Still Calling Yankel

The Hon. Andrew Jackson May was not in the mood. Perhaps it was because the evidence so clearly indicated that he was, to say the least, a conniver.

While Kentucky's trap-jawed Congressman stubbornly ignored all invitations to testify before the Senate's Mead Committee, a whole array of Congressmen and Senators trooped in to explain how their names had popped up in the investigation of the Garsson munitions combine. In a matter of minutes Mead Committeemen examined and exonerated House Majority Leader John McCormack, Rules Committee Chairman Adolph Sabath, Indiana's Senator Homer Capehart, Senate Majority Leader Alben Barkley.

Then the Meadmen issued a final challenge: a subpoena which May could only ignore at the risk of blacking out his already dark-brown reputation.

May's reputation was probably already past saving. For a fortnight he had stood accused of everything from dabbling in war contracts to arranging for reluctant soldiers to remain in the continental U.S. But until pert Eleanor Hall, a former Garsson secretary, took the stand, there had been no evidence to indicate he had actually received any cash payments for his services. She supplied it.

Lavish Display. With cheerful informality she recalled how her office was in the habit of calling Andy May's office as often as three times a day. Once she had heard him interrupt a conversation to ask: "What about the $3,000?" Another time a company officer took an envelope containing $1,000 to Congressman May's office.

On a third occasion she had overheard one of her bosses talking about "the $1,000 for Yankel." That, she explained, was their nickname for Andrew Jackson May. (Added a committee counsel: "Yiddish for Little Jack. . . . It means he is not too smart.") Said Eleanor Hall succinctly: "a bunch of crooks." Pretty, red-haired Jean Bates, a coworker, agreed.

Then New York's enterprising, tabloid Daily News heaped confusion on Andy May's towering embarrassment--with a lavish display of photographs from the wedding of Murray Garsson's daughter. Though May had denied any close connections with the Garssons, he turned up big as life in a picture, beaming broadly in the embrace of the bride's sister.

Said Senator Mead: "Nothing more need be said. . . . Unless Congressman May appears before the committee the public will have to draw their own conclusions." But hard-to-get Andy May was still avoiding commitments. For the time being, he said, he was too busy with his duties as House Military Affairs chairman; maybe he would be able to make it later on.

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