Promise Kept

The President's press conference was flagging, and a newsman asked half-heartedly whether he was going to have anything to say about the vacancy on the Supreme Court. He certainly was, said the President briskly. In fact, he would tell them about it right now. He had asked Attorney General Tom Clark to be the associate justice and Rhode Island's Senator Howard McGrath, the Democratic National Chairman, to replace Clark at attorney general. Blurted a reporter: "My gosh!"

Thomas Campbell Clark was not surprised : he had been ready and waiting for more than two years. He had, in fact, expected the appointment that Fred Vinson got, and when he lost out had stared long and silently out his office window. Then Harry Truman had soothed him, given him to understand that the next vacancy was his. Last week the President finally gave patient Tom Clark his reward, ignoring Washington politicos who assumed that Catholic Frank Murphy would be replaced with another Catholic. If a man was qualified, President Truman said that he did not care what his faith was.*

Was Tom Clark qualified? He was certainly no one to cheer about. A political protege of Texas' Senator Tom Connally, Clark likes to be called Tom "because that's the way folks address Senator Connally." Born 49 years ago in "the best residential street in Dallas," Clark went through the district attorney stint that is S.O.P. for political lawyers, later worked up a lucrative private practice.

In 1937, he brought his Texas drawl, easy smile, and amazing talent for making and using friends to Washington and the Justice Department, where such things can work wonders. He rose swiftly, handled the relocation of Japanese civilians evacuated from the West Coast, got to know Senator Harry Truman when his War Frauds Unit prosecuted cases turned up by the Truman committee. He worked hard and late: "I have to work long hours because I'm not as smart as some fellows."

The Trust Buster. As Attorney General, his record has been more sound & fury than solid achievement. He incurred a storm of criticism for his lackadaisical investigation of vote frauds in Kansas City's 1946 Democratic "purge" primary. Labor-minded liberals regarded him suspiciously for demanding a strike injunction against John L. Lewis; conservatives distrusted his opinion that the President has enough power to handle strikes without Taft-Hartley injunctions.

But Tom Clark prides himself on having instituted 160 antitrust actions (since 1860 his predecessors averaged 42 cases each). He has been at pains to prove himself a champion of civil rights. He insisted that the Federal Bar Association admit Negroes, used to invite Negro messengers to lunch with him.

Despite a sullen mutter of disapproval from the nation's press ("A low ebb," snorted the New York Herald Tribune), few voices of protest were raised in the Senate. Clark's amiable "hya doin', sir?" and his bow ties were well liked by the men on Capitol Hill, who appreciate a man whose ability is not oppressive and whose principles are not alarming.

The Payoff. There was no question, either, that the Senate would confirm McGrath. But McGrath did not sound like an elated man. Three times governor of Rhode Island (he once outran Roosevelt), a self-made millionaire from his real estate and other financial dealings, smart, dapper Howard McGrath found no glamour in the Justice Department, where he was once solicitor general. McGrath's probable successor as chairman of the Democratic National Committee: Pendergast-trained William Boyle, a Truman protege from Kansas City, who has been actual boss of the committee for the last six months.

* The first Catholic was Roger Taney, appointed in 1836. At his death, President Lincoln appointed a Protestant to succeed him. Since 1894 the court has not been without a Catholic.

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