The material was drawn from the Family History Records of this laboratory. It is composed of data collected at first hand and ad hoc. The accuracy of the data as to the relative degree of habitual usage of tobacco and as to the ages of the living at risk, and of the dead at death can be guaranteed. The figures presented here deal only with white males, and concern only the usage of tobacco by smoking. The material falls into three categories, as follows: non-users of tobacco, of whom there were 2,094; moderate smokers, of whom there were 2,814; and heavy smokers, of whom there were 1,905. In other words, the results presented here are based upon the observation of 6,813 men in total. These men were an unselected lot except as to their tobacco habits. That is to say, they were taken at random, and then all sorted into categories relative to tobacco usage.

Complete life tables have been constructed for the three groups defined above relative to tobacco usage by smoking. The tables start at age 30 and continue to the end of the life span, by yearly intervals. Here only a condensation of the tables can be presented. This is done in Table I, where the date rate (1000 qx) and survivorship (1x) function are given by five-year intervals.

TABLE I
THE DEATH RATE (1,000 qx) AND SURVIVORSHIP (lx) FUNCTIONS, AT FIVE-YEAR INTERVALS, STARTING AT AGE 30, OF (a) NON-USERS OF TOBACCO; (b) MODERATE SMOKERS WHO DID NOT CHEW TOBACCO OR TAKE SNUFF; (C) HEAVY SMOKERS WHO DID NOT CHEW TOBACCO OR TAKE SNUFF. WHITE MALES.



However envisaged, the net conclusion is clear. In this sizable material the smoking of tobacco was statistically associated with an impairment of life duration, and the amount of degree of this impairment increased as the habitual amount of smoking increased. Here, just as is usually the case in our experience in studies of this sort, the differences between the usage groups in specific mortality rates, as indicated by qX, practically disappear from about age 70 on. This is presumably an expression of the residual effect of the heavily selective character of the mortality in the earlier years in the groups damaged by the agent (in this case tobacco). On this view those individuals in the damaged groups who survive to 70 or thereabouts are such tough and resistant specimens that thereafter tobacco does them no further measurable harm as a group.

(This material originally appeared in Science, March 4, 1933, Vol. 87, No. 2253, pages 216-217.)

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INDEX

Addes, George, 254, 263,
Advertising, 168, 170, 195, 258, 268,
272.
A. F. of L., 37, 214.
Alba, Duke of, 57, 66.
Aluminum Corp., 262.
American Fascism, 11, 46, 210.
American Legion, 34, 105.
American Mercury, 159, 163, 164.
America's 13 Families, 279.
Anaconda, 257.
A.N.P.A., 90, 205, 206, 213, 215.
Anti-Semitism, 22.
AP, 93, 272.
Arnold, Thurman, 68, 76, 253.
A.S.N.E., 203.
Associated Industries, 34.
Automobile Industry, 262.

Barton, Bruce, 77.
Baruch, Bernard M., 252, 255.
Bennett, Harry, 125.
Berle; A. A., 173, 259.
Big Business Sit-Down, 255.
Birkhead, L. M., 152.
Book-of-the-Month Club, 172.
Bowers, Claude, 58.
Brady, Prof. Robert A., 33, 54, 55.
Bridges, Harry, 267.
Brooklyn Tablet, 59.
Broun, Heywood, 214, 232, 278.
Buchmanism, 134.
Butler, Smedley, 112.

Cameron, W. J., 125.
Carnegie-Illinois Steel, 261.
Catholic Party, 41.
Chandler, Harry, 135.
Chicago Tribune, 204, 215, 218, 222,
226, 250.
Christian American ASSOC., 117.
C.I.O., 37, 213, 229, 264.
C.I.O. News, 97.
Clapper, Raymond, 232, 233, 248.
Coughlin, Father, 129, 152, 160, 205,
230, 263.
Crawford, Frederick C., 81, 101.
Curran, Joseph, 267.
Curtiss-Wright, 256.

Dennis, Lawrencc, 159, 161.
Detroit Press Press, 133.
Detroit News, 133.
Detroit Times, 132.
Dies, Martin, 74, 165, 230.
Dillon, Read, 41, 155.
"Ding," 251.
Dodd, Ambassador, 47, 122.
Downey, Sen., 176.
DuPont, 14, 35, 49, 74, 76, 77, 80,
99, 196, 255, 274.
Dutt, Palme, 277.
Dyer, Gus W., 93.

Eastman, Max, 183.
Editor & Publisher, 141, 206.
Eliot, Major George Fielding, 148.

F.A.E.C.T., 174.
Fascism, definitions of, 277.
Ford Empire, 122.
Ford, Henry, 77, 263.
Portun(, 43, 212.
Franco, 57.
"Free Enterprise," 86, 117, 119, 196,
198, 213, 252.
French, Paul Comly, 112.
Friends of Democracy, 152.
Fuller, Walter D., 96.

Gannett, Frank, 208, 232, 270.
Ge1lermann, William, 107.
General Electric, 262.
General Motors, 74, 75, 264.
Goebbels, 24.
Goering, 23.
Good Housekeeping, 169.
Green, William, 214.
Guild Reporter, 214, 238.

Hamilton, Thomas J., 60, 64.
Hart, Merwin K., 178.
Hearst, 11, 95, 106, 211, 226, 230.
Henri, Ernst, 18.
Heptisax, 250.
High, Stanley, 167, 176.
Hindenburg, 30.
Hirohito, 48.
Hirschfeld, Gerhard, 17.
Hitler, 17, 122, 140, 210, 256.
Hoffman, Rep. Clare, 160.
Hoover, Herbert, 77.
Howard, Roy, 95, 208, 211, 230, 238,
249.
Hugenberg, 20.

Ickes, Harold L., 180, 232, 2.38, 270.
I. G. Farbenindustries, 17, 43, 49, 76,
122, 194.
l.L.W.U. Dispatcher, 266.
INS, 93.
International Bankers, 153.
Italian Big Business, 34.
Jackson, Justice, 179.

Japan, 48, 218.
Jews, 17, 19, 28, 71, 96, 133, 141.
Jung, Harry A., 180.

Kennedy, Joseph P., 77.
Kent, Frank R., 250.
Knudsen, William S., 77.
Kuczynski and Witt, 31.
K.K.K., 117, 222, 230.

Labor, 204, 215.
La Follette, 83, 199.
Landowners, 30, 34, 35, 41, 42, 58.
Lewis, Fulton, Jr., 184, 197.
Lindbergh, Col., 77, 139.
Lippmann, Walter, 232, 233.
Lit tell, Norman, 68.
Los Angeles Times, 135, 226, 237.
Luce, Henry, 43.
Lutz, Harley L., 93.
Lyons, Eugene, 164.

MacLeish, Archibald, 203, 207.
Mallon Paul, 228, 232, 233, 250.
Manly, Chesly, 216, 228.
March, Juan, 57.
Martin, Homer, 130.
Marx, Karl, 25.
Matteotti, 38.
McCall's, 191.
McCormack-Dickstein Com., 113.
McCormick, Col., 205, 211, 215, 230.
Mein Kampf, 140, 220.
Milwaukee Journal, 257.
Mitsubishi, 48.
Mitsui, 48.
Morgan, 41, 155.
Murray, Philip, 267.
Mussolini, 11, 20, 34, 277.

NAM, 26, 35, 37, 80, 118, 124, 184,
197, 213, 230, 246, 274, 281.
Nation, The, 166.
Nazi Cartel Plot, 68.
New Republic, 165.
N.I.I.C., 92, 94, 191.
N.M.U., 81, 230.
Norden, Albert, 27.
N.Y. Daily News, 15, 44, 204.
N.Y. Herald Tribune, 271.
N.Y. State Economic Council, 178.
N.Y. Times, 88, 97, 136, 203, 246,
258, 271.

O'Donnell, John, 204, 228.
OWI, 11
O'Mahoney, 83.
Owsley, Alvin, 109.

Palmer, Paul, 159, 163.
Patric, John, 176.
Patterson, Capt., 205, 211, 215, 230.
Pearl, Dr. Raymond, 268, 284.
Pegler, Westbrook, 35, 229, 236, 249.
Pew, J. Howard, 97.
Pilot, The, 81, 230.
PM, 173, 248.
Prentis, H.W., 96.
Press-Fascist Force, 204.
Profits in Fascism, 16.

"Quislings," 180.

Railroad Brotherhoods, 37, 176.
Rand, J. H., 96.
Reader's Digest, 15, 158.
Rimar, Ralph, 125.
Robb, Arthur, 141.
Rosten, Leo, 226, 228.

Salvemini, Prof., 34, 46.
Saturday Evening Post, 11, 15, 96.
Scripps-Howard, 44, 95, 208, 226.
Sinclair, Harry, 38.
Sinclair Upton, 135.
Sixth Column Press, 209, 283.
Sloan, Alfred P., 75, 80.
Smart, David, 110.
Smith, Gerald L. K., 180, 230.
Social-Democratic, 20, 72, 277.
Social Justice, 152, 263.
Society of Jesus, 57, 63.
Sokolsky, George E., 35, 93, 167, 186,
232.
Spahr, Walter, 93.
Spivak, Lawrence E., 164.
Standard Oil, 76, 122, 258.
State Department, 73, 172, 275.
Stinnes, Hugo, 20.
St. Louis Star-Times, 259.
Stone, I.F., 255.
Sulzberger, A.H., 97.
Swing, Raymond Gram, 278.
Tabouis, Genevieve, 78.

The Economics of Barbarism, 31.
The Thugs of Europe, 27.
Thomas, Lowell, 258.
Thomas, R.J., 263.
Thompson, Dorothy, 38, 144, 232.
Thyssen, Fritz, 17, 19, 20, 135.
Time, 258, 264.
Tobacco, 268, 284.
Treasury Dep't., 234, 236.
Truman, Sen., 253.

UP, 93.
U.S. Cartridge Co., 259, 260.
U.S. Steel, 260.

Valtin, Jan, 172.
Vandenberg, Sen., 77.
Varney, Harold Lord, 166.
Vereinigte Stahlwerke, 19.

Wallace, DeWitt, 158.
Wallace, Vice-Pres., 13,139, 213, 247.
Waring, Roane, 106, 115.
Warner, W.B., 191.
War Profits, 252.
Washington Post, 272.
Watson, Morris, 182.
Weir, E.T., 191, 193.
Western Cartridge Co., 260.
Wheeler, Sen., 154, 230.
White, William Allen, 207, 244.
Willkie, Wendell, 152.
Wohlforth, Robert, 87.
Wolff, Otto, 19, 20.
World-Telegram, 95.

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Professor Salvemini told Reporter Joseph Philip Lyford of the [Harvard] undergraduate daily that "a new brand of Fascism" threatens America, "the Fascism of corporate business enterprise in this country." He believed that "almost 100% of American Big Business" is in sympathy with the "philosophy" of government behind the totalitarianism of Hitler and Mussolini; the bond of sympathy between Big Business and the Fascist Axis, said the professor of history, lies in the respect of American industrialists for the Axis methods of coercing labor.

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The Minister of Welfare in announcing the abolition of the trade unions made this statement: "Our primary aim is to drive communist ideas and dangerous social thoughts from the minds of the people by ordering the dissolution of the established labor unions, which have a tendency to sharpen class consciousness among workers, which hamper the development of industry, and disturb the peace and order of the country.

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In 1937 the government brought all the leading employers and business confederations together in the Japanese League of Economic Organizations, which Brady describes as a sort of private National Defense Council for business enterprise. He concludes: "It would be hard to imagine a much higher degree of policy-determining power than is indicated by the combination of the Zaibatsu and its concentric cartel and federational machinery. The hierarchy of business control seems well-nigh complete." The government of Japan and the business interests of Japan are bound together "from center to circumference." "What is being accomplished is the gradual rounding out of a highly coordinated fascist-type of totalitarian economy."