Research

Frank A. Vanderlip, retired New York banker, whose repetition of rumors about impropriety in the sale of The Marion Star got him summoned before the oil investigating committee and verbally chastised, has set about the business of unofficial investigation. He founded the Citizens Federal Research Bureau to delve deeply into the corruption of Washington. To make it useless for anyone to do him harm in hope of stopping his earnest probings, he took out a $1,000,000 policy in favor of his Bureau. Sard he: "I am not only shadowed constantly, but so are those who come to see me. Somebody's money is being spent for this. You can draw your own conclusions as to whose." Mr. Vanderlip's new efforts did not save him from more criticism, however. F. Trubee Davison,* Assemblyman (i.e., State Representative) in New York, speaking before a political gathering of women, exclaimed: "And the cowardice of their [scandal investigators'] attacks reached its culmination when Mr. Vanderlip assailed the reputation of a dead President who could make no answer to those accusations. What Mr. Vanderlip needs is a punch in the jaw to bring him back to a realization of a proper sense of values." Mr. Vanderlip wrote young Mr. Davison a letter, saying: "I am an old friend and admirer of your father and knew you when you were a small boy, and I was pleased when I heard some time ago that you had determined to serve your country by going into politics. I have no doubt that you believe what you are quoted as saying, for I know that a great many other people lacking information on the Washington situation since March 4, 1921, think as you do.

"If you come to Washington and care to inform yourself more fully, I shall be glad to place at your disposal information gathered by the Citizens' Federal Research Bureau, which I have founded for the purpose of stamping out the wholesale graft of all kinds that has been going on in the Federal Government."

Meantime Mr. Vanderlip's attorneys prepared and filed his answer to a $600,000 suit for libel and slander which the owners of the Marion Star had instituted against him on the allegation that he had said they paid much more for the paper than it was worth. The answer declared that Mr. Vanderlip's remarks repeating the rumor were justified by public interest, that they did no damage to the plaintiffs, that they had failed to contradict the rumor although it was current, and that the plaintiffs themselves added to the circulation of his remarks by publishing them in The Star and other papers controlled by them.

* Young Mr. Davison is the elder son. of the late Henry P. Davison, famed partner of J. P. Morgan, and head of the Red Cross, founder of the Bankers Trust Co., one of the greatest figures in American financial history. Trubee Davison graduated from Yale, was an aviator in the War until injured, studied at Columbia Law School, became Chairman of the General Laws Committee of the New York legislature, is connected with the law firm of White & Case.