Westbrook Pegler
Rome News-Tribune/March 2, 1954
The frantic abuse of all who dared to challenge the fitness of Earl Warren is a black mark against the great American free press. This disgusting squabble should have been conducted as a decent debate on an important matter. But someone hit upon the phrase “unsworn and unevaluated” to discredit the case against Warren.
Sure the charges were “unsworn and unevaluated” but the accusers were pleading for a chance to swear to them. So frightened were the Eisenhower-Warren political claque that they had a man pinched who had traveled all the way from San Francisco to Washington to swear to charges and submit them for “evaluation.” So they got in their smear in advance and put their own “evaluation” on their own accusations which have not been “evaluated” and never will be.
This is a bad situation. Warren is an inveterate politician and probably will continue to be the boss of a mighty and, in many aspects, sinister political machine in one of the key states of American politics. He is not a Republican even in name, having compromised his political allegiance by the debilitating device of “cross-filing,” which is a highly developed political leukemia in California. By cross-filing partisan political lines are dissolved and the parties are reduced to the status of mere rival groups of the same cells feasting on the vitality of the state.
Already Bad
We already have a very bad Supreme Court.
Felix Frankfurter established his covert political machine within the bureaucracy early in the new deal. His disciples included Alger Hiss who turned out to be, by implication, upon his conviction, the worst proven traitor in the history of the nation. Benedict Arnold had some excuses to offer which have been entertained by historians, but Hiss had none. Frankfurter also appointed his old friend Henry L. Stimson to be Secretary of War under F. D. Roosevelt, as Harold Ickes revealed in a pot-boiler written for the Saturday Evening Post years ago.
It should be unthinkable that any justice of this court would take the furtive political part which Frankfurther has played all these years. Yet such is the effect of the brain-washing that we have been put to that our morals and ethics are faded almost to obliteration. Nobody had the moral decency and gumption to revolt when William O. Douglas appeared as principal speaker before a national convention of the insurrectionary CIO, giving political advice to that frequent litigant before the bar which I would be the last to say that he honors or adorns.
Douglas also got into scandalous wife trouble inconsistent with the court’s tradition and took an “award” of $1,000 from a “foundation” bearing the name of Sidney Hillman who had been identified as a communist and thus an enemy of the Constitution which Douglas is sworn to uphold. If that testimony against Hillman be rejected as “irresponsible and unevaluated” there is abundant verified proof that Hillman did business with the Soviet government, not primarily for the benefit of the United States but primarily and solely for the benefit of Russia.
Republicans Crushed
Now we get a Chief Justice who never sat a day on any bench in all his life, whose administration and legislative programs as governor have been exaggerations of the Roosevelt socialism and who has created an organization, sensitive to his own hand, which controls a vast system of patronage and dictates the legislative program of California and will do so for years to come.
The people who hoped to oppose Warren before the Senate were true Republicans of the state of California who fought him and were beaten by a margin furnished by the socialist, Democratic, and communist elements of the state. Now the real Republicans scorns them for keeping the Republican faith.
Warren is more popular by far with these socialists, Democrats and communists than he is with the Republicans. That fact may have no value in deciding whether he is fit to be Chief Justice. But should a man be confirmed who is running a political machine and punishing a roster of political enemies who might come before him seeking justice, dependent on his character for impartial justice? On the basis of his career in California they have understandable misgivings.
If it is an “un-American” resort to foul play to examine a man’s fitness in the face of “unsworn and unevaluated” charges, what would you say about unsworn and unevaluated pap and praise by authors in papers which attempt to absolve themselves of responsibility for such matter?
Admirable and Nice
Here is the “unappraised” evaluation of Earl Warren written by Ines Robb, late of International News, who recently went over to Roy Howard. She says, in rather obscure syntax, that these charges “couldn’t have happened to a nicer man.” He is “admirable” and his “excellent performance is on the record.” Ines says Warren had a right to face his accuser, although his accuser did try to face him and was pinched on an old indictment which was dug up only when he appeared to accuse Warren.
Ines says the “unsworn and unevaluated charges” against Warren are ridiculous. Conceding that, only for the sake of argument, are they any more ridiculous or any less responsible then her own unsworn and unevaluated personal opinions for which she gives not the slightest basis? A “nice” man, an “admirable” man by her standards may be all of that. But what are her standards and what about some proof to support the “evaluation”?
Drew Pearson’s praises are self-defeating for notorious reasons and are suffered with fear and apprehension by most victims of his approval. He went so far as to call Warren “much revered” and to condemn the accusers as “cranks,” a term applied to Benjamin Franklin, John Brown and Doctor Wirt, of Gary, who called the turn on the Kerensky phase of the communist infestation of the first New Deal. We must now watch for mole-hills leading to the office of the Chief Justice.
Neither the accusers, nor the irresponsible authors of unappraised laudation are at worst fault here. The worst offender is in the editorial office of the great American press.
(Source: Google News, https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=BJbdYPG6LGMC&dat=19540302&printsec=frontpage&hl=en)
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