Milford chronicle., 1948-12-10

Dz~v up witnesses of be-
N" traying the United
States to the Russian enemy. The
department of justice has ignored
these cases.
Even Russian aliens implicated
in the same band Of conspirators
have not been molested. And a
few days ago Tom Clark. the at
torney general, and Mrs. Clark,
were photographed in happy social
doings at the Soviet embassy.
Thomas is charged with defraud-
ing the government by kick-backs
from real persons who were f1cti-
tiOus employees. He is a rotund
hick Of a vanishing American type
whose social errors in the examina-
ton of witnesses were the honest
patriotic blurts Of the typical main
street insurance man, druggist or
service stationist.
1T WAS NOT BY HIS DOING
THAT CONGRESSIONAL PRO-
CEDURE WAIVED THE TRICKY
LEGALISTIC TANGLES OF THE
COURTS.
MetboJ This method Of get
ting information was
Was there when Thomas
d.. became chairman Of
S"l the committee, estab-
lished, tested, and vindicated long
ago. He just made use Of it and
the gruesome fact is that for all his
prejudice against traitors and
spies, he is no less judicial and fair
than many of the fully articled
judges Of the federal courts now
sitting.
The kick-back of pay has been
common practice in congress for
decades. 1 dare say Mr.. Clark him
self has paid his tithe to his party
for years, failing which he would
be a miracle man deserving the
dribbling adulation. Of Henry Wal
lace.
All politicians pay it to their
parties and President Truman
sat on a county board in Kansas
City which collected for the
Pendergast machine a bounty
called lug on every dollar spent
for public improvements. His
personal abstentiOn from lug Is
interesting but doesn't amount
to formal condemnation Of lug
as lug.
The late Ray Clapper once de.
feated many members OF congress
up for reelection by exposing in
print the fraud or, in a sweeter
word, white graft, which had be-
come a firm auxiliary to the fam
lily income of statesmen on the hill.
The racket is still standard prac.
tice, no more discountenanced by
public opinion than looting by ma
jor-generals.
'PasseP AS l say CIappers
Of passel of runpled
VI.1. vUlgarians Of the
"'s ~ ''A''' lower house, many Of
whom are only transients, anyway.
But it did no good and the sense Of
congress was indignation at Clapper
and mourning for the miscreant
brothers. Actually, the institution
Of nepotism is rock-ribbed in gov.
ernment and in the big unions ale
most all of which now support dy-
nastic families of parasites.
Il has never been more fla
grantly practiCed than by the
late Roosevelt. He loaded the
government rolls with his son,
Jimmy, at SIG, 1000 to fetch him
out of mischief in Boston with
an impecuniOus she-COusin at
$4,000 whose duty Ostensibly
was to choose pretty chintzes
for our far-fung embassies and
old Uncle Fred DelanO.
Uncle Fred was barnacled onto
the national resources planning
board, with a room in the state de-
partment From this Office he used
to write evasive letters to naive in
vestors in the bonds Of a scab
coal mine in the Pennsylvania fields
which the family owned and operat-
ed. The bondholders took a neat
shellacking.
At the approach Of election day,
there was more alarm among Dem
ocratic congressman than RepubIi-
cans over the captious attitude Of
Mr.. Clark toward Congressman
/ Thomas.
If Dewey were then elected and
found it in his soul to prosecute i'm.
partially. more Democrats than Re-
publicans would 60 to quod. The
danger passed. Of course, with the
posting of belated returns but there
is still a feeling among Mr.. Clark's
partisans that far more harm than
good must come Of the Thomas
prosecution.