The Chronicle-star combined with the Moss Point advertiser., 1949-09-02
Whot About The 1000 Percenters?

The congressional investigation of the socalled five
percenters-men with contacts" who charge manufac-
turers five percent for putting them next to government
contracts-is a spectacle wherein a batch of grown men
are bowling their heads off over what in reality is a mighty
small matter. ~
One of the particulars dredged up in the course of this
investigation has to do with gifts presented big shots by
hopeful manufacturers and others seeking favor. Is this,
as some people would have you believe, a new criminal
activity of the Truman administration? Why, no, it is
merely a time-honored practice in our political system.
Every politican-from ward heeler up through county and
state officers and into the highest branches of the govern
ment-is on the gifttlis of everybody who does business or
wants to do business with governmental agencies.
Now, a deep freezer is a valuable article, more Valu-
able than the prize turkeys the Texas growers send the
president, more valuable than the frog legs shipped him
from Louisiana, the grapefruits from Arizona, the purebred
cocker spaniels from New York, the war bonnet from a
bunch of Indians in Oklahoma. But the legs, dogs and
even the war bonnets are sent with the same Interior aims
as the freezers-somebody wants a favor and is doing the
usual buttering-up of highly placed politicians. The value
of the gift has nothing to do with the principle of whether
or not it is wrong for an office holder to accept gifts from
business men and others. If it is wrong, we'll, we are about
a century and a half behind time in doing something about
1t. If no one bowls when Truman gets a cocker in a crate,
no one should bowl If a freezer shows up at the White
House door. 1t is not the value of the offering but the mere
fact than an offering issmade that could be subject of a
serious Investigations anybody thinks it's worth the
time.
We are not defending such characters as Maraqon and
Hunt and Harry Vaughn. That fellow Vaughn strikes US
as q fathead. senior grade. a prime example of one end of
Trumanis extremes in appointments-from excellent to
awfulsb bad. But whether Yop. like 1t or not Vaughn. in his
feeble defense. was speaking the truth when he said the
political gift business had always flourished and was moth
ing to get excited about.
Now, if those chaps in Washington want really to get
into something, let them investigate the millions in profits
realized by a few men through the disposal of war assets.
Let them investigate the reasoning involved in selling for a
few pennies on the dollar giant industrial plants originally
paid for by the government, built to the specifications of
the companies that operated them during the war.
Let them ask why the government should sell for
$4,000 navy destroyers worth millions. 1t was said that
several millions would be required to put the navys older
destroyers into shape for operating in a modern war. But
the ships were. sold for less than the value of the engines
and the buyers reaped handsome profits even if they sold
the ships for SCRAP. Could not the navy have made the
same profit? 4
Let them investigate the people who sold hundreds
OF old army trucks to a Spanish industrialist who then turn
ed a profit several times his purchase price. Let them in
vestgate the thousands of other examples of this sort of
thing.
The people of this country built and paid for those
factories, those destroyers and those trucks. A truck worth
$1,000 to a Spanish businessman is worth $1,000 to the peo-
pie, even though it is war surplus and it would cost money
to repair it and ship it elsewhere for sale. A factory worth
$~lO000,000 to the manufacturer for whom it was built by
the people, is worth $4,000 600 to the people. Yet these
properties were sold at a pitiful fraction of their worth and
the profits went to a few, the loss sustained by the people.
Let's drop the five-percenters and see what goes among the
1000-percenters