Evening star., 1951-12-09
Inquiry Planned
In Missouri on
Recorder Choice
Senate Agents Seek
Further Dutu on
Earl Wayne Beck
By Don S. Worren

Two agents of the Senate Dis
trict Committee will fly to Kansas
City today to inquire into the
background of an old political
friend of President Truman who
wants to be the Districts new
recorder of deeds at $1,000 year.
The District Committee twice
in October withheld its confirma-
ton of Earl Wayne Beck for the
patronage plum.
An on-the-scene inquiry, in fact,
was ordered when President Tru-
man abruptly rejected District
Committee suggestions that he
withdraw the nomination.
Pendergast Appointee.
The candidate, who is colored,
had been seeking the Washington
appointment for some years. He
was a Pendergast machine ap-
pointee as welfare home super
intendent. He served under Mr..
Truman when the President, years
ago, was an official of Jackson
County, Mo.
The Kansas City inquiry will be
bipartisan affair. 1t will be
conducted by Gerhard P. van
Arkel, counsel to the District
Committee, New Dealer, and by
Robert c. Albrook, administrative
assistant to Senator Case, Repub-
lican of South Dakota, ranking
minority party member of the
District Committee. Mr.. Albrook
is a former managing editor Of
a South Dakota paper.
Charges Bad Practices
They will inquire, among other
things, into charges that Mr..
Beck. while for Is years super
intendent of the Jackson County
Home for Negro Boys and Girls.
was negligent or guilty of various
kinds of bad practices. Among
these are complaints that he occa-
sionally beat some of his inmates,
and that he failed to provide in
mates with proper food although
the home farm was lush with
f1ocks of turkeys and chickens
and had great supplies of hogs
and milk.
Why President Truman found
it necessary to go 1,100 miles west
of the Capital to fill the record
er's job may continue as one Of
the unanswered mysteries. One
answer, of course. could be that
the appointment by law rested
with the President and he award
ed it to some ore he had known
in earlier years.
Some members of the District
committee, however, are not sat-
isfled with that since Mr.. Beck,
on the witness stand here, ad-
mitted he did not know the quail
if1cations for the job or what
would be his duties if confirmed.
Several Senators, in fact, de-
clared that the recorders JOB.
traditionally awarded to a colored
citizen, should go to a Washing
ton resident since it is a local
city government post and one
paid out of District, not Federal,
revenues.
Denies All Complaints.
Mr.. Beck has given general
denials to all complaints against
him. even those registered by the
Kansas City grand juries, which
make annual surveys of county
institutions and the Kansas City
School Board which in 1910 de-
manded his custer. The grand
juries protested his lack of proper
food for his county wards.
He has a lot of friends in Kan
sas City and many of these have
sent the District Committee COM
mendations for his appointment.
Some of these as we'll as his critics
are to testify at the closed door
hearings in Kansas City.
The committee agents admitted
ly face a difficult task for they will
be trying to resurrect the facts
of 10 years ago or so. Political
feelings ran high in Kansas City
about that time when the old
Pendergast machine control was
broken and a number of high
ranking members were jailed.
llnAAI T. DJl