Something Doing

Ever since the War, which ended more than seven years ago, the U. S. has had on its hands the problem of what to do with one of its War babies-Muscle Shoals. The solution required legislation but Congress had done nothing. Congress at last has acted; the House had passed a resolution for the disposal of Muscle Shoals and the Senate last week passed the resolution with amendments. So some action has been taken but it is indecisive.

The Resolution. As passed by the House, the resolution called for a joint committee of both Houses of Congress to negotiate with bidders for a 50-year lease of Muscle Shoals, the lessee to manufacture nitrates and distribute electric power. By April 1 the joint committee was to report a lease to which Congress could say either "Yes" or "No." The Senate after several days' debate also passed the resolution by vote of 51 to 26. But certain amendments were made: 1) The committee is to report not only "a lease" but "a lease or leases." 2) The lessee must promise to distribute power on an equitable basis to states neighboring on Alabama, in which Muscle Shoals is situated. 3) The committee must report not by April 1 but by April 26. With these amendments the resolution went to joint conference.

The Significance. If the resolution is passed with the Senate amendments, the most important of these is likely to be the one for a report by April 26. Congress is eager to get home and plans to adjourn in May. The debate over a definite lease seems bound to be long and bitter. So it seems likely that a definite lease of Muscle Shoals will be killed so far as this session of Congress is concerned by lack of time, unless Congress stays in Washington much later than it wishes to stay. The effect of the other Senate amendments, by possibly bringing several alternative leases into consideration, tends to increase this possibility.

The chief incident of the passage of the resolution in the Senate was the baiting of Senator James Thomas Heflin, who had the resolution in charge. Senator Heflin has a fine political figure, almost comparable to that of Chief Justice Taft. Mr. Heflin moreover decks his eloquent proportions in a great cutaway coat with a light vest of cream or buff color. In hotter weather he varies his garb by wearing a light colored Palm Beach suit of ample proportions. He has a ruddy face, which he adorns with eyeglasses that dangle by a black cord. His manner is suave and expansive. His voice, when it breaks into portentous periods, is solemn and his words are chosen from the old school of eloquence and denunciation. Ever and again in previous Congresses he rose to make interminable forensic attacks on the money trust, on the power interests, on this and that type of oppression of the poor, the weak and the farmer.

Yet only a few days ago Correspondent Frank R. Kent wrote of him:

"Only slightly less remarkable than the touch of magic by which, on the stage, a live rabbit emerges from an egg omelet is the sudden transformation of the Hon. J. Thomas Heflin, of Alabama, from a fiery foe of the interests, an implacable enemy of the Republican party, the unwavering opponent of the Administration, the chief oratorical exponent of progressive Democracy, into a co-worker with Mr. Coolidge, a supporter of Mr. Mellon, a helpful aide to the harassed Smoot, a floor manager for the Administration.

"It is the sort of thing to shake the confidence of those who have always believed a silk purse could not be made out of a sow's ear."

The items on which this charge is based are: that he voted with the Republicans for the World Court (he is rather excused for this, since Democrats consider that the Republicans came around to the Democratic view on the World Court); that he voted with the Republicans for the tax bill; and that he appealed for passage of the Muscle Shoals resolution on the ground that President Coolidge approved it.

Correspondent Kent, a red-hot Democrat but none the less a brilliant observer, naturally did not look with much favor upon this change in Mr. Heflin. He suggested a number of possibilities which might account for the change: 1) That Mr. Heflin found himself without an issue and did not know where to go oratorically. 2) That perhaps like his fellow Senator Pat Harrison* he had made some money during the recess. 3) That he may have read press comments on his speeches. 4) That he may have felt "a belated sense of futility." 5) That he believes it impossible to compete with Senator Blease for the title of chief Democratic demagog.

To these remarks about him, Senator Heflin replied in the Senate:

"There is not anybody opposing it [the Muscle Shoals project] of any considerable influence except the power trust and the fertilizer trust. They are fighting it, and fighting it to the death. They attacked my colleague [Mr. Underwood] two years ago and insulted him with their editorial attacks. They have insulted me or would have done so if I did not consider the source. But what do I care about these little hired hickory-nut heads sticking something in their pockets, and some little irresponsible whelp going out and writing something hid behind a screen reflecting on me ? "

*For some time there has been jesting in the press galleries at the Capitol about a "certain southern Senator," formerly a fierce denouncer of Wall Street and the interests and until recently only moderately well-to-do, who during last summer made some $200,000 in real estate and whose philippics have now grown milder because he no longer regards all wealth as an evil demon.