| Show inside info exaggerated there has been remarkable interest es it recently in charges that washington in agton officials used inside information obtained because of their connection with the government to play the markets the other day one highly placed gentleman came to me in quite a stew H have a ve you heard the rumor that I 1 was being charged with playing the market on information I 1 got fr from the white house 1 he asked no 11 1 I replied who is doing the charging what I 1 want to fand out he sputtered well I 1 answered surprised at his wrath you certainly dont feel insulted by it do iou you anybody can be charged with anything in an election year 1 I certainly am insulted he came back not because my honor Is being impugned but it isan Is an insult to my intelligence to imply that anyone an one who has been around washington as long as I 1 have would be such an ass when I 1 first came to washington as a reporter I 1 remember there was a miner scandal on leaks that had been used lor for profit the chief offender however was wais a pub lacity man not an official and from the standpoint of business it proved a fine thing for him As soon as the charges that he had obtained confidential information and had passed it on to his client were made public he had a dozen offers from other big firms to ge on their payrolls rol s he did but it long before fore he left washington oin he get any more confidences A lesser factor in the affair was a newspaper reporter it was discovered that he was on the payroll of a brokerage firm to whom he phoned anything he thought might be of interest after he had written his story for his paper whose last edition had an early afternoon deadline it was shown that the brokers paid him all of 25 a month in the investigation it also was shown that while he knew what was news for or a newspaper the reporter had only the foggiest idea of what would interest a broker as he be probably never owned a share of stock in his life he was duly fired from the paper and suspended from the press club but nobody was too sore fore they knew as my arl friend end indicated dica ted it was stupidity rather than lack of virtue which was his bis chief sin bin my own first lesson on the subject of 01 washington journalistic ethics was administered very tender tenderly 1 y by an old timer my boss my assign ment was helping to cover the abrl british t embassy early in world war 1 I before america had become embroiled I 1 one night my b boss oss who knew everybody in washington took me along to introduce me to the british commercial im not sure that was what he be was railed called in those days but it describes his job he talked with us quite a while much more freely than he would have conversed with me alone tor for I 1 was a stranger to him in the course of 0 the conversation he mentioned that tomorrow or next day great britain would announce what amounted to an e embargo m bargo on american wool brita britain in wanted to switch her buying to australia tr alia the explained the background of 0 the move in detail when we were out on the street my boss pulled out his watch and r remarked to me now it if we were crooked we would still have time before the markets MIrk ets close to make a lot of morley money selling short we he have to explain further AFTER the british had made their announcement I 1 was able to write a good follow interpreting the move all any newsman gets out of confidential information and all that 99 44 per cent of us ever expect the same thing applies to government employees those who act otherwise soon depart |
