Mustn't Say the Naughty Word

In a Manhattan court last week Gambler Alvin Paris was on trial for attempting to fix a professional football game (he was later convicted). First prospective juror was William H. Haskell, a customers' broker for E. F. Hutton & Co. Haskell claimed he could not be impartial in a gambler's trial because: "I'm in the gambling business myself."

The crack was effective: it got Haskell out of jury duty. It also got him out of his job. The New York Stock Exchange, which spent $750,000 last year on ads to keep callow lambs from gambling in the market, revoked Haskell's registration. Hutton, which also thinks "gambling" a naughty word, fired him. Said Exchange President Emil Schram: "He has a mistaken conception of the business in which he has been engaged."

Had he? Some financial writers did not think so. Said Manhattan's World-Telegram: "Everyone knows that a large percentage of the business ... of the Exchange is gambling business. To call it speculation or any other term is but a mere play on words. Haskell's dismissal . . . was a mistake."

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