POLITICAL NOTE: Collector & Collections

Collector & Collections

A ring of newshawks stood as they stand twice a week around President Roosevelt’s desk, prodding him with questions, hoping for newsmaking answers. Correspondent Blair Moody of the Detroit News asked whether the President had any comment to make about accusations against the Collector of Internal Revenue for Michigan. The President looked blank, asked for details. After hearing them he frowned, ground out his cigaret. said that if such things were true they would have to end immediately. Next day agents of the Treasury Department turned up in Detroit. Three days later Secretary Morgenthau emerged from the White House to announce that Collector of Internal Revenue Horatio Johnson Abbott of Detroit was out of Government service. Thus the President gave a newsworthy answer not only to newshawks but also to scores of political wiseacres. For months quidnuncs have been privately intimating that the Roosevelt Administration was headed into a big patronage scandal. Before Secretary Morgenthau reported to the President last week he called to Washington Internal Revenue Collector Abbott, who also happens to be Demo-cratic National Committeeman from Michigan. Last August National Chairman Farley tucked Committeeman Abbott away into the comfortable berth of an Internal Revenue collectorship. Good Mixer Abbott was able to pull many a patronage wire through Boss Farley, to the dismay of Michigan Congressmen. They rejoiced, if they did not assist, when the Detroit Free Press began to publish accusations against Collector Abbott: Deputy Collector John J. Tighe, his friend, had used his tax collecting credentials to solicit from Hugh J. Ferry, treasurer of Packard Motor Car Co., $50,000—$30,000 for the Democratic campaign deficit and $20,000 to lobby for PWA funds in Washington; other Abbott friends and appointees had “sold” postmasterships at $100 a head, had collected money to “assist” Michigan bankers to get the Government’s deposit guarantee. In a three hour conference with Secretary Morgenthau, Collector Abbott denied having authorized anyone to solicit political funds. After a call at the White House, Secretary Morgenthau showed the Press a piece of Treasury stationery on which was written: “To the President: “I hereby resign effective this day my office as Collector of Internal Revenue, District of Michigan. “Horatio J. Abbott.” Next day Mr. Morgenthau suspended Deputy Collector Tighe and another one-time Abbott appointee, dumped a mass of evidence on campaign cash-collecting by jobholders into the lap of Attorney General Cummings. Keeping well out of the Democratic cleanup, Michigan’s Republican Senator Vandenberg remarked: “As long as they run their own laundry, I see no reason to get soap in my eyes.”