Justice

In its Nov. 12 issue, TIME published an account of an inquiry by a subcommittee of the Senate into the alleged crookedness of the Veterans' Bureau, under the heading " The Art of Crockery." In a subjoined summary of some of the accusations made at the inquiry, Ewing Laporte, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, was mentioned as being under fire in connection with the lease of a hospital site at Excelsior Springs, Mo. Last week, Mr. Laporte, by letter, declared that he felt it a grave injustice to himself that his name should appear in an article with such a heading. He said: " I have little but my reputation, which such aspersions as yours injure sadly."

The above-mentioned heading was in no way intended to imply that Mr. Laporte or any other official connected with the "Veterans' Bureau was a crook.

Mr. Ewing Laporte's record in public service is unique. Seymour Parker Gilbert, Jr., Under Secretary of the Treasury, recently retired (TIME, July 23), has received much attention because of his youth--he is just 31 and was advanced to the post of Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in 1920. But Ewing Laporte, who was also made an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the same year, is two years younger. He was born of American parents in Normandy (France) and subsequently lived in St. Louis (Mo.) He became for three years a Deputy Sergeant at Arms in the Senate, after which he studied at George Washington, Yale and Pittsburgh Universities. He held several posts in the Treasury Department before President Wilson made him an Assistant Secretary in 1920.