McCARTHY’S POWERS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27090, 13 July 1953, Page 9

McCARTHY’S POWERS

Democrats Leave Committee (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) WASHINGTON, July 10. The Democrats on the Senate Investigations Sub-Committee resigned today in protest against the Republican majority’s giving all the “hiring] and firing” power to the chairman, Senator Joseph McCarthy (Republican, Wisconsin). The Democrat members of the seven-man group are Senators John McLellan (Arkansas), Harry Jackson (Washington), and Stuart Symington (Missouri). In a joint statement, the three Democrats said the action of the Republicans had put them in the “impossible position of having responsibility without any voice, right or authority.” Senator McCarthy was given the "hiring and firing” authority by a straight party line 4-3 vote at a meeting of the sub-committee. The issue whether or not he should have it developed from a dispute over Mr J. B. Matthews, who until yesterday was the executive director of the sub-committee. Earlier this week, the Democrats moved to remove Mr Matthews for the attack he made on Protestant clergymen. In a magazine article, Mr Matthews had said: “The largest single group supporting the Communist apparatus in the United States is composed of Protestant clergy.” President Eisenhower yesterday released the text of a telegram in which he deplored the attack by Mr Matthews.

In the telegram, to of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, which had protested to the President against the article, Mr Eisenhower said he fully agreed that the attacks were unjustified and deplorable. Such sweeping attacks portrayed contempt for the principles of freedom and decency, he said. Senator McCarthy, in response to the Democrats’ efforts to remove Mr Matthews, took the stand that he alone had the “hiring and firing” power. But he accepted Mr Matthews’s resignation “reluctantly,” almost simultaneously with the White House release of the attack by Mr Eisenhower on the views expressed by Mr Matthews.