THE RIGHT ANSWERS.

Q. What kind of an organization was the Pendergast "machine" when it backed Harry Truman for office? Was there ever any doubt that Truman was part of the machine?

-L.A., McKeesport, Pa.

A. Archetypal machine politician Tom Pendergast, who ran Kansas City with a proverbial iron hand, aided Harry Truman's political rise at virtually every step. The machine's official name was the Jackson Democratic Club, and Truman served as its vice president for more than 20 years and even continued to pay dues from the White House.

Truman remained loyal to the boss. Indeed, when Harry's maneuverings couldn't halt the indictment of Pendergast for income-tax evasion in 1939, the then-U.S. Senator from Missouri expressed his sorrow and said, "I will not desert a ship that is sinking." Shortly thereafter, Pendergast pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 months in prison.

Truman did not deny his long connection to the Pendergast gang. As he bragged to the AF of L in Kansas City, when he was running for national office in 1944: "I am a Jackson County organization Democrat and proud of it! That is the way I got to be a county judge, a senator and the candidate for Vice President."

The machine was involved in more than politics. It also owed much of its success to an underworld boss named John Lazia, who employed such enforcers as the notorious Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd. The machine also owed much, wrote longtime reporter Gene Powell, "to organized vice; to gang killings and gang coercion of businessmen; to padded registration lists; to commercialized prostitution; to the corruption of police departments and other law officials; to organized gambling - all of which made up Tom's 'practical business of politics.'"

While Truman personally "may never have taken a single dime of the county's money," said Powell in Tom's Boy Harry (1948), "he did see that Tom's companies got the county contracts. While Harry may never have taken a cent of the red money from commercialized prostitution, he never protested when such money was spent to elect him. While Harry may never have aided in the padding of registration lists, he accepted gladly the results of such padding to gain the nomination as United States Senator."

Q. What is the IRS's current record on providing correct answers to income-tax questions?

-- V.K., Brunswick, Md.

A. A sampling of recent questions by Treasury inspectors revealed that IRS agents gave either incorrect or insufficient information to 73 percent of those submitted to them. Incredibly, that was an improvement from the previous year's 81 percent error rate.

Q. What has the U.K.'s handgun ban done to the crime rates there?

-- A.P.B., Grand Rapids, Mich.

A. Following a multiple shooting in 1997, the U.K. banned the private ownership of handguns. A new study, cited by the BBC, indicates that the use of handguns in crime has risen by 40 percent in the two years since the ban. Outlawing guns has resulted in quite a few illegal guns. Police in the U.K. have estimated that there are almost 300,000 illegal guns in circulation, or about one for every 200 persons.

Iain Murray, a British citizen who specializes in criminal justice issues for the Washington-based Statistical Assessment Service, summarized the outcome for United Press International. Murray concluded that the U.K.'s strict gun controls have "achieved a rise in gun crime, a decline in safety and a position where access to firearms among delinquent children seems commonplace."

Q. How do the costs of nuclear power plants compare to more traditional generators of electricity?

-- H.K.B., Adams Run, S.C.

A. The operating costs of nuclear power plants are cheaper than those plants that are fueled by natural gas or coal. It costs an average of some 1.83 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity generated by a nuclear reactor, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, compared with 2.07 cents from coal and 3.5 cents from natural gas.

Those are not the only cost factors, though. When decommissioning expenses for old plants, waste disposal, and more costly construction costs are included, nuclear power is more expensive. Current construction costs for nuclear reactors amount to about $2,000 per kilowatt, reported Investor's Business Daily in mid-July, compared to $500-$600 per kilowatt for natural gas-fired plants and $ 1,000$ 1,200 per kilowatt for coal plants.

On the other hand, the industry anticipates that when new designs are taken into account, construction of nuclear plants will become more economical, dropping to the range of $1,200 to $1,500 per kilowatt.

Q. How many states are in India?

-- F.L., Mount Clemens, Mich.

A. India split into 16 states, based essentially on languages, shortly after independence in 1947. The number has changed over the years. For example, in 1956, the number was reduced from 27 to 14, but further divisions took place thereafter.

The one billion or so Indians currently are organized into 28 states. Yet, as the Washington Post has noted, the country seems to be imploding in many places. There are at least 10 revolts across the country to break existing states into smaller ones that better suit the ethnic and economic demands of the inhabitants."

Though the creation of more states is still being pushed, some wonder where it will end. India has 16 major languages and more than 1,000 minor languages and dialects.