More Morgan

Having completed a tour of the Tennessee Valley and settled down comfortably for the summer, Senator Vic Donahey's TVA investigating committee last week got down to work. At Knoxville the committee took up its long job by calling to the stand TVA's deposed chairman, Arthur Ernest Morgan.

During four days of testimony in an air-cooled Federal courtroom, zealous Arthur Morgan repeated and amplified the charges he made against TVA Directors Harcourt A. Morgan and David E. Lilienthal last March. He made it clear that: 1) from the beginning in 1933 he was the only one of TVA's directors who was in step, 2) Franklin Roosevelt was fully informed of the Morgan v. Morgan & Lilienthal rift from its inception, but did nothing about it until Arthur Morgan publicly exploded. Beyond that, Arthur Morgan flooded and occasionally bored the committee with details in support of his complaints that the other directors shoved him around', deceived him, the public and the President, wasted TVA money, based yardstick rates on spurious or nonexistent cost calculations. But if Oldster Arthur Morgan would cut no capers to supply entertainment, loud Representative Thomas A. Jenkins, a Republican from Ironton, Ohio, made up for the deficiency.

Last week, when Arthur Morgan testified that the committee's counsel, socialite New Dealer Francis Biddle of Philadelphia, "has informed me that I can't talk to a TVA employe who has not been arranged through him." Representative Jenkins charged into the battle. In the ensuing exchange of bellows, he asked TVA's lawyer, James Lawrence Fly: "Have you any arrangement with Mr. Biddle whereby you know everything they [the employes] tell Dr. Morgan?"

Biddle: "If these dirty slurs keep up. I'll resign right now if this committee hasn't got confidence in me."

Jenkins: "You'd be doing the committee and the country a great favor if you did."

To the Congressman's delight, TVA Employe Charles Hoffman testified that he had to forgo a dinner date with his best girl because she used to be Arthur Morgan's secretary, hence might constitute an unauthorized "contact." Upshot was that Dr. Morgan or any other witness designated by Senator Donahey may henceforth talk to TVA employes without hindrance from TVA bosses.

Most striking feature of Arthur Morgan's testimony was his willingness to weaken his case rather than tell half-truths. Witness Morgan first declared that TVA's General Manager John Blandford was "one of the little clique that run things," and lacked the background necessary for the job. Then Witness Morgan added that he himself hired Mr. Blandford away from a job as Cincinnati's public safety director, rued the choice later. In the same implacably veracious vein. Arthur Morgan pointed out that he: 1) signed board minutes which he now says were doctored by David Lilienthal; 2) approved power rates which he now says were concocted from guesses by David Lilienthal; 3) approved an agreement with land-grant colleges which he now says was cooked up by H. A. Morgan.

Before and after Arthur Morgan. Messrs. H. A. Morgan and David Lilienthal were heard. Said H. A. Morgan: "TVA is a good thing." Said David Lilienthal: "We cut red tape and went right ahead" (to set up TVA's yardstick in 1933). Later studies, he explained, showed that the rates he originally hit upon were sound.

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