On the Record---Pepper Assails 'Red' Hysteria, Sees Labor Holding Gains

The Honorable and red-faced Mr. Pepper of Florida, dubbed "Senator" by fellow-students in the Law School during the early Twenties, sounded off last night on the state of the nation before mounting the speaker's rostrum at the Law School Forcm to talk about the state of the world. Today's Red Scare he terms "passing whim" and the current communications crisis has caused him to envision a possible "national authority to regulate utilities."

"I've got nothing to propose right now," he conceded, "to resolve the problem of achieving free collective bargaining with the assurance that there will be no work stoppages. The truth of the business is that no one has."

What Senator Pepper would predict with finality is the fate of vindictive efforts in Congressional Committee to quash the whole of Labor: "It's obvious that the liberal Republicans and the Democrats are joining to prevent antiunion measures. Of course there will be legislation, but we are trying to make it reasonable and rational. We'll succeed in Committee. On the floor I don't know."

Defends Communists

In answer to a question concerning the right of Communists to hold labor union offices, Senator Pepper huffed, "I'm not afraid of anybody," and affirmed his "confidence in the ability of the American people to distinguish between foul and fair." He applauded our "traditional willingness to wrestle with ideas." In the Democratic Party (Pepper firmly opposes any Third-Party moves), his aim will remain converting it to a "truly liberal position which will really justify the two-party system."

Pepper points to his years at Law School as the origin of his politics. With a brief nod to the merits of the Case System, he claims his greatest gain was "a capacity for hard work, a sentiment and appreciation of what it means to get the facts . . ."

"Poor as I am," the Senator confides, "I'm many times a better man for having attended Harvard."