Evening star., 1950-07-09
Alleges RooseveIts Set
Me- Curthy Example
Writer Discusses Precedents
For CommercioIizine Position
BY Fronk R. Kent

The vast potentialitieS of the Korean
crisis make all other issues seem rela-
lively unimportant However, trivial
though 1t may appear, considering the
ferocious denunciation heaped upon SEN
ator Mccarthy it seems worthwhile to
ask--before it is completely forgotten
why SO little was made of his acceptance
OF $4,000 check for writing book"
on housing for the Lustron Co., default
ers Of an RFC loan?
One would have thought the Mccarthy
critics would have seized upon this un-
Savory incident to tear Mr.. Mccarthy
to pieces. justifying their vehement as
sertionS that he is man destitute of
honor and devoid of shame. For there is
no real defense. Plainly, no such book
as this could be worth $4,000. Plainly,
Senator Mccarthy would not have gotten
the $4,000 had he not been a Senator
Plainly, too, the transaction was the
more reprehenSible because the corpora
tion paid him with borrowed Government
money, which is our money. Yet, with
Senator Mccarthy caught with the
goods" the f1ercest of his critics. who for
months have been bowling for his blood,
mildly referred to it as "unethical' and
let it go at that.
The simple truth is that Senator
Mccarthy has escaped proper denuncia-
ton for this somewhat degraded per-
formance because Congress is all clut-
tered up with members who have been
equally degraded. Plenty have been do
ing in one way and another, the same
sort Of things. Senator Mccarthy knows
this In q ~
example, there are other Senators who
have written articles and books" for
which they received high prices solely be-
cause they were Senators.
There was time when such things
would have been national scandals suf-
flcient to retire members of Senate or
House from public life. But not in the
past 16 years. The ethical standards,
once SO high in the Senate, are almost
low enough to be nonexistent. And
the people as whole no longer seem
capable of healthy moral Indignation.
However. it isn't fair to blame this
degeneration wholly upon Congress and
the people. The real responsibility rests
upon the Roosevelt family. occupants of
the White House from 1888 to 1945.
There Is where it started These Roose-
velts, for the first time in our history,
commercialized the White House, used
its prestige and power to make money
for themselves. No one had ever tried to
do that before. But with the people
anesthetiZed by glamour and gifts, the
RooSeveltS got away with it. No one
has ever been able accurately to eSti-
mate the amount of money Mrs Roose-
velt piled up through magazines. radio.
columns, books, etc., none of which would
have been Salable but for the CONNER
cialization of her position as wife of the
President But it was very large.
Certainly. Jimmie" Roosevelt, now
running for Governor in California. used
his White House connection to promote
his insurance business, and the shameful
way in which Elliott, with the indispen-
sable help of his father, borrowed half
million dollars from rich men, repay
ing the loans at cents on the dollar,
has never been denied. Also, there were
the $5,000-a-piece magazine articles
peddled by the late Harry Hopkins
sale plainly due to his presidential rela-
tions and one of the things not touched
upon by Mr.. Sherwood in his greasy
eulogy. Roosevelt and Hopkins" AS a
matter of fact, there was hardly any one
in the Roosevelt White House circle who
did not capitalize in one form or another.
The outstanding exception was Ste
phen T. Early, who. poor man that he
was, fatty turned down many tempting
money offers to do the kind of thing he
saw being done all around him. For
this his friends are proud of him. There
will come, of course. from the idolators
of the late President the cry that tn
state these things is Roosevelt hating"
a desecration of the grave or some such
nonsense. But they all happen to be
true. And they have been proven.