Senators' Sound-Offs

Last week Vice President John Nance Garner, as round and hard and brown as the pecans he grows on his ranch, packed up his starched collars and his cutaway, helped his quiet secretarial wife into the family car and motored to San Antonio. There he boarded a Katy train, talked briefly to a friend passing through Waco, but locked his stateroom door when he reached Dallas.

At St. Louis he was less exclusive. Beneath the vast smoky vault of the Union Station he met newshawks. On silver, inflation, other issues he had "no thoughts." Did he like being Vice President less than being Speaker of the House? A nostalgic gleam came into the blue Garner eye. "I could have told you something then," said he, "for I knew what was going on. But now I don't. However, after being in Washington a few days I may get the slant of things, and might be able to talk--but not for publication. My chief does that now. I am only supposed to preside over the Senate and vote when there is a tie-- and nobody knows when there'll be a tie!"

Alighting from his train in Washington, Vice President Garner again withdrew into a stony silence on national affairs. The next time newsmen saw him he was wandering around the House wing of the Capitol. He did not deny that he was "homesick for the old place." In a brighter mood, he pounded his small paunch. "Look at this waistline," he cried. "Know how I shaved off four inches this summer? Every day I went out to my pecan orchard and stooped over 125 times, picking up one nut each time. Say, that's great exercise!"

Self-effacement is not a quality of the 93 old Senators over whom Vice President Garner will preside this week. If they do not know it already, the three new Senators--Wyoming's O'Mahoney, Vermont's Gibson, New Mexico's Hatch--whom Mr. Garner will swear in on opening day, will soon learn that silence leads only to obscurity and defeat at the Capitol. Senator after Senator returned to let off accumulated six-months' blasts before their well-loved Washington soundboard.

Politic and popular, Oregon's Charles Linza McNary prepared to call the first meeting of Republicans, both Progressives and regulars, since he succeeded to the minority leadership. Said he: "All Republicans look alike to me." At the last minute, this gathering was postponed. Idaho's ursine Borah, on the lookout for a saddle horse to replace crippled "Governor" and superannuated "Idaho," notified Oil Administrator Ickes that big petroleum producers were squeezing little ones, that while the oil code increased costs to producers $125,000,000 a year, $486,000,000 in price increases were being passed on to consumers. With North Dakota's Nye he went to the White House with another complaint. He felt that NRA was injuring the small businessman. The President offered both Senators seats on a new supervisory board, which both refused. It was then agreed that some anti-trust teeth would have to be fitted into the Blue Eagle's bill at the coming session.

To the White House went another insurgent Republican, Nebraska's Norris, to urge liberal trade credits for Russia. As side lines, he also plugged for abolition of the unit electoral vote in Presidential contests and impeached Postmaster General Farley's patronage distribution.

Two Democrats made news at the White House. New York's ruddy Wagner wanted to be retired from the National Labor Board, now that the Senate was about to sit. Texas' Connally, early "rubber dollar'' advocate, appeared to say that he was "as strong as horseradish" for Mr. Roosevelt's monetary policies. He urged the President to take over for the Treasury all Federal Reserve gold.

Another blatant Southerner, Louisiana's Huey Pierce ("Kingfish") Long, sulked in his office, declaring that he would "fight the hell out of any income tax bill that did not include a capital levy. Of the contest over Lallie Kemp's dubious Congressional election, he could only say: "If Congress wants to recognize outlaw and shotgun elections that's its business. . . ."

Up to the soundboard stepped Utah's King, out for speedier freedom for the Philippines. Pennsylvania's Reed was hawking a resume of "four Roosevelt errors."

Biggest Senatorial news of the week was made when Oklahoma's Thomas, tired after a summer and autumn of campaigning for currency expansion, withdrew from the active leadership of the inflationist group. "I am in accord with everything the President has done. ... I do not intend to oppose Mr. Roosevelt's monetary policies, but I will continue to go ahead with the Congress on sound measures to expand the currency."

Inflationist Thomas may have resigned his titular soft money leadership, but he was on hand in the Senate's Indian Affairs Committee room next day when 18 of his Southern and Western colleagues, summoned by Montana's Wheeler, signed a resolution favoring "bimetallism, the free and unlimited coinage of both gold and silver at a ratio to be established by law." The silverites claimed 51 Senate votes to put through their resolution.

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