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A surprising number of intelligent people still believe in ghosts.
Over Washington
by JAMES L. HARTE
ONE afternoon last April there was unusual merriment on the floor of the Senate of the United States. The Senate majority leader, Democrat Scott Lucas, had just com, pleted a lengthy speech on the nowfamed fihbuster fight. Gleeful, chort. ling Republicans were heckling the many errors and inconsistencies unusual to an average Lucas address. The heckling, barbed and pointed, reached its pinnacle when respected Senator Arthur Vandenberg took the floor.
Lucas, in his talk, had denounced the Michigan Republican for having made "an impassioned speech against the anti-filibuster measure." And Vandenberg, solemnly, in grave tones that underscored the previous gibes at Lucas, said, "I made no speech, impassioned or otherwise, against the anti-filibuster measure."
As Maine's Senator Brewster observed, Lucas' "ghost" was in great error.
This was very unusual, for the
wraiths of Washington are noted for their accuracy in the words they put into the mouths of others. Errors and misstatements mean a loss of clients and are generally avoided. A more frequent "accident" of the ghostwriting business is exemplified by the one which occurred during an early war-year session.
Both Virginia's Senator Byrd and Nebraska's Senator Burke, on the same afternoon, delivered a stirring address before the Senate. Their brother dignitaries failed to notice, until the speeches appeared in the black-and-white of the Congressional Kecord, that not only had they spoken the same day on the same subject, but that they had said the same thing — word for word!
The legislator takes the chance of such an accident when purchasing a prepared oration from any of the many agencies which infest the nation's capital and make a lucrative business of ghosting for Congressmen, Cabinet members, and other execu'