(3 of 3)
Eloquent Silence. Standing against Elkins' testimony was his record as a lifelong hoodlum. Standing also against him was conflicting testimony: e.g., the rival Portland gambler flatly denied paying Frank Brewster $10,000 for Teamsters' sanction. But the hearings had been carefully and skillfully prepared by young Committee Counsel Bob Kennedy, 31, brother of Massachusetts' tousle-haired John Kennedy, 39, who is a junior member of the committee. Kennedy the younger had turned up some corroboration for Elkins' story. Hotel bills showed that Gambler Joe Maloney had passed himself off as a Teamsters official, and that Frank Brewster had approved the Teamsters' picking up Maloney's tab. Oregon's respected Public Utilities Commissioner
Howard Morgan, former Democratic state chairman, told of getting the word during an election campaign that the Teamsters were willing to pay $10,000 for a seat on the state liquor-control commission. The aim: to bar from Oregon some whiskies produced by Eastern distillers who were unfriendly to the Teamsters.
Even more eloquent, if only by their silence, were Witnesses Tom Maloney and Joe McLaughlin. Called before the committee to give their own version of their relationship with Teamster Frank Brewster, both invoked the Fifth Amendment. With the McClellan committee hearings just beginning, many more questions remained to be asked and many more answers remained to be given. Frank Brewster was scheduled to testify, and so —when and if he decides to return from Europe—is Teamsters' President Dave Beck. And, thanks to Witness James Elkins, the "disenchanted" racketeer, the committee is armed with some interesting new questions to ask them both.