Walker to Roosevelt

STATES & CITIES

Last week in Albany Governor Roosevelt was presented with a hard political nut, a 27,000-word document wherein slick little James John ("Jimmy") Walker hotly defended his right to remain Mayor of New York. Replying to the ouster charges filed last June by Counsel Samuel Seabury of the legislative committee investigating Tammany corruption (TIME, June 13 et ante), Mayor Walker opened his defense with an attack. He charged that Republicans had instigated the inquiry "to divert public attention from the dreadful condition of affairs throughout the nation." He accused Mr. Seabury of "malice, slander, rancorous ill-will," of conducting a "man-hunt."

Getting down to the specifications of the removal charges, the Mayor argued as follows:

P:He did accept $26,000 in bonds as "profits of an ordinary, lawful business transaction" from a brokerage firm interested in taxicabs, but he did not sponsor the kind of municipal legislation they sought.

P:He did own $10,000 worth of convertible bonds in Reliance Bronze & Steel Co. which got a contract with the City for traffic lights but this did not violate the city charter prohibiting officials from owning stock in a concern doing business with the City.

P:He did sponsor a bus franchise to the financially irresponsible Equitable Coach Co., backed by a close friend, but did not know it was unfit to receive the award until later.

P:He did take without any investment$246,692 in profits from a joint stock-trading account with Publisher Paul Block, but Mr. Block is a rich man who needs no favors from the Mayor.

P:Russell Sherwood, who fled the U. S., was not his fiscal agent.

Mayor Walker wound up his "solemn emphatic denial" of all-wrongdoing with:

"Since the day of my birth I have lived my life in the open. Whatever shortcomings I have are known to everyone-- but disloyalty to my native city, official dishonesty or corruption, form no part of these shortcomings."

The country at large waited to see how Governor Roosevelt would deal with Tammany, of which the natty little New York Mayor is the popular symbol. If he removed him from office, he might lose New York State in the Presidential election. If he did not. Republicans would charge him with truckling to a corrupt political machine. Meanwhile Tammany Hall "heartily" endorsed the Roosevelt-Garner ticket and the State was startled by a report that, if ousted, Mayor Walker would run for Governor this autumn. Sheathed in this move, if made, would be something that Governor Roosevelt does not like to think about: the knife that Tammany could thrust into the back of his New York City vote for the Presidency.

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