The Senate Week

Work Done. The U. S. Senators:

P: Elected officers; named standing committees; filed bills & resolutions.

P: Passed the Walsh Bills increasing legal immunity; sent them to the House.

P: Continued investigating (in committee) charges that Mexico had plotted to bribe four U. S. Senators.

P: Postponed investigating (in committee) charges that two U. S. Senators-elect obtained their seats improperly.

P: Read, debated, amended & passed the House Deficiency Bill; returned it to joint conference; adopted the conference report; sent the bill to the President. P: Concurred with the House to adjourn Dec. 21 to Jan. 4. P: Confirmed Presidential appointments, including Ambassador-to-Mexico Morrow, Governor-General Stimson of the Philippines, Ambassador-to-Cuba Judah, Under-Secretary of State Olds, Assistant-Secretary of Commerce Brown, Minister-to-Liberia Francis.

Hearst v. The Senate. Had William Randolph Hearst, bold son of a onetime Senator,* tried to make the U. S. Senate his debtor, his newsboy or his strong-arm man? The special committee under Senator Reed of Pennsylvania (TIME, Dec. 19) continued finding out. First of all it examined Publisher Hearst to learn how, when & where he had obtained pseudo-official Mexican documents indicating that $1,215,000 was to have been paid to four U. S. Senators, with Mexican President Calles' halfbrother, Mexican Consul General Arturo M. Elias of Manhattan, and Lawyer Dudley Field Malone of Manhattan, as go-betweens (TIME, Dec. 19). Indignation flared last week when the names of the four Senators were published--Borah of Idaho (chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee), LaFollette of Wisconsin (youngest Senator, upright Progressive), Norris of Nebraska (chairman of the Judiciary Committee) and Heflin of Alabama (who mortally hates and fears the Roman Pope). Indignation flamed when Publisher Hearst admitted that he had given none of these Senators a chance to deny knowledge of the alleged efforts by Mexico to bribe them. Publisher Hearst admitted that he himself had not for an instant believed the Senators guilty. He said he had tried to show the Mexican documents to President Coolidge, who had refused to see them. After that, Mr. Hearst had published the documents, in provocatively deleted form, because that was his idea of good journalism and "patriotism." He said he had hoped to force a Congressional investigation. Mr. Hearst said his private holdings in Mexico were worth three or four million dollars. Since the Calles Government has tended toward a confiscatory policy on alien property, a motive for Mr. Hearst wanting to "sic" the Senate on Mexico was clear. Public implication of the four Senators was, in the opinion of the decent U. S. press (see p. 20), an impudent journalist's "stunt."

The four Senators quickly cleansed their names of the Hearstian smear, in downright statements. Senator Heflin was most agitated. He roared about "scalawags, crooks and scoundrels." In the course of his protestimony he was obliged to tell about receiving money from the Ku Klux Klan for his anti-Roman Catholic orations.

The investigators reported to the Senate that there was "not one scintilla of evidence" that Senators Borah, LaFollette, Norris and Heflin had been paid, or even offered one cent. The Mexican Government pronounced Mr. Hearst's documents total forgeries. The Senate Committee proceeded therefore to try to find out who did the forging and why. To this end U. S. Secret Service men were called in. The investigators also sought evidence of the messages and money supposed to have been telegraphed from Mexico to Consul General Elias. Such evidence, to prove the validity of Hearst-published documents, was lacking. Investigation continued. Publisher Hearst's Washington Herald brazenly stated: "The least unfortunate result was bound to be suspicion and ill will between the two countries." Alert citizens, however, felt more suspicion and ill will for Publisher Hearst than for Mexico.

"Trade in the Air." The Senate is government by committee. Who controls the committees, controls the Senate. Forming the committees was critical this session because the nominal line-up of the parties is: Republicans 48, Democrats 47, Farmer-Labor 1. With two Republican seats vacant pending investigation of their occupants-elect, and with the Farmer-Laborite and at least four Republicans calling themselves "progressives," the Democrats might, had they wished, have gained command of the Senate. But the Democrats preferred to let the G. O. P. stand responsible for the Senate's deeds this session. The five "progressives"-- "Wisconsin's LaFollette and Elaine, North Dakota's Frazier and Nye, and Minnesota's unique Farmer-Laborite Shipstead" had, prior to the Senate's "organizing," asked the orthodox Republicans for assurance that this session would see a "final vote" on farm relief, anti-Labor injunctions and U. S. policies in Latin-America. Senator Curtis, chief Republican, had replied with affable caution. The "progressives" had later agreed to support the Republicans' committee choices and their ticket for the more-or-less honorary Senate offices--President pro tem., Secretary, Sergeant-at-Arms.

Last week, when small-eyed Senator Watson of Indiana, Chairman of the Committee on Committees, arose to ask that the new committee be appointed orally, he was greeted by the mocking drawl of the chief of the Democrats' sarcasm department, Senator Pat Harrison of Mississippi. With considerable prompting from Senator Caraway of Arkansas, his twin wit, Mr. Harrison undertook to remind everyone how just such "radicals" as the present "progressives" had been "read out of G. O. P. ranks" three years ago (TIME, Dec. 8, 1924) and denied any Senate committee places at all. Now, behold, the "progressives" had been handsomely placed on the committee" --LaFollette on Commerce, Post Offices, Mines; Nye on Immigration, Territories, Commerce, Appropriations and the chairmanship of Public Lands; Frazier on Mines, Post Offices, Agriculture, Banking & Currency and the chairmanship of Indian Affairs; Blaine on Military Affairs, Civil Service, Judiciary and the District of Columbia. Senator Shipstead had been welcomed to six committees, including Agriculture, Public Buildings and Foreign Relations. Moreover, there was Iowa's tousled Brookhart, one of the archest oldtime "radicals." He was now in good standing on Banking & Currency, Interoceanic Canals, Post Offices and Military Affairs.

Mr. Harrison earnestly hoped "this kind of bartering and sale" would not go through; that people would not be led to wonder if there was "any trade in the air" between Republicans and "progressives."

Senator McMaster, South Dakota Republican, unexpectedly chimed in to demand just what assurance of action on farm relief the "progressives" had obtained. He discomfited his Republican brethren with a resolution to bring up revision of the industrial tariff, that being the vulnerable spot of farm-relief antagonists. Senator Brookhart tousled himself afresh in a harangue to the effect that he was proud of having once been "kicked out" of the G. O. P. "There are only two parties in the United States now," he cried. "One is the Wall Street party and the other is that opposed to it." Senator Heflin lent his bovine eloquence, carrying on the Wall-Street-v.-Peepul theory until he had demanded the resignation of Secretary of Agriculture Jardine. The latter and a "crooked" subordinate had aided & abetted the cotton and grain "gambling gang" (brokers), roared Mr. Heflin. Let such rascals resign or be run out of Washington!

Senator LaFollette got the floor to have read into the record the guileless correspondence between the "progressives" and Republican Curtis. Then, after many another had digressed, retorted, and exclaimed upon a variety of matters, the incident was closed. Two days later the Senate committees were organized the way everyone had planned they should be. The following officers were perfunctorily reelected: Senator Moses of New Hampshire, President pro tem; Edwin P. Thayer, Secretary; David S. Barry, Sergeant-at-Arms.

Bills, Bills. Some bills and resolutions framed, filed and presented by the Senators in varying degrees of hope that they would be passed, were: To prohibit intermarriage of whites and Negroes in the U. S.; to require "Jim Crows" (Negro compartments) in the District of Columbia street cars.--Democrat Blease of South Carolina.

To establish a U. S. Department of Education with a Secretary in the Cabinet.--Republican Leader Curtis of Kansas. To recognize Soviet Russia.--Republican Borah, chairman of Foreign Relations. To reduce the limit within which conspiracies must be prosecuted, from six years to three;* and to empower the President to give a court witness immunity by granting a pardon in advance.--Democrat Walsh of Montana. The Senate passed both Walsh bills promptly, without comment. To investigate public utility corporations, their profits & policies.--Democrat Walsh of Montana. To prevent distributors leasing cinema films in blocks of which exhibitors must take all or none.--Republican Brookhart of Iowa.

"To prevent hypocrisy"--a modification of the McNary-Haugen farm-relief plan, substituting for that plan's equalization fee an exchange of export debentures for negotiable customs certificates which would permit farmers to import dutiable merchandise duty-free.--Democrat Caraway of Arkansas.

Senators-Suspect. Its continued existence affirmed by a specific vote, the Senate campaign funds committee under the Missouri Reed invited Senator-suspect Smith of Illinois to come and add to his testimony on his 1926 campaign. Mr. Smith had asked for a postponement. The committee set his hearing for Jan. 7. Further action in the case of Senator-suspect Vare of Pennsylvania was less definitely postponed. Mr. Vare, at home in Philadelphia, was abed with influenza.

*The late George Hearst of California (U. S. Senator 1886-91), who once said: "I don't understand my boy Bill. . . but there's one thing I have noticed about him. When he wants cake he wants it and he wants it now." William Randolph Hearst got into the House of Representatives for two terms (1903-07). His effort to be Democratic nominee for President in 1904 fell flat despite his reputed expenditure of $400,000.

*When he was U. S. Attorney General (1921-24), Harry Micajah Daugherty had the statute of limitations extended from three to six years for the avowed purpose of prosecuting war frauds. The purpose of Senator Walsh's revision was to rob Milton T. Everhart, son-in-law of Albert Bacon Fall, of the excuse upon which he escaped testifying in the Fall-Sinclair oil lease trials. If immune to prosecution for anything he did more than three years ago, Mr. Everhart cannot again plead fear of selfincrimination; must tell about some suspicious Liberty Bonds he handled in 1922 during the transaction of the Messrs. Fall & Sinclair. Last week's developments in the Fall-Sinclair case amounted only to taking testimony on the jury-tampering charges against Harry Ford Sinclair and W. J. Burn's detectives (TIME, Dec. 5).