National Affairs: The Uncivil Servant

Delaware's watchdogging Senator John J. Williams had a shocker for his colleagues: Were they aware that "the United States Government is operating a race track, has employed as its general manager a nationally known racketeer"? Were they aware that the Government "is paying that former racketeer an annual salary of $35,000," placing him below only the President ($100,000) and the Chief Justice ($35,500) on the U.S. payroll?

Republican Williams' target was a pudgy bull's-eye he has blasted before, onetime Bootlegger and Numbers King William G. ("Big Bill") Lias, whose badly distributed 360 lbs. cause him to resemble the false-bottomed gasoline truck he devised in the '20s to haul West Virginia moonshine. Forsaking crasser occupations, Lias in 1945 bought Wheeling Downs, a half-mile track on an island in the Ohio River at Wheeling. He soon raced into trouble: the U.S. sued him for unpaid income taxes that, compounded by penalties and interest, totaled more than $2,500,000. Immigration authorities, ignoring Lias' protests that he was born in Wheeling in 1900, have decided that he was born in Greece, and are prepared to send him back as an undesirable alien once the tax suit is settled.

To protect its claim, the Government put Lias into receivership in 1952, then decided Big Bill probably could run the federalized race track more efficiently than anyone else. Lias, who paid himself $65,000 a year as general manager, asked a modest $55,000 to do the job for Uncle Sam. Federal Judge Harry E. Watkins, supervising the receivership, scaled the request to $35,000. Of that, $15,000 is deducted for current taxes, $10,000 is applied to Big Bill's seven-figure debt to the U.S., and the remaining $10,000 is for Lias.

With a court-appointed receiver and Judge Watkins keeping eyes on him, Lias has become a grudgingly effective overseer. Since 1952, Wheeling Downs has paid $4,000,000 in federal, state and local taxes and provided its stockholders a $50,000 dividend. Net worth of the racing association has climbed from $202,000 to $386,000; working cash has multiplied from $12,000 to $342,000. The Internal Revenue Service, which balked at Lias' offers to settle his tax bill—first for $500,000 and later for $1,600,000—makes no apology for allowing Wheeling Downs to operate with Big Bill at its helm. "We're a collection agency," said an IRS man last week. "If he's got the connections and know-how to make [it] pay, swell."