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Show NewsT By PaULMLIa0n3 Releawd by Westorn Nrwipaper Union. WAR CONTRACTS INQUIRY COULD GET OUT OF HAND WASHINGTON. The politicians politi-cians are chuckling at the political politi-cal implication behind the May scandal case. The Inside story Is that Mr. May, chairman of the house military affairs af-fairs committee, walked into the difficulties with the Mead investigating investi-gating committee, and that the investigation in-vestigation was not inspired otherwise. other-wise. As May is a conservative Democrat, and Senator Mead of New York has aspirations for the governorship, certain political authorities au-thorities had circulated the report that the case against May was worked up for purposes of widening widen-ing the split within Democratic ranks by the liberal side for the purposes of punishing a conservative conserva-tive Southerner. If lt did not originate origi-nate in such purposes, it certainly had that political effect. However logical this report may sound to some, the Inside story Is that the Mead committee membership member-ship was making a routine check Into the complicated financial setup set-up In the Garsson companies. Some suspicions about the May transaction trans-action were uncovered but not made public. Then May brought Dr. Henry Garsson to see Mead to corn plain about the companies being "persecuted" by a meddling Investigation, Inves-tigation, which, they contended, was holding up reconversion to peacetime activities. MEAD HAD TO ACT. The committeemen claim other efforts were made to get them to desist, but they will not identify these efforts beyond the point of saying these came from within the Democratic party. Despite the Imminence of the coming congressional election, the Republicans co-operated with the Democratic members in all ways. The Republican Sen. Homer Ferguson Fer-guson of Michigan (who does not run again until 1949) has been termed the "bird dog" of the committee. com-mittee. Ferguson and his Republican Repub-lican colleagues were in a position to force Mead to act if he tried to cover up. Perhaps they may have been gleeful at the prospect of roasting a Democrat on the eve of departure for home and election. Another inner political sidelight Is that the Garssons hired as their counsel for the Inquiry Wayne Johnson, a well-known New York City Democrat. The evidence carried odors reaching to high heaven, but did not prove conclusively that May ever received any money directly, direct-ly, although It produced testimony Indicating money was sent. The committeemen have been authorised author-ised to look over the Income tax returns of May to supply the missing miss-ing links, and while these cannot be used as evidence or made public pub-lic In any way, the committee may get some leads to the links. The law permits President Truman to authorize such looks at the returns. All in all, the newsmen who sat at the press table throughout the Inquiry thought the whole case could be put down as a scandal so plainly marked with evidence that no one could cover it on any side, Democratic, Republican, PAC, or any other. REP. COFFEE INVOLVED. But lo and behold, the case produced pro-duced a political tall larger than the dog. The Coffee case, following follow-ing immediately thereafter, concerned con-cerned a left-leaning Democrat Rep. John M. Coffee, who received $2,500 from a war contractor for services. He votes mostly on the leftist) side. Thus the scandals came out even In Democratic ranks between the two conflicting factions, and the Republicans gained the most Kround from the entire transaction. At least no one showed they claimed to have or were selling any influence. It wus Senator Brewster, Republican Republi-can of Maine, who told the committee com-mittee of the Coffee matter, which first was mentioned in a mayoralty campaign in Tacoma, Wash., by Republicans. I think the sum total of the scandal matter is this: If anyone any-one started turning over every war contract, at this particular time of world crisis and difficult peace, even to gain ground in an election, the ultimate outcome would be difficult to foretell. At any rate, the Mead committee went to work on some presumably minor cases on the Pacific coast. m CAN'T GUARANTEE FREEDOMS The Paris gathering of 21 nations to consider the Big Four peace deal started off under unique circumstances. cir-cumstances. The 170 mlmeo-grnphed mlmeo-grnphed pnttcs comprising the proposed pro-posed texts ore considered by experts ex-perts to have been very xorl.v drufted from a technical standpoint cf expression. This was charged to the difficulties of translation. As to the meanings of the agreements ond guarantees, few thought them any stronger than the governments which would operate them. |