"Too Apparent...too Many"

"Too Apparent . . . too Many"

Thick clouds of smoke have arisen all summer and fall from WTActivities in such important political vineyards as Kentucky, Tennessee, New Jersey, Pennsylvania. So far the Senate Campaign Investigating Committee, headed by Texas' mild-spoken old Senator Morris Sheppard, has found no fire beneath the fumes though it has kept WPA's nimble Harry Hopkins on the jump answering questions.

Last week not Senator Sheppard's Committee but a Federal grand jury at Albuquerque, N. M. exposed the hottest WPA political scandal of the year. It indicted 73 people for using WPA as a political machine, giving work-relief preference to obedient voters, exacting political contributions from WPAsters by threats and intimidation, organizing WPA foremen and timekeepers into vote-compelling "social clubs," taking WPAsters off their work to pack a political parade and then falsifying the rolls to make it seem they had been working.

Among those accused were Fred G. Healy, whom Harry Hopkins last month quietly removed as New Mexico's WPAdministrator; an Internal Revenue man; the head of the State Drivers License Bureau; the wife and brother of Albuquerque's postmaster; the police chief of Las Vegas and his brother; Joe Martinez, secretary to Senator Chavez, the New Dealer whom Jim Farley got appointed after Senator Bronson Cutting was killed in an air crash. Swart, Spanish-blooded poor-but-proud Senator Dennis Chavez, who got credit for most of the Federal funds obtained for New Mexico, also beheld four of his close relatives indicted: his son-in-law, Assistant U. S. Attorney Stanley W. P. Miller; his cousin, Salamon Chavez; his sister, Mrs. Anita Tafoya (in charge of a WPA sewing project) and Nephew Salamon Tafoya.

The grand jurors, said their foreman, were amazed by the evidence they heard. "It is too apparent," he said, "that too many persons seeking personal and political gains have violated legal and moral codes."

New Mexico has no Senate election this year, and the State sends only one Representative (Democrat John J. Dempsey of Santa Fe) to the House. Besides having his secretary and members of his family indicted, Mr. Chavez had other reason for feeling uncomfortable along with his ally, Mr. Dempsey. Last year they got Fred Healy, now indicted, appointed WPAdministrator in place of Lee Rowland, a friend of their political opponent, Governor Clyde Tingley. The warm-blooded Senator warned people not to condemn his friends and relatives before they had their day in court; meantime, his son-in-law took the "advisable" step of "separating himself" from the Department of Justice.

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