Clerical Imagination

When First Assistant Secretary of the Interior Theodore Walters died last November, eleven Western Senators suggested to President Roosevelt that someone from the West be nominated to succeed him. Mr. Roosevelt nominated instead Mr. Ebert K. Burlew. Few courtiers can stay in favor through more than one dynasty, but Mr. Burlew, administrative assistant to the last four Secretaries of the Interior in a row, was a particular favorite of Republican Hubert Work, is still a particular favorite of New Dealer Harold Ickes. Under Mr. Ickes he has been virtually manager of the Interior Department. He has been constantly embroiled with his colleagues, but almost always on good terms with his boss. He and Mr. Ickes even look somewhat alike.

Last month President Roosevelt sent his nomination to the Senate. Vexed, the eleven Western Senators demanded public hearings before the Public Lands Committee. Hearings on Mr. Burlew meant hearings on the Interior Department, and Senators who are not fond of uppity Mr. Ickes have been itching to investigate that Department. Members of the Public Lands Committee cocked their cigars at a truculent angle and began to ask Mr. Burlew questions. Within two days they had turned up a story of the sort that investigating committees dream of.

Dreamer. Reno Stitely earned $2.300 a year as chief voucher clerk in the National Park Service of the Interior Department. One day in 1934 he had an inspiration. He created in his own imagination a whole CCC camp in Virginia's Shenandoah National Park. The Government had never dreamed of Mr. Stitely's camp but he gave it an imaginary supervisor and eight imaginary foremen. Then he made out payroll vouchers and sent them to the War Department, which pays all National Park Service employes who do conservation work. Unfortunately, he could not make up imaginary CCC boys, for they are not paid through the Park Service. For three-and-a-half years Clerk Stitely led a more abundant life, collected 1,116 checks totaling $84,000. Once, in a burst of generosity, he gave two of his imaginary foremen raises. Now & then he put one of them on the sick list.

The Public Lands Committee was shocked and delighted. Senator Key Pittman reflected: "An instance of this kind is so extraordinary . . . very serious matter . . . I can't see how. . . ." The reason the imaginary employes were not discovered sooner, according to Interior Department investigators, was that the Park Service, short of real employes, was several months behind in its books. The dream camp was finally found, Mr. Burlew revealed modestly, when Reno Stitely, grown devil-may-care, put his imaginary men on actual rolls paid by the Interior Department. The special investigators who finally caught Reno Stitely told the committee that a proper audit had never been made of the Park Service and the immense Emergency Conservation Work funds. The Senators then got to what in most of their minds was the chief reason for the investigation: wiretapping.

Listening Tom. Until the Supreme Court said that it was unconstitutional (TIME, Jan. 3), the Department of Justice, the Alcohol Tax Unit and the Bureau of Internal Revenue frequently used as evidence information got by tapping telephone wires. That never bothered Senators greatly. But the Department of the Interior was suspected of tapping the telephones of Senators--even, said Washington gossips, the telephones of President Roosevelt.

Mr. Burlew asserted that there had indeed been pretty extensive wiretapping, but he never would have approved it if he had been consulted. The responsible party was Louis Glavis, who resigned as director of investigations year-and-a-half ago after investigating almost everybody in the Interior Department--including Mr. Burlew.

Mr. Ickes urged the committee not to start an indiscriminate "smear campaign." Committee Chairman Alva Adams thought they should keep to a consideration of Mr. Burlew's qualifications. Summoned to Washington nonetheless was ex-Sleuth Louis Glavis. Yes, said Louis Glavis, he had tapped telephones. No, said Louis Glavis emphatically, he had never tapped the telephone of President Roosevelt.

Between 1933 and 1936, when he was Mr. Ickes' chief investigator, he had had a staff of about 700. His investigations cost the Government $1,000,000 a year, but he thought they saved it $70,000,000. He heard enough, he said, to have eight or ten Interior Department employes dismissed. It had never occurred to him to tap the wires of Reno Stitely.

Senator Adams: "From whom did you get your instructions?"

Mr. Glavis: "From Secretary Ickes."

Senator Adams: "To whom did you make your reports?"

Mr. Glavis: "To Secretary Ickes."

That definitely cleared Mr. Burlew. But the Public Lands Committee had tasted headlines, was not prepared to let the question drop. Senator Nye of North Dakota had sniffed out a rumor of a shortage of $1,000,000 in CCC funds for the Southwest, another of $250,000 for Kansas. Action on Mr. Burlew's appointment waited. One thing, however, had been done, though not by the Public Lands Committee: the Federal district court in the District of Columbia, making no allowances for the liveliness of Reno Stitely's imagination, had imposed on him a $36,000 fine and a jail sentence of six to twelve years.

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