Evening star., 1939-12-13
President Indicates
Disapprova| Of Dies
Consumer Attack
Montgomery Charges
Report Red Herring to
Aid Hearst Magazine

The Dies committee today faced
presidential disapproval of its meth
ods In issuing report linking con-
sumner groups with Communism.
The report also brought charge
from Donald E. Montgomery, con-
sumer's counsel of the Department
OF Agriculture that it supported ef-
forts to make the consumer move
ment a red herring" to divert at
tention from specific problems.
The report, prepared by j. b.
Matthews, the committees research
director, said the committee had eVl-
dence that a great part OF the cur
rent popular and official attack upon
advertising is the direct result of
Communist propaganda in the field
Of consumer organizations.
After telling his press conference
yesterday that lot of people had
mentioned the report to him, Mr..
Roosevelt outlined the procedure,
as he understood it, as follows:
Chairman Dies, Democrat, OF
Texas, appointed himself subcom-
mittee, assumed the role of sub
committee, received the report from
DR.. Matthews and then directed
that the report be received by the
full committee and ordered pub
lished. This action, the President
added, spoke for itself.
Based on Voorhis Statement.
Mr.. Roosevelt said his under
standing was based on newspaper
articles quoting Representative
Voorhis, Democrat, of California. a
member of the Dies Committee. Mr..
Voorhis Monday criticized the way
the report was handled.
Mr.. Montgomery said in a state
ment yesterday that he did not be-
lieve an attempt to picture the
consumer movement as a threat to
American institutions will get by
with the American people"
Mr. Montgomery said the report
had accused him of assisting organi-
cations allegedly controlled by Com
munists and had linked the Office Of
consumers counsel to IAN official
aCCack on advertising.
Mr. Montgomery's reply follows:
''Mr. Matthews has attempted to
make the committee and the public
believe that my office investigated
Good Housekeeping Magazine for
the purpose of official action against
1t. That is false. On August II the
Federal Trade Commission issued a
complaint against the advertising
practices of that magazine. No one
in my organization has had any
connection whatever with the prep
aration or prosecution of that case.
Sees Effort to Aid Hearst.
"Since August II, however, have
been aware of charges by representa-
tives of Hearst Magazines, Inc, that
the difficulties it has encountered
under the law are due to me and
some Of the consumer organizations.
Apparently Mr.. Dies has lent his
support to an effort to make the
consumer movement a red herring
to divert public interest from the
specific issues in that case. The
whole effect is in the direction of
pulling Mr.. Hearst's chestnuts out
Of the fire.
"The consumer organizations will
speak for themselves if given op-
portunity. Many consumer leaders
and organizations have long been
critical of specific advertising prac-
tices, but do not attack advertising
as a necessary business institution
Many businessmen and trade asso-
Citations have done the same. Better
business bureaus in many cities have
long been striving to make adver-
tising more effective by cleaning up
falsehoods and deception. Are they
. Communist, too? I do not believe
this attempt to picture the consumer
movement as threat to American
institutions will get by with the
people of this country"