Lobbyist Shearer

Whenever in the last five years the Navy was up in Congress for debate and action, a big thick-shouldered man in a tweed suit, a red necktie and yellow shoes, could generally be found striding up and clown the Capitol's corridors, buttonholing Congressmen and Senators, passionately urging them to vote for the biggest kind of U. S. fleet, hoarsely warning them against the imperialism of Great Britain. His name was William B. Shearer. He was in his early 40's. His voice was the voice of a 16-in. gun booming arguments and demands for more ships. Well-heeled, he was a generous entertainer. Quick of temper, he once threatened to "knock the hell" out of a Washington correspondent (Ray Tucker) who dared dispute his word. Quickly he was recognized as the most potent Big-Navy lobbyist in Washington. Whom or what he represented remained a mystery.

Last week the mystery ended when Mr. Shearer, to collect a pay claim, filed suit in Manhattan against his alleged employers--Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., Newport News Shipbuilding Co., American Brown-Bovari Corp. From these shipbuilders, Lobbyist Shearer said, he had received $51,230. He claimed they still owed him $257,655 for professional services. He had, he stated, been hired to prepare literature, information, data, to write articles, to interview public officials and press representatives, to make speeches in behalf of U. S. shipbuilding from 1926 to 1929. The dullest Congressman could see the connection: Big Navy--more cruisers; more cruisers--more work, more profits, for U. S. shipbuilding companies.

Mr. Shearer appeared on the Washington scene in 1924 as a naval expert, the inventor of a one-man torpedo. When the U. S. S. Washington was towed off the Virginia Capes for sinking by airplane bombs, he rushed into court, vainly sought an injunction to prevent the Navy from destroying this vessel under the terms of Washington Arms Treaty. Later he admitted that Publisher William Randolph Hearst, Anglophobe, had paid the cost of that empty exploit.

Later that year Congress was plowed with demands for an investigation of the Navy. Such an inquiry, insisted Big-Navy men, would reveal the weak condition of the fleet, would hasten reforms--and new ships. Lobbyist Shearer was in the thick of that agitation. He began issuing what were supposed to be the Navy's military secrets: 1) the U. S. had had a spy aboard a British warship during maneuvers, who reported on secret methods whereby British guns could outrange those of the U. S. fleet; 2) maneuvers in miniature at the Naval War College at Newport had demonstrated that the British fleet could destroy the U. S. Navy in 80 minutes.

These "disclosures" did not precipitate a Congressional investigation of the Navy, but they did stir up trouble aplenty within the Navy itself. Lobbyist Shearer explained that he had received his information from private and confidential letters exchanged between naval officers studying at the War College. Secretary of the Navy Wilbur convoked a court of inquiry at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Captain Hugo W. Osterhaus was suspected of '"leaking." Lobbyist Shearer went to the Pacific coast. too busy there with other naval affairs to help out of difficulty those who had given him his information.

In 1927 he spent six weeks at Geneva during the arms conference. As an international lobbyist, he sowed seeds of statistical discord, sought to preserve the irreconcilability of the British and U. S. viewpoints on cruiser tonnage. When the conference failed, he considered his mission a complete success, took the "credit.

He was on deck again at the Capitol when the House passed the 15-cruiser bill last year. He handed out yellow-bound pamphlets abusing the British, bristling with statistics to prove the inferiority of the U. S. fleet. Only a few Congressmen realized they were being supplied with second-hand arguments, the same material Lobbyist Shearer had used at Geneva. In the midst of his lobbying, he made this statement:

"My fight is for national defense. . . . I expect no reward, except the consciousness that I am helping my country."