Reckoning

Congressman J. Parnell Thomas sat disconsolately in Washington's district court last week, a pudgy, petulant man whose high-riding days were over.

The prosecution's evidence was overwhelming. Thomas had padded his congressional payroll for eight years with fictitious employees and pocketed most of their salaries for himself. On the third day of his trial for fraud, as some of Congressman Thomas' non-working "employees" prepared to testify against him, he surrendered. He withdrew his plea of not guilty and entered a no-contest plea to four charges of conspiracy and fraud. Liable to as much as 32 years in prison and fines totalling $40,000, Parnell Thomas hoped for mercy--a quality he had never shown in his ruthless badgering of witnesses in the days when he presided over the House Un-American Activities Committee.

On trial with him was Helen Campbell, a grandmotherly spinster who, as Thomas' chief secretary, had carried out the salary kickback scheme on orders from the boss. Helen Campbell, in a fit of conscience and disgust, turned on Thomas and told what she knew. Columnist Drew Pearson printed the full story, leading the Congressman to his downfall. For her "free, frank and full" confession, Judge Alexander Holtzoff let Miss Campbell go free.

At least five women, including Helen Campbell's niece and the niece's maid, Parnell Thomas' aunt and daughters-in-law, were on the Congressman's payroll, drew about $20,000 in salaries and never did any work. One, a clerk-typist on the payroll of the House Un-American Activities Committee, did put in a short stint--addressing Thomas' Christmas cards.

Parnell Thomas, who in his 203 had changed his name from Feeney to Thomas, and his religion from Catholic to Episcopal, had served his New Jersey district in Congress for twelve years, had even been re-elected last November with the charges hanging over him. He had indignantly denied them then. Due in federal court for sentencing this week, he was expected also to resign from Congress, to let a better American take his place.

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