"My Father Is a Liar"

Henry James O'Brien Bedford-Jones, 48, of Palm Springs, Calif. disguises the fact that he is one of the country's most prolific writers for the pulp press by a variety of pseudonyms. Far harder to conceal is his amazing family. Last March Mrs. Bedford-Jones II found herself in Chicago being sued for $200,000 for alienation of affections by Mrs. Bedford-Jones I. Taking the stand for her stepmother, Daughter Helen Bedford-Jones, 20, testified as follows against her mother:

"Mother was going to be a social somebody. ... I had to learn to play the harp ... so my mother could point to us and say, 'My talented children.' . . . When Mother broke her leg, Father said he was awful sorry but he was sure glad to have her away for a while." The jury awarded Helen's mother $100,000 but the judge set the verdict aside as against the weight of evidence and soon thereafter Illinois outlawed such suits.

Last week a new civil war of the Bedford-Joneses was being waged in Liberty, New Masses and newspaper headlines, between big, jovial Mr. Bedford-Jones and his pretty, self-willed daughter Nancy, 18.

It exploded with an article in Liberty, called Will the Communists Get Our Girls in College? and signed J. G. Shaw. This put forth the idea that the Student League for Industrial Democracy (SLID) is a disguised Communist trap for college students and that the male members occasionally seduce the female recruits. Wrote J. G. Shaw, ''You can't afford to laugh at them--as I did ... and a thousand other fathers who see their daughters put on the road to Hell--too late." Liberty added that the time required to read this article was 13 minutes, five seconds.

Sooner than that Daughter Nancy decided that Author J. G. Shaw was none other than Father Bedford-Jones in a fresh disguise and that he was talking about her. Her counterblast entitled My Father Is a Liar! promptly appeared last week in the Communist magazine, New Masses:

"The author of these slanderous lies is my father--H. Bedford-Jones. . . . He is America's most prolific writer and has entranced millions of readers for two decades.* I had always loved and admired my father as a pal and I was heartsick when I learned of this. I didn't believe a father could do this to his daughter. . . . It is fantastic, incredible, sordid--but true. ... Of the second girl [in the Liberty article], supposedly the daughter of a man called Johnson, the article says that she was one of the victims of 'Cyril Gerbervitch,' allegedly a young Red who seduces girls in order to travel about the country at their expense; according to the article he borrowed the car of Johnson's daughter and forged her name to gasoline certificates. The article insinuates that Gerbervitch is the true name of the chap and that he 'derussianizes it at times.' But his real name, according to his birth certificate and other documents, is actually Serril Gerber ... a leader of the National Student League. . . . Yes, I lent him my car, a Ford roadster and on one occasion also lent him my gasoline credit card and gave him permission to sign my name to the certificates. . . . I am Johnson's daughter. . . . How the Red-baiters and mudslingers will welcome this new angle! ... A vicious attempt to fill American fathers and mothers with a deathly fear for their daughters. . . . How clever an attempt to strike at the most vulnerable and unreasoning spot in the adult's armor--their children. My father does not know, as yet, that I have written this. After he learns this, he will undoubtedly take action against me. . . . We call upon the youth of America. . . ."

Waiting for her father's next move, Daughter Nancy last week told newshawks: "I consider my father on two planes. One is the man I love and admire, a pal and a friend. The other is a political enemy."

*Says Mrs. Bedford-Jones I: "I never read anything Mr. Bedford-Jones writes. I'm thankful I don't have to."

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