Red House to Big House

Until a Congressional committee, poking around a swamp)’ underbrush and prodding under stones, pried him into view in 1943, John Porter Monroe was just another Washington fixer. In the unkind daylight, Fixer Monroe swelled into quite a big bug. His “big red house on R Street” became notorious. That was where Monroe entertained industrialists who wanted war contracts and governmental bigwigs who had influence in handing them out. After much headline hullabaloo, the committee finally decided that slick Mr, Monroe was a nonpoisonous bug.

But later, when he got into the textile business as Washington representative for New Hampshire’s big Verney Mills, Inc., his foot slipped. The U.S. Government indicted him, Verney Mills, its president, Gilbert Verney, and two other officials for a series of black-market dealings. By buying yard goods from the mills and selling them at 30#162; to 42¢ over ceiling prices, Monroe had cleaned up $150,000. Charges against Gilbert Verney were dismissed. The other officials were acquitted. But Monroe, convicted on 30 counts by a Manhattan jury, was sentenced last week to two years in jail, fined $100,000.