Storm in Kansas

In Kansas last week, farmers from Abilene to Topeka watched and worried as dust storms swirled across the state, silting down the new grass and dimming the sun. Across the U.S., politicians' eyes were watching an entirely different kind of Kansas storm, a political tempest, its gusts reaching all the way to Washington. In its center was Charles Wesley (Wes) Roberts, 49, chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Eyebrows & Questions. The first clouds had appeared Feb. 10. That day the Kansas City Star carried a half-column story from its Kansas correspondent, Alvin S. McCoy, about a Kansas state hospital building. It was a tuberculosis hospital built in 1928 under a strange arrangement between the state and the Ancient Order of United Workmen, a fraternal insurance company. The A.O.U.W. paid for construction of the building on state property at Norton, in northwestern Kansas; the state agreed to run the hospital, giving A.O.U.W. policyholders a priority on its beds. In March 1951, when the insurance order's list of patients had dwindled to only one, the A.O.U.W. sold the building to the state for $110,000. Reporter McCoy discovered that the A.O.U.W. had reported its net from the sale at $11,000 less than the state paid. The point of his story: Where did the $11,000 go?

Two days later, State Insurance Commissioner Frank Sullivan provided the answer. Wes Roberts, who had represented the A.O.U.W. in the transaction, got the $11,000 as his fee. Reporters and legislators promptly raised some eyebrows and some questions. If Roberts had promoted the sale of the building, which had to be paid for by the legislature, wasn't he lobbying? He hadn't registered, as lobbyists must under Kansas law. Then an even more basic question arose. There was a 1927 letter signed by the state business manager indicating that the state expected to get the building for nothing if the A.O.U.W. ever gave it up. Had the state bought a building that it already owned?

Under all of these questions was the bigger one of principle. Had Roberts sold his political influence? The Kansas legislators created a special committee and began to investigate. One of the first witnesses was Wes Roberts himself.

He was proud to tell of his part in sale of the building, Roberts testified. At the time he was a private citizen in the public-relations business, held no state or party office, although he had recently resigned as Republican state chairman, and had long been a power in Kansas politics. The price had been approved by the state architect, and Roberts felt it was a good buy for the state. He had talked to members of the State Social Welfare Board (which supervises the state hospitals), and had asked only one legislator for information. Said he: "I was scrupulous in making no lobby approach to the legislators."

Then Roberts turned to the general question of influence peddling. Said he: "I challenge these accusers to bring forth a single person with whom I was in contact who will stand up to me and say I exercised any political influence ... A set of circumstances was deliberately twisted and distorted in a calculated plot to blacken my name and destroy my usefulness in my present position."

"Double a Democrat." Strife within Kansas Republican ranks, boiling long before the hospital fuss, spilled over. Governor Edward F. Arn, a member of the G.O.P. faction that includes Roberts and U.S. Senator Frank Carlson, testified that he found nothing wrong with the transaction. He said that Reporter McCoy "stirred up and distorted the whole thing" because of a grudge against Roberts. Three other witnesses said they had heard McCoy say he was going to "get" Roberts.

McCoy, who wields considerable political influence of his own in Kansas, came forward to testify that he had merely reported the facts. Lieutenant Governor Fred Hall, who leads the G.O.P. faction that bitterly opposes Carlson, Arn and Roberts, mused to reporters that in contrast to Democratic five-percenters, Roberts had turned out to be a ten-percenter. Said he: "Perhaps Wes Roberts had to show he could double a Democrat ... His conduct in this transaction was, at the very least, morally outrageous." Aging (65) Alf Landon, a member of the Hall group, charged that Roberts had "made a raid on the public treasury . . . which stinks to high heaven."

Before the week was out, Kansas Attorney General Harold R. Fatzer filed suit for the state to recover the $110,000 paid for the building. A.O.U.W. officials promptly said they were confident that the courts would establish their right to sell the building..

This week the legislature's investigating committee is to turn in its report. Even if the committee exonerates Wes Roberts, the highest powers of the Republican Party are sure to consider the case. As some others before Roberts have learned, a national political chairman of this era must have a record which avoids the appearance of evil.

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