"Pretty Swell"

When the New York-to-Cuba vacation liner Morro Castle was gutted by fire off the New Jersey coast in 1934 with the loss of 124 lives, closest approach to a hero to emerge from the muckraking Department of Commerce investigation that followed was the ship's chief radio operator, pudgy George White ("Sparks") Rogers. Having stuck to his key until he was hauled out of the radio room half-suffocated, Sparks Rogers was decorated for his heroism by the Veteran Wireless Operators Association.

He left the sea at the insistence of his wife Edith, but lost no time embarking, at a reported $1,000 a week, on a brief vaudeville tour during which he stolidly told his audiences: "You people have made a hero out of me. . . ." After that Hero Rogers opened a small Manhattan radio service shop. Two years ago he was glad to be appointed a patrolman in the radio bureau of the Bayonne, N. J. police department at $2,200 a year.

One person who still remembered Sparks Rogers' heroism was his good-natured new chief, Lieutenant Vincent Doyle, also a retired ship radio operator. The Doyles and Rogerses struck up a warm friendship. When Lieutenant Doyle's little daughter was taken ill, the lieutenant lunched every day with the Rogers family. Whenever Mrs. Rogers baked a cake, her husband took a piece to the Doyles. And it soon became clear that, if anything happened to Vincent Doyle, George Rogers would probably inherit his $3,200-a-year job.

Three weeks ago something very serious happened to Vincent Doyle. One morning a package was delivered at his office, with a typed note attached: "Lt. Doyle. This is a fish-tank heater. Please install switch in line cord and see if unit will work. It should get warm." When puzzled Lieutenant Doyle followed these instructions, the machine exploded, tearing off three of his fingers and breaking his leg. George Rogers was the first man at his chief's side. Next day, when he took Mrs. Doyle to visit her husband at the hospital, he asked through his tears: "Bud, how can I get that guy?"

Last week, having made a quiet but thorough examination of the bombing, Bayonne's Police Chief Cornelius O'Neill came to the conclusion that "that guy" was none other than Sparks Rogers himself, ordered his arrest. The wire used on the homemade bomb, said Chief O'Neill, was the same as that in one of Rogers' radio kits and the note had been typed on an office machine. Lieutenant Doyle recalled that Rogers, who generally opened the bureau's mail, had given him the package and asked him three times during the day to open it himself, but he remained incredulous. Said he: "I won't believe it until he says so himself."

Released on $5,000 bail pending a grand jury investigation, erstwhile Hero Rogers retorted hotly: "So help me God, Captain, I didn't do it."

Said Chief O'Neill, coldly: "After the glory of the Morro Castle, two years as an ordinary patrolman must have seemed pretty dull. An ambitious man might think it would be pretty swell to be the lieutenant in charge. . . ."

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