In the Army Now

When Teamsters President Dave Beck appeared before the McClellan Committee last March, he took the Fifth Amendment on questions about his misuse of union funds, shrilly boasted that he would prove his innocence in a court of law. He will soon have his chance: last week in Tacoma, Wash. a federal grand jury charged Beck* with evading $184,000 in income taxes for 1951, 1952, 1953. Added to the $56,000 for 1950 charged in another indictment last May. this makes Beck's tab $240,000.

After word of the new indictment reached turnip-shaped Dave Beck in Los Angeles, where he was meeting with the Teamsters executive board, he called a press conference, passed the charges off as something that has happened to many a good, red-blooded American. Said Beck: "I've joined the army of hundreds of thousands all over the country that have been indicted for income taxes. It's happening every day all over America." Anyhow, his troubles were all the fault of the meddlesome U.S. Congress--which, cried Dave, has "one or more" former convicts among its members.

* Also indicted: Dave Beck Jr.; Mrs. Dave Beck Sr.'s cousin, Norman Gessert; Teamsters Auditor Fred Verschueren; Beck's pal and personal financier, Chicago Labor-Relations Consultant Nathan Shefferman; and Shefferman's son, Shelton.

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