Daugherty's Inquisitors

The Attorney General reached Washington last week with a smiling face. He had been at Miami for a few days visiting Mrs. Daugherty, who is not well. Contrary to advance reports. when the Attorney General reached Washington he did not resign. Instead, he sat down to wait for what the Senate Committee which is investigating him would do.

The Committee elected a fortnight ago began laying the foundation for its investigation. It granted to counsel for the Attorney General the right to cross-examine witnesses before it, within limits, and to present names of witnesses whom, at its discretion, the Committee might subpoena. When the time comes, the hearings will doubtless be hot.

The least fiery member of the Committee is Senator Brookhart, its Chairman, a bucolic rifleshot, with an evangelistic temperament. Senator Wheeler of Montana, colleague of Senator Walsh, prime mover of the oil investigation, is the active prosecutor. Wheeler is young, radical, a hard fighter, a smiling fighter, somewhat inclined, nevertheless, to lose his head. Strangely enough, he has the accent of Massachusetts, his native State. For comrades, Brookhart and Wheeler have the tart Moses from New Hampshire; Jones of Washington, normally placid and a bit heavy, but roaring, desk-pounding when aroused; Ashurst from Arizona, with a substantial "bazoo."

At once they began to summon witnesses from along the Mexican border. The investigation was going to open by attacking the Attorney General on the grounds that he had not interfered with oil companies who fostered revolutions in Mexico.