Boob-Trap

To the press the story of the big red house on R Street seemed to have a dash of everything: intrigue, glamor, mystery, money, politics, sex, big names, fabulous dinings & winings, the irresistible atmosphere of important people doing important things out of school.

Navy Secretary Frank Knox had been there. So had Senator Styles Bridges, Louisiana's Congressman James Morrison, a major general, an archduke, industrialists, and a host of other Washington characters, known & unknown. Host of the house on R Street was one James Porter Monroe, dour, bald, and effusive. Hostess was a Mrs. Eula Smith, Alabama-born, tall, sedate, aloof.

This juicy setup was too much for the House Military Affairs Committee, which came across the house on R Street in an investigation of defense contract brokers. Monroe's trail led them there, and they had high suspicions. Their suspicions were all the Washington press needed. They remembered the "little green house on K Street" where President Harding's Ohio Gang hung out, the "little red house in Georgetown" where the aboriginal New Dealers schemed their schemes. Paced by Columnist Drew Pearson of the Washington Post, the press laid back its ears and bayed. Pages slopped over with heavy headlines.

Tongues out, the press anxiously loped in to watch the House committee put James Porter Monroe on the carpet. His unrevealing testimony made the press look silly.

Monroe, ex-prize fighter, business promoter, whose name was once Kaplan, had leased the big red house on R Street from Mrs. Smith to set himself up in style. His front won him a dozen or so commissions from business firms. He was able to recall delivering only two Government contracts, one of which was later canceled. Altogether he had made about $4,000 in the last two years. As for the rest, he couldn't remember.

The reporters folded up and went away. Glamor peeled off, the big house on R Street looked like an old coat of paint. The tantalizing dinners, the high-blown conversation turned as sour and dull as their host's description of them. James Porter Monroe was nothing but dull proof once again that anyone with a fast line, some stationery, a telephone, an expense account, can fool Washington. He did not know his way around; he had no influence. Washington bigwigs went to his house because they are always going to somebody's house. Washington reporters knew all this, but they had hoped that this time it would be different. It wasn't.

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