The Connecticut labor news., 1924-03-22
TWO PAPERS DRAG SPELLACY INTO THE
 DAUCHERTY PROBE
New Haven and Waterbury Journals Then Have to Take Him Out
 Again With Humble Apologies

An evident attempt Of 'underllng editors on two of the morning papers of the state to connect Thomas J. Spel lacy of Hartford, one of Labor's frmSst friends in Connecticut with the Daugh- erty scandal at Washington was mace on Tuesday morning of this week but like every other attempt to discredit man against whom no diScredit ex- ists, it fell flat. The offending papers were forced to swallow" their own words the morning after and made due apology to MT. Spellacy after he had issued a statement denouncing the attempt to involve him in the mess.
 A witness before the senate com mittee probing Daugherty mentioned on Monday a Thomas c. Spe1lacy, secret service agent, as being mixed up in the fight film showirgs m various states Nowhere was 1t said that was Thomas J. Spellacy of Hartford, Con- necticut. who was the man but rather the Monday dispatches made 1t plain that II Was d lIldH Ho" HI ot. LouiS. and whose home is Schnectady, N. Y. The afternoon papers all carried 1t as it was although 1t IS certain that had 1t been Thomas J. Spellacy of Hartford, every one of them would have pub lished that fact. some of them with pleasure no doubt.
 Then on Tuesday morning the New Haven Journal Courier in three column headlines declares that THOMAS SPELLACY" had been involved in the Daugherty scandal leaving the impres- sion that 1t was the Hartford man, had the reader not gone farther into the undoubtedly, one of its editors, inserted Hartford Conn" after the use of the name in the body of the story
 $; nultaneously the Waterbury Re itically of MT Spellacy came out and almost positively identified him as the man drawn into the fight film scandal and there again Hartford Conn. was brought i'll to prove 1t.
 Both these journals get the Asso- ciated Press report of the doing at Washingtond and when the stories were called to his attention MT. Spel- lacy promptly got in touch with the Associated Press offices and found that nowhere in their running accounts of the investigation had either the name Thomas J. Spel1acy of the mention of Hartford Conn, been made. The only inferen left was that the editors hand ling the news matter in enxiety to get local sensation out of the scandal crop had let their zela run away with their brains and pulled "bloomer."
 MT. Spellacy at once demanded re- traction and both journals made it due form and with much prominence in their succeeding issues. The city of Waterbury was mentioned in brief in the dispatch, to the effect that the wit ness then testifying, one Holbridge had visited that city for conference with one of the promoters of the fight film display. Nowhere however, there was MT. Spellacy mentioned, but the editor of the paper probably jumped to con clusions and then had to retract.
 To do them justice 1t must be said that had the owners of the papers any thing to do with the matter the stories would not have been printed as they were The publishers are far too care fu1 of libel suits to stand for any such thing no matter what their personal views of a prominent man as MT. Spellacy may be. MT. Spellacy's state
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