The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-19
Ban Johnson Not Likely
 To Resign As President
Writer Claims Only Influential Man With Cour-
 age In Baseball Has Been Flushed
BY WESTBROOK PEGLER Special Leased Wire To Age Herald)

Especial Leased Wire To Age-Herald)
 NEW YORK, Dec. 1S.-The only man in the councils of the strictly bus mess enterprise which masquerades as sport under the name of organized base ball, who had the courage to howl for showdown on the crookedness In the dugout of the New York Giants has been gagged.
 If the gag slips and Ban B. Johnson howls again. he will be fired from his $3O, O,O0O job as president of the American league which he founded and helped to build to its present business magnitude. With Johnson quieted, there remains nobody with any influence in the bus mess to remind organized baseball now and again that crooked enterprise has been only half revealed to the custom CTS and then hushed up.
 Ordinarily the mid-winter delibera- tions of the men who own the real es- tate, the franchises, the grand stands and the uniforms of the big league ball clubs are matters of no more public importance than the Saturday night conference of the partners in the cor ner delicatessen as they scan the book and decide to go heavy on sar- dimes and cut down on mixed pickles.
 Never Explained
 But as this years winter meeting approached the customers recalled that that the alleged attempt of Jimmie o. Cornell to bribe Heinie Sand with $500 had never been fully explained. Hark- ing back to the eve of the world se ries in Washington, it was recalled that Judge Landis had first said the incl dent was settled and then, as the report CTS registered amazement, had amended his position to the effect that the in- vestigation would never close. He had fired O'Connell and Cozy Dolan, the latter a sort of confidential men. For the club-O'Connell. because he naively admitted approaching Sand, and Dolan because he hadn't the presence of mind to deny that he put O'Connell up to it.
 There the matter has stood ever since. although O'Connell accused three other members of the team by name, saying he understood they were to contribute to the fund and insisting that he was being made the goat for all
 Judge Landis, the man who was to abolish secrecy and hush-hush proce- dure in organized baseball so that the customers might have faith in the game, made the OConnell-Dolan case more mysterious than ever by with holding the testimony of the two, al though if the men that O'Connell men. toned were innocent, no harm could have been done to them by revealing the evidence which convinced the judge of their innocence.
 Ban Johnson's motives have beer questioned. Baseball men say he wai merely jealous of Landis' position and really didn't care as much as he pre- tended about the virtue of organized baseball. Regardless of his motives however, the fact remains that John son was the only man with any in fluence in the major leagues who howl ed and kept on bowling. In fact, h, seemed to become rather emotional al the world series came higher, and wa, quoted as having called the judge b! undignified terms.
 Barney Dreyfuss, owner of the Pitts burg Pirates, started to say somethin, to the judge one night down there il Washington and it was understood tha as long as scandals were being aired Barney wished to give the judge hi impressions of an important serie which his team contrived to lose to tn Giants some seasons ago. The judge manner offended Dreyfuss and he wen home to Pittsburg, but people wh sometimes enjoy his confidence said Ii would probably tell his story at tn winter meeting of the National league If he did tell it at the winter meet ing, nothing was revealed for, publica tion and another mystery has only bee hinted at Johnson's enemies, ridiculing his sir cerity recall that he was none too quic N to take action when the rawest frau S that any set of ball players ever pe7 petrated was in process of operatio 4 during the world series of 1019 That S true enough. It may also be true tht I Johnson takes salt in his coffee, sugar
 his pork chops and doesn't hang up h S clothes at night. These matters cal not detract from the fact that Ba
 Johnson's was the only voice raised |
 anyone in the council of the mnjC q leagues to demand the whole trut < when this latest known fraud was trie
 Nor can it obscure the fact that fC < doing so, Johnson has been muzzled
 with the naive explanation that he WI # working a harm to the baseball bus % ness.
 The ball teams will soon be startir
 south again and the financiers who ow
 the properties will depend on the not
 riously poor memory of the custome q for another great season.
 ;M