The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1945-07-09
Fair Enough
BY WEsTBRoOK PEGLER


iC0pyr1gnt, 1910, Dy King Features Syndlcate.)
NEW YORK, July 8-In one of his state
papers, written in October, 1929, Franklin D.
Roosevelt sounded high note
How about the larger number of public
officials who are honest in the sense that
they cannot be put in JAIL but who are dis
honest in the sense that they commit acts
wtic are morally and ethically wrong?" He
demanded. what of a public official who
allows member of his family to obtain fees
or benefits through his political infuence?"
This is the late Presidents own answer to
those who now would condone or dismiss the
charge that during his presidency he used the
prestige, il not the real power, of his high
office to obtain large loans for his son, Elliott,
and later to clean up these debts, one of
them at the rate of two cents on the dollar.
| BY his own declarat on OF moral ethical STAN
dards, Mr.. Roosevelt has indicted his name
and compromised his place in history, how
ever, an indictment is not a conviction but
merely charge and he is entitled to fair
trial of the evidence. Further developments
might Justify formal court trial a grand
Jury indictment of some surviving principal
in dealings thus far revealed or yet to be
revealed. If there should be no grand jury
indictment, however, then those who revere
the memory Of Mr.. Roosevelt should be the
last to oppose congressional inquiry which
would offer the only means OF rehabilitating
him as an honorable public servant.
? 1t may be remembered, although more like
ly it has been forgotten, that Wendell Willkie
said something during the presidential cam
paign of 1910 which, in the light of recer
developments, strongly suggests that he had
| received word of acts which might come under
Mr.. Roosevelts own denEnciation of moral
| and ethical wrong. Willlkie was lawyer with
a prosperous practise in public utilities. He
never was accused of any dishonest act in
this legitimate field of legal practise but
nevertheless the propagandists of the Roose-
welt party heckled him with insinuations that
Wall street lawyer must be crook
They ignored the fact that, in 1924, Roose-
welt, himself, endorsed John w. Davis, the
| Democratic nominee for president who was
a Wall street lawyer and a partner in the
| firm of J. p Morgan. They overlooked, also,
| the fact that when their candidate had been
lawyer his office had been in the Wall
street district and that even then his son.
| Jimmy had an insurance office in the same
| region. There was the same note OF insinEation
in the emphasis which the new deal propa-
gandists laid on the fact that Wilkes apart
ment was at 1910 Fifth avenue, New York
That was a false move, however, for the
Republicans quickly replied that Harold L.
Ickes, the one who threw that boomerang,
had two o m both more pretentioCs
than Wilkes apartment and one of them on
street called, in his biographical data in Who's
Who Private Road" nor did they neglect
to make the comparison between Wilkes
apartment paid for with his own earnings,
and the Roosevelt ancestral estate at Hyde
Park received by Inheritance.
At any rate, Willkie plainly was needed
by this propaganda SO one day he announced
that if he were elected he would file sworn
statement of his assets and those ct his family
on taking office and another when he should
leave the presidency. That was a formality
L .k~I L., .x,@ -
sister republics to the South as corrective
measure, but the suggestion that it had been
made necessary in our country made no i'm
preston on the people. They either rejected
the very idea that Mr.. Roosevelt would stoop
to acts which he, himself, had condemned,
or were so far gone in such civic immortality
that they could nothing improper in such
conduct even if it could be verified
It is no. repeating runnor spreading Scan-
dial to say that there is evidence which strong
ly suggests many other acts of exploitation
of the pres: dental office which would come
fairly within the denunciation that Mr.. Roose'
welt uttered in 1929. At that time statement
of this character served political purpose
| against his opponents, but that fact is no
reason to doubt his sincerity, then. The ques-
ton of his sincerity and of his ethics and
| morals in office comes now with the unchal-
lenged assertion that he encouraged bust
ness man who was under political fire to lend
5000, 600 TO his ''unbankable'' security
and later enlisted Jesse JONES' his Secretary
of Commerce, to settle this debt on terms
amounting as far Elliott was concerned.
to total washout, and other liabilities at
great discounts.
The instructive reaction Of those who would
defend the late President has been to suspect
the lender of Interior motives. Perhaps Hart
ford'S motives were not pure. He might have
thought that if he didn't lend the money his
troubles would multiply as, in fact, they did,
notwithstanding the loan. But of this
counter attack, consisting, so far, of innuendo
accompanied by no direct charges, ma at
tempted to deny that the initiative Oil
the side of the borrower and that Hall Roose-
welt, the Presidents brother-in-law, Elliott's
uncle and the brother of Mrs. Eleanor Roose-
velt and member of the White House family
circle, took an active part in the negotiations
Mr.. Rocsevelt's own question, What of
public official who allows a member of his
family to obtain fees or benefits through his
political inEuence?' demands an answer from
those who are in position to give it.
|