The Press: Guest in the House

Columnist Drew Pearson has been gunning for Florida’s Governor Fuller Warren. Pearson had urged the Florida legislature to impeach Warren on the ground that his campaign had been heavily financed by gamblers (TIME, July 16, 1951). Last week, on vacation, Pearson gave Warren the use of his column for an uncensored counterattack. Wrote Guest Columnist Warren:

“Like all gifted men, Colonel* Pearson has a few failings . . . President Roosevelt [called him] a ‘chronic liar.’ I can’t go quite that far. Colonel Pearson sometimes tells the truth . . . It may not be intentional, but it’s there . . . I estimate that Baron Munchausen’s contemporary counterpart has told no less than two dozen lies about me within the past two years. Assuming I have received only my pro rata share of Baron Pearson’s prevarications, this data may be projected to the conclusion that this modern Munchausen has concocted 24 falsehoods about every person on whom he has unleashed his yelping pack of lies. Projecting this calculation further, it can be estimated that during the past two years it has suited the purposes of Colonel Pearson to smear at least 2,000 persons . . . It mathematically follows that Colonel Pearson has manufactured . . . 48,000 units of mendacity. That is mass production on a massive scale! The miracles of mass production achieved by General Motors sink into insignificance . . .”

* Pearson is an honorary colonel on the governor’s own staff.