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"Pete" Brandt of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch brought up the case of James Finnegan, St. Louis collector of internal revenue who is under indictment for taking bribes to fix taxpayers' accounts. Wasn't he exposed before the executive department acted? Didn't Finnegan testify that Truman even asked him to stay on the job? Truman snapped that he had consistently backed Secretary of the Treasury Snyder's request for Finnegan's resignation. Checking back, reporters found that in his Oct. 11 press conference Truman had said his recollection on the point was hazy, but White House aides had said that Truman asked Finnegan to stay on. At the same October press conference, Truman said he heard of Finnegan's questionable activities only a short time before. Now, Harry Truman, was changing the record.
The reporters had some questions about Frank McKinney. There had been a lot in the papers about how he made $68,000 in ten months on a $1,000 investment. In making the killing, he was dealing with a man Truman had criticized for attempts to use influence in Washington. Would McKinney be asked to resign? Truman's jaw shot out and his voice crackled. McKinney, he said, suits him down to the ground. The President isn't going to pull the rug out from under McKinney just because something happened that the newspapers didn't like.
Snaps & Barks. As the questioning went on, Truman snapped and barked at the reporters. He paused at one point and glared at the Bell Syndicate's Doris Fleeson, one of the Administration's most effective supporters among the working press. She hadn't said a word, but Truman demanded to know why she was looking at him like that. He asked the question with a force that shocked the newsmen. He asked if she wanted to run a sob-sister piece, and added that he didn't need any sob-sister pieces. Later, Reporter Fleeson said: "I wasn't aware that I was doing anything except sitting quietly trying to understand what was going on ... I thought I was looking pretty good. I had on a new Sally Victor hat."
Truman refused to be specific about what continued drastic action he would take. A reporter asked if there would be a special committee, like the Roberts-Pomerene Commission which investigated the Teapot Dome scandals. No, said Truman, thumping his chest with a forefinger, if there is going to be anything, it will be his own, a Truman original.
* No house, Truman told aides later, is an expression he has used since boyhood, but he does not remember the source. It is a colloquialism, at least as old as Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene V. Capulet, Juliet's father, is angry because she refused to marry his choice, Paris. He tells her: "Graze where you will, you shall not house with me."