The Washington times., 1937-11-16
A Fable and 2 Morals

complaint had been made to the effect that he had
tapped the wires of the Housing Administration
and had used detectives to find out what this new
agency. supposed to be under his wing, doing
Mr.. Ickes went to deny this with the vigor always
characteristic of him. and to say that in the early days
of his Interior Department administration there had
been some cases of overlapping undertaken without
his knowledge
Since the resignation of the chief of the Bureau of
Investigation (Louis R. Glavis) however, he said no
activity of this kind had been authorized nor, he be-
1eved had taken place. and he wanted it understood
that he had given orders for tapping of any kind
Mr. Nathan straus administrator of the new Hous-
ing Authority the agency which supposed to have
nz zJ, been sped upon, was present, and
at this point he interposed an
A"e A"c'Ue" observation.
''You couldn't have given such order, Mr.. Secre-
tary' he said. cit would have been illegal. I should
be glad, if you DESIRE to ruling from the JUS
tice Department which will bear me out in this"
Mr.. Ickes, however, replied that his department was
quite capable of getting its ruling from the JUS
tice Department, and this ended the incident.
There are two morals to be drawn from this modern
Aesops fable of government, which the Congress and
the President might look into when they finish with
crop control and balancing the budget
l. There has been all too much espionage in an ad-
mnistration which at heart stands for the liberties
of democracy.
g Relations getting steadily worse between the
Interior Department and the extremely important
Housing Administration which it is supposed to ad-
ministrate.
We accept Mr.. Ickes' word that overlapping and
IN
we cannot forget that at one time it was conducted
scale rivaing the G. P. U. of Soviet Russia. Even
the highest officials in his department looked behind
radiators for dictographs in their offices.
The same thing has existed in other parts of the
New Deal It is open secret that the AAA used
HAA n;otoo.nuLo photographs before the dis
charge of Jerome Frank,
AN" '"e DUO'S F"F9e Gardner Jackson, Lee
Pressman and others who felt the effects of the Chester
Davis purge.
This kind of tactics may have been upheld by the
Supreme Court during prohibition days 1--WE disagreed
with it even then) but it certainly has no place in
the administration of man who is a sincere believer
in personal freedom.
We suspect that what caused the Ickes conference
on overlapping that one of Straus' nervous
aides had haucinations about his wires being tapped
and Straus took this to the White House. Roosevelt,
In turn, took it up with Ickes
Whether this suspicion is correct, it is fact that
some of the Housing boys have been as ttery as
escaped convicts. Miles R. Frisbe director of the
American Federation of Housing Authorities and one
of Straus right bowers twice has had the telephone
company in to look at his wires and when he talks to
callers he goes out in the hall to escape the suspected
dictographs in his room.
Mr. Frsbe is not on the pay roll of the Housing Ad-
minstration, but he might as we'll be- He is on the
pay roll Of Langdon Post head of the New York Hous
ing Authority, who, in turn influences Straus Frisbie
therefore, has lot to do with running the new show
Mr. Frsbie's ideas cooperation with Mr.. Ickes,
nominal head of the Housing Administration were ex
pressed in conversation recently to the effect that if
Headed TOlCnrd Straus can get one thing on Ickes
ILL., r,...J for sabotagng he'll go to the
White House, but if Ickes can
get one thing to show straus is sabotaging him, he'll
60 to the White House.