G-Whiz

The chief of the G-Men, John Edgar Hoover, is an author of no mean capacity. Prolific Mr. Hoover's plots, as he purveys them in magazine articles, on the radio, on public platforms, generally have to do with intrigue, kidnappers, back-room dictators, disaffected aliens, furtive agents conniving against the U. S. Government.

Last week Mr. Hoover had a whiz of a plot. Its characters were mostly people in the swarming ruck of New York City: an elevator mechanic, a telegraph office clerk, a baker, a telephone linesman, a chauffeur, a power company clerk, a tailor, a correspondence school salesman. Some belonged to the Army and Navy reserves or the National Guard; one was a captain. The props included twelve Springfield rifles, 3,500 rounds of ammunition reportedly stolen from National Guard armories, one long sword, 18 cans of cordite powder, a collection of soup and beer cans with accessories for turning them into bombs, four belts of machine-gun ammunition, four .22 rifles.

Terrific was the plot: a scheme to sweep aside New York City's 18,000 police, bomb a Jewish newspaper office and the Communist Daily Worker, wipe out all the Jews, seize U. S. Government gold in Manhattan, sabotage and then commandeer public utilities, set up a U. S. dictatorship. For practicing their plot, the 18 central characters had a rifle range. For the national affiliations necessary to their plan, they had connections with one of the several anti-Semitic "Christian Fronts" which infest the U. S. and particularly New York City (TIME, Oct. 30).

Only trouble with this plot was that few pulp editors would offend their read ers with such horrendous fantasy. Mr. Hoover's answer to that one: it was no fantasy at all. Last weekend he and his G-Men rounded up the 18, jailed them in Manhattan, charged them with conspiracy against the U. S. Government. Chief among their prisoners were two active Christian Fronters, John F. Cassidy and William Gerald Bishop (whom Belgium and Great Britain had previously de ported). Their affiliations greatly embarrassed Detroit's Father Charles E. Coughlin, who is forever calling for "a Christian Front" to save the country. Father Coughlin, wishing Mr. Hoover Godspeed, said he not only disavowed the arrested 18 but recently spurned a $1,000 donation from their particular Christian Front.

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