Great Lobby Hunt, Cont.

A procession of assorted witnesses last week furnished fresh quarry for the Senate's great lobby hunt. Developments:

Digression. Called to the stand was suave, genial Colonel John Haydock Carroll, an oldtime lobbyist who proved his professional competence by charming his investigators with stories, diverting their inquiry into amusing byways, by winning their praise for frankness. Lobbyist Carroll had been hired by the U. S. Sugar Association to go to Cuba, at $4,500 per month, to investigate rumors against President Machado which threatened U. S. intervention.

Of more interest than his Cuban mission for low-duty sugar men, the committee found his statement of clients and fees. His income, he said was close to $150,000 per year, to which the Royal Dutch Shell Oil Co. contributed $25,000, the Burlington and Northern Pacific Railroads $20,000, the Baltimore & Ohio $10,000, United Fruit Co. $15,000 (to prevent a tariff on bananas), the Chesapeake & Ohio and Hocking Valley $12,000, the Cuban Embassy $4,800.

A foundling with only six weeks' formal education, a newsboy who made $3.50 selling "extras" of the Lincoln assassination, Lobbyist Carroll confided that his career as a railroad lobbyist for the Burlington began at Jefferson City, Mo. Said he:

"I'm ashamed I ever went there. Years ago I swore I'd never go to that damned town again. . . . I play my game in the open now."

It was Col. Carroll who conducted Queen Marie of Rumania on her U. S. tour. Describing that trip, he brought a blush to the Senator's cheek when he remarked: "Senator Borah, you'll be interested in this as showing what a marvelous woman this girl was." At his first meeting with the Queen:

"I said to her 'I'm just a child of nature. I don't know what to do in the presence of royalty.' She said to me, 'You take me around just as you'd take your wife or daughter.' "

Progression. The investigation moved forward again when Gordon Sohn Rentschler, president of Manhattan's National City Bank, appeared to tell of his company's interest in Cuban sugar production and a low sugar duty. His story was forthright: National City had loaned large sums to Cuban planters who had been caught in the 1920-21 sugar deflation. National City had formed General Sugars, Inc., to take and operate over 3,250,000 acres, a $30,000,000 investment. To the United States Sugar Association's low-duty lobby fund, Mr. Rentschler's bank had contributed $10,000, had spent $200,000 per year on monthly propaganda sent to 300,000 persons.

Banker Rentschler escaped badgering at the committee's hands largely because of his simple manner of testifying, his refusal to be drawn into arguments with Senators.

Transgression. Many a citizen wondered whether the Lobby Committee had not transgressed even senatorial privilege when it examined another potent Eastern banker, Fred I. Kent, director of Bankers Trust Co. of Manhattan. In a public speech Banker Kent had blamed the Senate and the Democratic-Insurgent Republican coalition for the stockmarket break. The four members of that coalition on the Lobby Committee (Caraway, Walsh, Elaine. Borah) made for Banker Kent in rough-and-tumble fashion.

Mr. Kent is deaf. He set up a special hearing apparatus before him. Senators shouted insinuating questions and comments at him. The room rang with noise. In his testimony Banker Kent clung to his belief that the Senate's inaction on the tariff had produced an adverse business psychology which helped to push stock prices downward. He listed three contributory causes: 1) Increase in the capital gain tax; 2) Increase in new security issues; 3) Public misunderstanding of brokers' loans.

Senator Carter Glass of Virginia, co-author of the Federal Reserve Act, joined the committee to question Banker Kent. Together they wrangled and shouted over the technicalities of the Federal Reserve Bank's relation to the stockmarket.

Asked Senator Caraway: "You have had no trouble getting your liquor since Prohibition, have you?" Banker Kent, red with rage, banged the table and exclaimed: "I never had liquor in my house before Prohibition or since."

Discussing the 1907 panic and the movement of currency. Senator Caraway interrupted Banker Kent to remark: "Oh, please talk about something you know something about."

Senator Borah asked Mr. Kent if he were related to Arch-Lobbyist Joseph R. Grundy. When Mr. Kent replied he had never met Mr. Grundy. Senator Borah continued: "Well, you ought to do it, because you two are kindred spirits."

When Banker Kent declined to name business men who had been made "uncer- tain" by the Senate's tariff behavior, Senator Caraway shot at him: "You're afraid to mention one business man, for fear we'll call them down here and they'll say you did not quote them correctly."

Obsession. The Lobby Committee was apparently prepared to call before it any critic of the Senate and subject him to the kind of treatment accorded Banker Kent. Statistician Roger Ward Babson of Babson Park, Mass., was mentioned as a possible witness because of his comment that the "Senate fiddled" while U. S. business "burned" (see page 12). So obsessed seemed the Senate with chasing every hostile voice raised against it that Prof. William Starr Myers of Princeton University dared to remark last week:

"The injustices perpetrated by George III before the American Revolution were no worse than some that have been perpetrated by senatorial investigating committees. If these committees have the rights the courts say they have, no man, woman or child is safe from their whims. . . . They seek not facts but to put somebody in a hole. . . ."

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