"A Strange Garret"

For the first time since March 4, 1927, all 96 seats in the U. S. Senate were last week legally filled. Governor John S. Fisher of Pennsvlvania rounded out the roster by appointing Joseph R. Grundy of Bristol in place of William Scott Vare, rejected. The transformation of Mr. Grundy --"Old Joe" as he likes his friends to call him--from a tariff archlobbyist to a full-fledged Senator caused some of his more volatile colleagues to gag and splutter furiously. In the end, for all the uproar against him, he took his seat with the apparent certainty of retaining it at least until next year, when he will run for election.

As a sort of curtain raiser to the senatorial appearance of the 66-year-old wool yarn manufacturer, whose fervor for a high Republican tariff is only equalled by his Quakerism, Chairman Caraway of the Senate Lobby Committee brought in a report in which Grundy lobbying was vigorously flayed. Mr. Grundy was accused of being a campaign "revenue raiser." He was called a "hereditary lobbyist" because his father before him had worked for the McKinley tariff bill. Mr. Grundy's retort about "backward commonwealths" was swept aside as "obviously absurd."

In ponderous mockery Senator Norris of Nebraska picked up a yellow woolen garment from the tariff exhibit called "Grundy's store" and commenced to declaim :

Senators, if you have tears prepare to shed them now.

This is Grundy's mantle; I remember

The first time Grundy ever put it on;

It was a pleasant evening in the fall;

The day Great Hoover won his fight and sent

The defeated heart of Democracy back Upon the sidewalks of New York;

Look, in this place ran Caraway's dagger through;

See what a rent the envious Borah made;

Through this the son of a wild jackass stabbed;

And as he drew his cursed steel away,

Mark how the blood of Grundy followed it,

As rushing out of doors to be resolved,

Whether he was kindly knocked or no;

For this was the most unkindest cut of all;

For when the noble Grundy saw the jackass stab,

Ingratitude more strong than traitors' arms

Quite vanquished him; then burst his heart;

And in his mantle, muffling up his face,

Great Grundy fell.

Two days later, armed with his appointment credentials from Governor Fisher, rotund, rosy-cheeked Mr. Grundy smilingly entered the Senate chamber with Pennsylvania's Senator Reed to take the oath of office. By mistake he sat in the seat of Senator Norris, who was told that he had been himself "unseated." But for three hours Mr. Grundy had to wait while Senators violently abused him and Governor Fisher. With hands folded in his lap and a bland smile on his round face, he listened placidly to a torrential flow of senatorial invective. He heard himself called a "corrupt lobbyist," his appointment an "insult to decency," his Governor an "ass."

The essence of the complaint against Grundy: He had raised large amounts of cash to help elect Governor Fisher in 1926 and therefore his hands and the hands of Governor Fisher were as "soiled" with excessive political expenditures as Senator-Reject Vare's.

Senator Nye of North Dakota framed this complaint into a resolution designed to bar Senator Grundy from his seat. He said the 1926 Pennsylvania primary and election had been an "auction sale," that the Pepper-Grundy-Fisher machine had simply outbid the Vare machine to win this Senate seat.

But a majority of the Senate recognized that it had no constitutional right to question the selection of a Governor, that it lacked legal grounds to bar Mr. Grundy. Senator Norris lost his temper and shouted: "[Governor Fisher's] action is a stench in the nostrils of all honest men. He has disgraced his office . . . insulted the U. S. Senate and the nation but there is nothing in the Constitution or laws to prevent the Governor of Pennsylvania from making a damned fool out of himself if he wants to."

After he had taken his oath, Senator Grundy remarked cheerfully: "I feel like a cat in a strange garret. I have not yet got accustomed to looking from the floors to the galleries"--where he had sat for 20 years as a lobbyist.

Though his appointee disclaimed any resentment at his Senate reception, Governor Fisher lost temper with his critics and exclaimed: "The Senate is the greatest vaudeville show in the United States. This country could get along very well without the Senate, except for the loss of entertainment. . . . This thing would be a hilarious farce if it did not destroy the very fundamentals of American government. ... It has shown the country just what sort of people we have in the Senate. But no one could enter into a tongue-lash-ing contest with those degenerates down there without lowering his self-respect."

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