The Senate Week

Work Done. The U. S. Senators:

P: Met, swore new members, notified the President and the House, elected a new chaplain./-

P: Read the President's Message.

P: Debated whether or not to seat two members-elect; voted not to seat them pending further report of an investigating committee on corruption charges.

P: Voted to investigate charges that Mexico had plotted to bribe four U. S. Senators.

P: Acclaimed a House bill conferring the Congressional medal on Colonel Charles Augustus Lindbergh; sent it to the President.

Senators-Suspect. There were two men, two charges, two issues. Senators-elect William Scott Vare, portly Pennsylvanian, and Frank Leslie Smith, slim Illinoisian, were charged 1) with using too much money to get nominated, and 2) with using money improperly (in Mr. Vare's case) and accepting money improperly (in Mr. Smith's). The charges stood substantiated by the Senate's own investigating (the famed James Reed) committee. The issues which towered were 1) what right had the Senate to judge a state's representative ? 2) what procedure should the Senate follow ?

While Mr. Vare sat truculent and Mr. Smith looked strained, Senator Norris of Nebraska recited their histories with icy precision.* Then Senator Borah affirmed the Senate power to judge them. Senator Borah argued, however, that before judgement was passed, the Senate must recognize the culprits' credentials from their states; must seat them, hear them and then cast them out.

The prosecution, led by vindictive Senator Reed of Missouri, retorted that the credentials had already been voided by the Senate's investigation last winter; that the culprits had "had their day in court" with the Senate's investigators. If they had not, that was the fault of rich Mr. Vare's colleague, the other Senator Reed, who "hamstrung" the investigating committee by a filibuster.

The debate was a paradox. Republicans, for once, argued for states' rights while democrats exalted the Federal power. South Carolina's flowery Blease was the only Democrat who became loudly alarmed over a precedent which might some day return to plague Southern gentlemen charged with smothering the Negro vote.

Senator Reed of Pennsylvania, haggard but sharp, defended Mr. Vare as best he could politically, as he had to. He got little help from thicklensed Senator Deneen, the stuffy and ineffectual Smith colleague.

The Democratic attack was blunted by Maryland's crotchety Senator Bruce, who bumbled repetitiously, and by Alabama's astounding Heflin, who bawled like a sick steer about the wicked plutocracy.

Insurgent Republicans voted with Democrats and both cases were compromised. By votes of 53 to 28 and 56 to 30, the Messrs. Smith and Vare were refused their seats and referred back to the investigating committee. The committee was instructed to report as soon as possible on Mr. Smith and within 60 days "if practicable" on Mr. Vare. Both men were promised a hearing on the Senate floor before their ultimate ejection, which seemed certain.

Bribery! Last week Hearst headlines screamed:

$1,215,000 ORDERED PAID FOUR SENATORS BY MEXICO

In true Hearst fashion, the four senators were not named.

Senator Reed of Pennsylvania sprang at this opportunity to change his role from defender to prosecutor. He offered a resolution declaring that the integrity of each & every senator had been attacked. Vice President Dawes named him chairman of another "Reed Committee," with Senators Jones of Washington, Johnson of California (Republicans), Robinson of Arkansas and Bruce of Maryland (Democrats) for colleagues. Chairman Reed straightway subpoenaed Publisher William Randolph Hearst, Editor Victor Watson of the New York Mirror and Arturo M. Elias, Mexican Consul General in Manhattan, half-brother of President Plutarco Elias Calles of Mexico.

/- The Rev. Zebarney T. Phillips of Washington, D. C.

* Senator Norris recited also the history of James Montgomery Beck, onetime (1921-25) U. S. Solicitor General, who was seated last week by the House of Representatives pending an investigation of his election by the House Committee on Elections. Mr. Beck, constitutional law expert, is Mr. Vare's attorney. A relative of Mr. Vare's was elected in 1926 to fill the latter's seat in the House of Representatives, left vacant by Mr. Vare's elevation to the Senate. The relative resigned just before Congress met last March. Last summer, Lawyer Beck, whose residences up to that point were in Manhattan, Washington, Monmouth, N. J. and Seabright, N. J., took an apartment in the Vare district of Philadelphia, paid some taxes, registered as a voter and obtained Mr. Vare's old seat in the House by large pluralities in the primary and election. Said Senator Norris: "Any one who knows Mr. Beck, knows his social standing and his financial connections, and will take pains to go to the apartment at 1414 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, will not for a moment believe that this is his residence."