Vanderlip's Folly?

"Gossip is mere tittle-tattle, does not spread very much. Rumor I regard as something that grows, that spreads, that comes so it is repeated not by idle tittle-tales, but by responsible people who may not know--and in this case no one professed to know what the facts were, but the rumor passed on. It was a substantial rumor." Thus did Frank A. Vanderlip, retired banker, describe rumor before the Senate Committee on Public Lands.

The incident which provoked the description was a matter of no great political significance but of some civic importance. Mr. Vanderlip, in a speech before a Rotary Club at Briarcliff, N. Y., had made certain statements which were reported in the press as follows:

"'A certain Marion newspaper sold for $550,000, when it was well known to every one that it was not worth half that sum.

"'Two young men of no financial standing purchased it. Everybody in Washington, including the newspaper correspondents, knows this, but no one wants to look under the edge of a shroud.

"'Where did the money come from? Where did it go? These are matters oi public interest. The last Adminis-tration stands challenged. We cannot wait for Congress or the courts, especially when we remember that Mr. Daugherty is Attorney General.

"'The Senate did not go further in investigating Secretary Fall, because Fall was ready to peach and what he would have said would have gone into high places. They didn't dare. . .

"'The associates of Senator Walsh are very improper investigators of any moral question. Jim Reed is a political skunk, and if he were dusted with asafetida it would perfume him.'"

The Senate Committee investigating the oil scandals summoned Mr. Vander-lip to Washington. He was asked to testify as to the source of these statements.

He denied absolutely that his remarks about "a certain paper" had been statements of fact. He declared they bad been given as reports of a rumor, in the hope that that rumor would be arrested and slain by investigation. He did not know that the Senate Public Lands Committee had been advised not to force Mr. Fall to testify because such testimony would give him immunity from prosecution. He knew nothing about the oil scandal not acquired from the press and from rumor. He had not sent a report of the rumors which he voiced to the Committee on Public Lands because he did not know that that Committee had anything to do with newspapers.

"The thing that I do know," he said in his testimony, "was the fact that this rumor, and that it was a rumor, rose far above gossip; it was current in New York. You heard it on the train. It was becoming current throughout the country that there was such a story. It was something rivalling the importance of the whispered campaign that there was in the last month before Mr. Harding's election, and I believed that out of respect to his memory that thing should be brought up to close scrutiny, and the scandal, if it is a scandal, as I believe it is, should be downed."

The committee was not easy with him. Part of the examination:

Q.--Furthermore, Mr. Vanderlip, you said you were a friend of Mr. Harding?

A.--Yes, sir.

Q.--And Mr. Harding was dead?

A.--Yes, sir.

The Chairman--Well, Mr. Vanderlip, the explanation you give as to the statements you made in reference to the newspaper at Marion was to protect the reputation of the dead man. You did not have any such purpose in mind in reference to the committee?

Mr. Vanderlip--No, the committee is a very live committee.

Louis H. Brush, one of the present owners of the Marion Star, testified: "Under the contract of sale Mr. Harding was to receive for his 605 shares of stock a total of $263,000. The remaining 195 shares of the total capital issue of the company were purchased by us from the minority stockholders, either present or former employees of the Marion Star, for a total of $117,000, making $380,000 the total purchase price."