The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-11-14

| &SS postage pTkVAASkt
 to be used for thu distrib ution Oi
 propaganda.
 The senators are
 EdsOn Wheeler of Mon. tana, Nye of North Dakota, E, o Johnson of Colorado, D. Wortf Clark of Idaho and Taft of Ohio The representatives are Tinkham oi Massachusetts, Oliver of Maine Hoffman and Jonkman of Michigan Short and Bennett of Missouri Knutson of Minnesota, Scratton and Day of Illinois, Dworshak of Idaho and Vorys of Ohio.
 The Hill case is now in the hands of two special assitants to the att torney general, William Power Ma loney and Edward J. Hickey, Jr. who are pushing the investigation of the special grand jury looking into Na2i activities in the United States, That IS all secret proceeding which will not be revealed until the grand Jury report is made public, and that may come any day now, But disclos- ures leading up to the grand jury investigation are an open book, and that provides background and pre- face for the complete story.
 HoKE IS
 ANTI-HOAx
 The man who started all this was not q government investigator at all, but a tall and handsome, go-gettin' Baltimore-borr business man of ~ named Henry Hoke, who is editor and publisher of The Reporter of Direct Mail Advertising" q New York trade paper. Being in that bus mess, Hoke is somewhat of cru- Sader against use of the mails to dee fraud, and favorS the proper use of the malls by private citizens, sales organizations, foreign visitors and elected officials.
 Tn May l940, Hoke issued his first blast against the German govern ment propaganda machinery work ing on the United States. Somewhat spectacularly, Hoke charged the Nazis with fraudulent use of the mails, through the German Library of Information, the German Rail- roads Information Bureau and a publication called Facts in Re- view" From his last, Hoke found that excerpts of Naz propaganda had ben published in the Congress sional Record, reprirsed mot at gov- ernment expense, then mailed out to big list of voters under the con- gressional free mail frank, most de- cidedly at government expense.
 The Dies committe took an inter- est in the case, called Hoke to testify and subsequently, raided various German agencies. The Dies commit tee report published in December, l940 omitted all mention of abuse of congressional franking privilege. Tn January, the postofflce took ac- ton against propaganda coming in through foreign mail which under the international postage agree ments, was distributed by the U. s. mails at no cost to Germany. In June, the government ordered the German consulates, German Library of Information and German Rail- roads Information Bureau closed, but Hokes investigators learned be- forehand that the Nazis had anti cipated this action and had made all arrangements to continue their work through American sources, in- cluding the use of franked mail.
 Hoke got hot-under the collar and on the trail. Planting fake, mis- spelled names on German mailing lists, Hoke found that members of Congress were, knowingly or not, al- lowing propaganda to be sent in po3- tage-free envelopes to people on the Nazi sucker lists.
 Hoke's exhibits present an amaz- ing array of evidence: Franked en- velopes from Nye and Tinkham ad- dressed in the same handwriting, showing mailing from a central agency. Wheeler's franks were ad- dressed in a strange, old-fashioned stencil which was traced to the Steuben Society of New York, whose mailing list was used. A postcard frank from Dworshak, bearing ma terial printed in a Bund newspaper. Hoffman's reprint of a Christian Front insertion in the Congression- al Record. And so on.
 FBI WOULDN'T
 PLAY
 Hoke made hundreds of speeches in his crusading during the last year. Without success, he tried to interest the FBI to investigate. Then came the Hill. case, and Hoke got his break.
 In some or all of the cases, it may be shown that the congressman were duped, as Congressman Fish appar- ently was duped, but even where this is not the case, no punitive action can be taken. The reason is that while the postal laws provide $500 penalty for the private use of frank ing privilege by anyone in the execu- tive or judicial departments of the government, there is no penalty for misuse by the legislative department.
 All that can happen is that the PoStoffice Department may caution offenders not to do it again. The good congressman saw to 1t that the a,. z