Churning through the records of the foundering Lustron Corp., reporters in Columbus, Ohio last week made a headline-making discovery about a man who had been busy putting other people into the headlines. Among the books and papers filed in a U.S. district court was a photostatic copy of a canceled check for $10,000. It was made out to Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, the spy hunter.
The check was Lustron's payment to Joe McCarthy for a plunge into letters—a 10,000-word article on housing legislation written during Republican McCarthy's term as vice chairman of the 80th Congress' joint Housing Committee. It was paid out at a time when Lustron, now bankrupt and $37.5 million in debt to RFC (see BUSINESS), was just beginning its long and rich ride on the U.S. taxpayers' back.
Senator McCarthy's article, a 37-page piece entitled "Wanted: A Dollar's Worth of Housing for Every Dollar Spent," was contained in a pamphlet published by Lustron to promote its prefabricated houses. McCarthy had turned the results of his committee work and a 30,000-mile committee junket through the U.S. into a neat profit. The article was a straightaway description of federal housing legislation —the kind of article Lustron probably could have got free or at least dirt cheap from any Government housing man.
In peddling the byproduct of his work as a $15,000-a-year servant of the people, the Senator had not actually broken any laws. Congressmen often get fees for making speeches and writing magazine articles. Members of Congress are no more limited in moneymaking ventures than other citizens, except that they may not take fees for lobbying or dealing with Government agencies. The rest is up to their moral judgment. McCarthy had raised a question of propriety—and his fancy author's fee was enough to raise eyebrows.