CORRUPTION: Sidespouts

Last week the Senate's drilling into the Oil Scandal, having slipped momentarily from the firm, legalistic hand of Inquisitor Walsh, emitted several brief sidespouts more spectacularly stupid than significant.

The slip began last fortnight when Inquisitor Walsh let boyish Senator Nye go to Chicago to investigate what might be new evidence. Since Senator Nye is Chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Lands, which is charged with the investigation, it was logical to entrust him with the errand. That it was unfortunate soon became apparent. The importance of his mission overcame him and he returned hinting breathlessly that his findings involved "a name that it would be criminal to mention until further investigation." The name of Warren Gamaliel Harding soon leaked out. The Committee was reviewing the sale in 1923 of President Harding's Marion Star for a surprising price. No bonds traceable to Harry Ford Sinclair were discovered in these records, however. Inquisitor Walsh deplored his young colleague's prematurity.

Also due to Senator Nye, the name of Justice Frederick Lincoln Siddons of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, by whom Sinclair was lately tried and sentenced for contempt of court, was momentarily dragged into the case, then dropped when a mysterious package of '"bonds" turned out to be Christmas cards. The spirit of error spread. In the Senate, the Republican Robinson, from politically malodorous Indiana, arose and inquired if Harry F. Sinclair had not been a New York State horse-race commissioner from 1922 to 1925. Senator Nye jumped up and volunteered that it was his "understanding" that Sinclair had been "a very liberal contributor ... in the campaign of 1920 at which Governor Smith was elected."

Inquisitor Walsh interrupted his young colleague and asked if he knew whereof he spoke. Senator Nye retorted that he did. Inquisitor Walsh, looking puzzled, sat down. Indiana's Robinson, delighted, proceeded to impugn Governor Smith and asked that he be hailed before the inquisitors. Inquisitor Walsh hastened to promise that no such action would be taken and to deplore the aspersions on Governor Smith's reputation.

The basis of Senator Nye's "understanding" about a Smith-Sinclair relation turned out to be a letter he had just received from a casual Manhattan newsgatherer, one Charles T. White, who was forthwith discharged by his employers on the Republican New York Herald-Tribune. Records showed that Sinclair had never contributed to a Smith campaign fund, though in 1918 he gave $1,000 to New York County Democrats. In 1920, four years before the Oil Scandals broke, Governor Smith made Sinclair a racing commissioner with a five-year term. In the 1920 campaign Smith lost. These facts Governor Smith brought out in a blistering letter to Senator Nye, to whom and to Senator Robinson he wished "public humiliation" for reckless statements, "demagogic slander," "infamous insinuations," "outrageous conduct."