National Affairs: Common Practices

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What Dana Smith says he did would not be open to the question of propriety if Dana Smith were a Republican Party treasurer, mailing out the statements of and arranging speeches for all the party's spokesmen in his state. Smith, however, performed that function not for the whole party but for the Nixon faction. One reason for secrecy was that Nixon's people wanted to avoid a factional clash with the Warrenites, who work the same ground for campaign contributions. (Some, but not all, of Nixon's contributors also contribute to Warren's campaigns.)

In ethics or in plain propriety, Nixon's fund invites the same kind of scrutiny that should be turned on any public man who gets outside personal or political income. In such cases, the question: "Did this money influence him?" is always valid. But the validity of the question is one thing. The automatic assumption that a man is tainted because he uses political contributions to cover his political expenses is something else again.