THE ADMINISTRATION: We Are Against Sin

To Capitol Hill for a congressional once-over went smiling Judge James P. McGranery of Philadelphia, Attorney-General designate, the man picked by Harry Truman to do the promised house-cleaning chore that Newbold Morris and Howard McGrath fouled up so spectacularly last month. McGranery's performance before the Senate Judiciary Committee left his inquisitors, friend & foe alike, mostly unsmiling.

"Easy as Pie." Through four days of question & answer, blue-jawed Judge McGranery, nattily dressed, dispensed Irish charm and dodged sticky issues. He had one powerful argument on his side: the committee's chairman, Nevada's domineering Pat McCarran was for him; he tapped and banged his gavel to quiet McGranery when the candidate talked too much and led him to acceptable answers when he evaded too blatantly.

What would McGranery do about corruption in Government? "Clean it out and get rid of it . . . Weed out and fire any incompetent, disloyal or dishonest employee . . . Easy as pie." With McCarran's help, he brushed off, as mere feuding, some caustic testimony leveled at him by his Philadelphia enemy and fellow Democrat District Attorney Richardson Dilworth. (Said Dilworth of McGranery: "He would be most political . . . Anything would go for his political friends, anything to garrote his political enemies.")

"Sacred Right." The really painful area of probing concerned the constitutional issues raised by Harry Truman's seizure of the steel mills.

What did McGranery think of the theory of "inherent" presidential powers? The judge smiled: "A sacred right, the right to property . . ." Not satisfied, unfriendly Senators bored in: Can the President 1) proclaim an emergency, and then 2) act under that proclamation without check? McGranery thought it would be unfair to give an offhand opinion. Did McGranery agree that the Constitution is never suspended? Still smiling, long fingers folded, the judge said: It would be ridiculous for him to give an immediate answer. "It would take two weeks . . ."

McCarran whacked his gavel, stared at the witness and cautioned: "This is a government of law . . . You'd have made yourself a tower of strength if you had answered that affirmatively right off the bat." McGranery got the point. "There's no man above the law," he said.

When the Senators asked if the President could rightfully seize the oil or the rubber industry, McGranery first said no, then started qualifying, "Under extreme emergencies, the President has all power . . ." Muttered one of his questioners: "Hold on to your hats, boys, here we go again." It took another blunt McCarran warning before McGranery was finally pinned down to a flat no: the President does not have the power to seize industries. "You know and I know," he added brightly, "that you cannot take private property and maintain the American way of life. We fought too hard for those things." Rumbled Coach McCarran: "You just stay with that now and you will be all right."