Letter from Kathleen Hartung to President Harry S. Truman

4/3 me H morris, 61 College Avenue, JUN - 3 1952 Poughkeepsie, N.Y. April 1, 1952. file Dear Mr. President: It looks as though your statement that you would not be a candidate for re-election has given Mr. McGrath a spurious sort of courage - to defy Newbold Morris and, in- directly, yourself inasmuch as you had ordered all government officials to give Mr. Morris every cooperation, and stated you would back him all the way. Is Mr. McGrath to be permitted to flout your authority as he did before a Senate Committee yesterday? Granted that Mr. Morris may have been some- what careless in the ship deal given so much publicity. There are many large legal firms where particulars of another part- ner's transactions are not known in any great detail to another partner, and Mr. Morris may not have had any cognizance of ir- regularities. Looking backward it is easy to be critical and say he should have known what was going on, but in business as- sociations a certain amount must be taken on trust. In any case, McGrath is the last person to feel justified in throwing brickbats at Mr. Morris, whose innate integrity I'm sure cannot be questioned. The fact that Mr. McGrath balks at filling out the questionnaire is in my humble opinion a dead give-away - he must be afraid of what may develop out of such replies. It also gives credence to Mr. Stassen's statement about McGrath's accumulated wealth. Can it be that he is afraid to divulge the source or sources of this wealth? He should be made to comply with Morris' demand for all ques- tionnaires to be filled out by the government employees required to do so. This episode gives you a fine chance, Mr. President, to show your mettle. At the time of the Kerr gas bill I wrote you that the men whose integrity was being ques- tioned were no real friends of yours - they were just getting all they could out of their association with you, would do you more harm than good, and had no right to any loyalty claim from you. Time, I think, has proved this and many of your adherents regret you have not come out more strongly against them. No taint adheres to you personally, so why risk getting tainted? Now that you are apparently out of the Presidential race, why national RECORDS LIBRARY not come out against all this pussy-footing and stand behind SERVICE the man you have chosen to do a "clean-up" job? It is not GOVERNMENT fair to expect him to do a good job with his hands tied behind him, and the Attorney-General - the man supposed to give him all possible help - doing his utmost to undermine his efforts.