Pegler Hits at “gullible” Americans Who Would Curb Constitutional Rights

In his nationally-syndicated column, “Fair Enough,” West-brook Pegler lashed out yesterday at Nazi Germany’s efforts to suppress domestic liberties in other countries and took to task “gullible and supercilious” Americans “seduced by alien conspirators” to a belief that the Constitution would be improved by addition of a clause restricting its benefits to favored groups.

The column, published in the New York World-Telegram and many other newspapers throughout the country, said in part:

“Through his anti-American Bunds he (Chancellor Adolf Hitler) has entered the domestic policies of the United states and begun a campaign to abolish tolerance and human rights just around the edges as a starter. There are educated Americans so gullible and supercilious that they cannot perceive the source from which they are being incited or understand that even to consider the political degradation of any group of Americans is to serve a foreign conspirator Against the liberties which they cherish for themselves.

“This country needs no assistance from Hitler or agents of Hitler who mock American hospitality and our laws of naturalization to defend it from bolshevism. The United States has done a better job of repelling Bolshevism than of scotching the reptilian approach of that other terror which is worse, if possible, than the terror which the anti-American Bunds would kindly save us from at the sacrifice of American freedom….Yet Americans who sincerely believe in and have fought for the liberties of the Constitution are seduced by Alien conspirators toward an unformed, unreasoned belief that the constitution would be improved by some clause restricting its benefits to those whom they happen to like.”