The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1924-05-26
BETRAYAL IN HIGH PLACES

1t is quite noticeable that, amid all the
Republican and executive expressions of dis
approval of the senate inquiries into the
official records of cabinet officers, there has
been no rebuke from the same source of the
secret efforts of the former attorney general
to pry into the private lives of members of
the prosecuting committeeman in order to
discover some deed that may be held over
them as a club to dissuade them from their
investigative zeal. Yet it is quite deducible
that Mr. Daugherty and his subordinates and
associates used the agencies of the depart
ment of justice in the most outrageous man
ner for a purpose very akin to blackmaii,
that is, intimidation of the prosecution for
the protection of the former attorney general
from senate inquiry.
The stories of CASTOR B. Means and other
witnesses before the senate committee read
like dime novels, with sleuths entering pri
vate homes and offices, prying open desks
and safes, rifling private papers and DIGGING
the footsteps of members of congress and
others prominent in Washington official life.
And all in behalf of an Grant cabinet officer
irving to keep the hounds off his own trail.
There have been corrupt officials in public
life before; but never before have the forces
defiant of law been in apparent possession
of the very highest agencies of law enforce
ment; never before have the very functions
of Justice been prostituted to the protection
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public trust. 1t is no wonder that there
has been this insistent cry that the inquiries
cease, for the very pillars of the party are
set in the muck that has been uncovered.
The people have recovered from their
amazement, or else it holds them dumb and
numb through sheer inability to experience
further reactions of chagrin and dismay.
The indictment of Mr.. Wheeler, prosecutor
of the Daugherty record, is believed to have
been cooked up deliberately in order to check
mate and offset his usefulness to the COM
mittee and to put him on the defensive. That
attempt has failed, partly because the record
of Mr.. Wheeler is shown to be clean, and
partly because his colleagues in the senate.
regardless of party, have stood by him al
most to the man, in giving him formal ex-
oneration and expressing formal disapproval
of the effort to implicate him in what is
known in criminal circles as a plant"
Senator Wheeler has properly demanded
that the trial be speedy, in order that the
facts may be established at the earliest date.
But though there is good and substantial
reason why this trial should be made a spe-
cial order, that has not been done. 1t APP
pears to the lay mind that the judge in the
case would be warranted, on the showings
in the senate committee, and in view of the
hasty exit of Daugherty from official life,
to dismiss the case as trivial and the charges
as trumped up. Public affairs have come to
critical pass when the agencies of law and
pose and to cover up the very activities they
are designed to expose and bring to justice
But Mr.. Wheeler may very well demand q
trial in order that he may get clean bill.
1t has also been sought to convey the i'm
preston that the people are irked by the
inquiries and desire that they be brought to
an end. The people are irked by the political
Vaccinations of those who would seek to
evade their official responsibility to trace
out official wrongdoing in high places ant
to punish the guilty. The people are moi
deceived by the political smOke-screens EN-
ployed to confuse the issue. The issue i,
directly Joined. Can a man in a position Of
high official trust betray that trust and g
scatheless, or shall he be uncovered and pun
ished? Public opinion everywhere says that
he shall not go free. The people hold in all
honor the senate committeeman as individ
uals of high integrity and a high sense Of
public duty. Those who would Obstruct and
oppose them receive public reproach and pub
lie condemnation in unmeasured degree
Even politics, in order to be successful, mus
occasionally rise above its own level.
TTTCTTCE I'M THE GARNET