Boomerang & Blackjack

Boomerang & Blackjack

"Mr. Chairman, may I ask a question?"

All eyes turned to the plump, cherubic-looking young speaker seated at one end of the long green table in the House caucus room.

"Who is the gentleman?" growled Chair-man John J. O'Connor of the House Rules Committee.

"I," said Thomas Gardiner Corcoran, RFCounsel and prime legislative agent of President Roosevelt, "am the accused."

Brewster's Millions. As Republican Governor of Maine from 1925 to 1929. Ralph Owen Brewster made his political name & fame by a dogged fight against the Insull power interests in that state. Elected to the house last autumn as an avowed enemy of Power, he helped wangle a $36,000,000 works relief grant from the Democratic Administration to harness the tides below Passamaquoddy Bay in his district with a great government power dam. Yet in the House teller vote on the Public Utility Bill's so-called "death sentence" (TIME, July 8), Representative Brewster sided with Power, against the President. That startling inconsistency left the man from Maine with a great deal of explaining to do.

Last fortnight toothy, slack-jawed Representative Brewster uprose in the House to offer his explanation to colleagues already tense with excitement over rumors of undue White House pressure in behalf of the "death sentence.'' His voice throbbing with righteous indignation; Representative Brewster bluntly declared that Presidential Agent Thomas G. Corcoran had approached him just before the teller vote, threatened to stop construction on Passamaquoddy Dam unless he voted for the "death sentence." Inference was that his prompt vote against it had been a righteous protest against such a flagrantly unrighteous threat.

Amid a sympathetic uproar, the House authorized its Rules Committee to investigate not only Representative Brewster's charge but all other charges of "undue influence" exerted in connection with the Public Utility Bill by either Power or President.

Handsome, 34-year-old Tom Corcoran, protege of Felix Frankfurter, is more to the President than a brilliant and useful young legalite. He is also a charming, cultured, liberal Harvardman whose ability to sing and accompany himself on accordion and piano has won the White House heart. It was, therefore, a breath-bated moment when beefy, domineering Chairman O'Connor began his investigation last week by barking in response to Tom Corcoran's request for a question:

"The gentleman will not ask questions until he has been recognized by the chair. Mr. Brewster is recognized.''

Representative Brewster sat down directly across the table from Chairman O'Connor and, with many a nervous grimace, proceeded to tell his story. In his pursuit of the Quoddy millions, said he, he had been vastly aided by Mr. Corcoran, government agent delegated to smooth the dam's legal pathway. In return he had listened sympathetically to Mr. Corcoran's earnest pleas for his support of the Public Utility Bill. But the bill was so drastic, so complex, that he had been unable to make up his mind until Mr. Corcoran threatened him just before the vote.

Shameful Shreds. Then Tom Corcoran opened his small pink mouth, told his story of the "threat." With cold, lucid, driving fury, he tore Ralph Brewster's tale to shameful shreds.

He had met Mr. Brewster, he said, some two years ago at the Manhattan apartment of Dr. Ernest Gruening (pronounced greening), Director of the Interior Department's Division of Territories & Island Possessions. As editor-publisher of the Portland, Me. Evening News from 1927 to 1932, Dr. Gruening had been a warm friend & ally of Ralph Brewster in his fight on the Insulls. Mr. Corcoran was roundly assured that Mr. Brewster was one man above all others who could be relied upon to fight the power interests. On the President's orders, went on Witness Corcoran, he helped draft the Wheeler-Rayburn Utility Bill, did his bit to help it along through Senate and House. In this task he had the enthusiastic, voluntary support of Representative Brewster.

Meantime Messrs. Corcoran and Brewster were working hand in glove for Passamaquoddy. Two fears beset legal Agent Corcoran, he explained. One was that the Power interests, through their Republican allies, might bring nuisance suits to check construction after the dam was started. The other was that, once completed, the dam would become another Muscle Shoals which the Federal Government would lack power to operate. Therefore he felt obliged to postpone construction until Maine's Legislature should create a State Power Authority to build and operate the dam in the Federal Government's behalf. Only on Representative Brewster's assurance that he could & would prevent Republican suits and force necessary legislation through Maine's Legislature did Agent Corcoran approve PWA's decision to start work on the dam at once. Dr. Gruening assured him that Mr. Brewster's promises were ''one hundred percent" trustworthy.

Week before the House vote Representative Brewster went up to Maine promising to return in time to speak for the "death sentence." When he did return on the morning of the vote, it was to inform Mr. Corcoran that he had discovered himself in a "peculiar political position" in Maine and could not make the speech. Dismayed, Mr. Corcoran arranged to meet him and Dr. Gruening in Statuary Hall just before the vote. There Maine's No. 1 Power foe made the astounding revelation that he was not only not going to speak for the "death sentence'' but was not even going to vote for it.

"Liar!" "I said to Mr. Brewster then, in front of Dr. Gruening," snapped Witness Corcoran, " 'If, as you say, your political situation is such that you are not a free man and have to take the power companies into account . . . you know perfectly well that I can no longer trust your assurance that you will protect the Quoddy relation.'

That was the "threat." Representative Brewster, nervously drumming his fingers on the committee table, was growing livid. Witness Corcoran continued:

"He turned to Dr. Gruening and said: 'Would it be all right if I go back to the hotel and not vote at all?' "

An anguished snarl pierced the caucus room. It was the voice of Ralph Brewster crying: "You're a liar!"

"We'll see whether I'm a liar or not.'' shot back Tom Corcoran as Chairman O'Connor pounded his gavel, hastily adjourned the session.

Next morning sturdy, self-possessed Dr. Gruening took the witness chair, confirmed Tom Corcoran's story to the last detail.

Headline Hunger. Having observed Colleague Brewster's disastrous boomerang, no other Congressman seemed anxious to try a shot at the White House. Chair-man O'Connor, flush with $50,000 voted him by the House and gratified by the headlines his investigation was making, announced that he would now turn his attention to the Power lobby. But just when prospects seemed bright for more & bigger headlines the Senate suddenly elbowed John J. O'Connor out of the spotlight.

Alabama's slim, wide-eyed Senator Hugo La Fayette Black got a taste of the joys of inquisition in the Senate ocean & airmail investigations (TIME, Oct. 9, 1933, et scq.). Hungry for more, he seized last week upon the Power furor, got the Senate to vote him $50,000 and authority for his committee to investigate not only the Utility Bill lobbying but also "all efforts to influence, encourage, promote or retard . . . any other matter or proposal affecting legislation." Thus New Dealer Black was armed with a mighty blackjack which he could swing at will on anyone who dared oppose Administration bills. For the moment, however, his strategy was to turn up a first-rate Power lobby scandal which might move House-Senate conferees to reinstate the Utility Bill's "death sentence."

Gadsden Purchase? Chief of the Power lobby, as chairman of the Committee of Public Utility Executives, is Philip Henry Gadsden. small, spry, silver-haired vice president in charge of public relations of Philadelphia's United Gas Improvement Co. and scion of a distinguished Charleston, S. C. family. Morning after the Black lobby committee was created last week, two of its investigators burst into Lobbyist Gadsden's offices at the Mayflower Hotel, without ceremony hustled him off in a taxicab to the Capitol. There Chairman Black had just summoned his committee to consider policy & procedure. Policy & procedure were settled in a trice. Five minutes after Lobbyist Gadsden appeared, the doors of the committee room were flung open and Chairman Black cried jovially: "Tell the boys of the Press to come in. The show is about to begin."

Minute later questions were popping so fast that Witness Gadsden found himself open-mouthed to answer one question while Chairman Black was already asking another. That, however, was the only trouble the cool little utilitarian had with his answers. Freely he testified that up to June 30 the Power lobby had spent $301,365 on its fight against the Public Utility Bill. Half of this sum had been donated by holding companies, half by Edison Electric Institute. Two Manhattan law firms were paid $75,000 each. The famed publicity firm of Ivy Lee & T. J. Ross received $5,000 per month, plus traveling expenses. Mr. Gadsden himself, with a salary of $30,000 per year from the U. G. I., got $500 or $600 per month for Washington expenses. Yes, it was quite possible that expenditures by individual operating companies might bring the Power lobby total up to $1,000,000. No, he did not agree with Chairman Black that $1,000,000 was "a ridiculously low estimate."

"We don't feel that we're on the defensive here at all," remarked Witness Gadsden. "We felt that this bill was destroying valuable property and did our best to prevent its passage, as we considered it our Constitutional right."

Further testimony disclosed that, as everyone already knew, the Power lobby had employed its Constitutional right of petition to influence Congressmen against the bill by letters, telegrams, speeches, broadcasts, advertisements. But no whit of evidence was turned up to prove that Lobbyist Gadsden, descendant of the U. S. Minister to Mexico who negotiated the Gadsden Purchase, had used a single dollar of his funds to purchase votes or otherwise corrupt the Congress.

Back at his office, Mr. Gadsden found that in his absence a Black committee investigator named Blomquist had ransacked both his official and personal files. "He actually went through my personal checkbook," cried the furious utilitarian. "I think it's an outrage!"

Replied Investigator Blomquist: "I don't know what are his personal files and which are his official ones. This is a lobby investigation."

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