The Fisherman

Of all the New and Fair Dealers in Congress, none has a more durable record of sniping at business than Brooklyn's Veteran Democratic Representative Emanuel Celler. Back in 1922 he was elected on an antidepression, anti-Big Business platform, and, so long as the patchwork of tenements, corner drugstores and housing developments that he represents keeps on sending him back, he sees no reason to change his tactics.* In his time, rotund Manny Celler has whaled away at the steel industry and bank mergers, Wall Street and newsprint combines, even probed big-league baseball for suspected monopolistic tendencies (and why a hotdog cost 20-c- at Ebbets Field).

His favorite method of impressing the voters is to grab for headlines; before the last election, Capitol Hill newsmen informally chose him as the Congressman with the most press releases. He once said that the recipe for success in Congress is to exhibit "the brashness of a sophomore . . . the perseverance of a bill collector." Last week, in the news vacuum that followed Congress' adjournment, Congressman Celler was exhibiting all the brashness and perseverance that he could muster.

A Forthright Stand. Congressman Celler had long since taken a bead on a likely target: Commerce Secretary Sinclair Weeks and the businessmen who work for the Government without compensation in the Commerce Department's Business Advisory Council. As chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, Celler invited Secretary Weeks to come up and testify about the council. When Weeks replied that he did not know when he might find time, Committee Chairman Celler pronounced the answer evasive. And evasive answers, he went on, were a subject he knew something about. Turning to a fellow committeeman, Pennsylvania Republican Hugh Scott, Celler told a story. "I remember years ago, Hugh, I got a wire from a very irate constituent who said, 'I demand to know forthwith whether you are for or against the draft,' and I wired back: 'I certainly am.' "

After the guffaws died down, Celler switched from Secretary Weeks to the council's Executive Director Walter White, ordered him to bring along all his files. For a full day Celler and his committee staff questioned White, who came to the stand with a giant packing box filled with old press handouts and one thin folder of financial documents. Secretary Weeks, said Witness White, had refused him permission to bring along B.A.C.'s official files, which fill 35 cabinets. Celler cried that B.A.C. is "a sort of hybrid organization ... It may do a great deal of good ... It may do a great deal of harm."

Business Brass. Actually, it appeared that B.A.C. does not do much at all. It is a sort of blue-chip honorary society,* that enjoys a well-heeled bank account ($200,000 from member contributions) and provides its sole full-time employee, Walter White, with a $25,000 yearly salary and a $120,000 fund for his retirement. It was set up in Franklin Roosevelt's first term (1933) by Secretary of Commerce Dan Roper to advise the Commerce Secretary. Now it hires experts to write studies on such subjects as labor and antitrust law, meets six times a year (usually in Washington, Hot Springs, Va., or White Sulphur Springs, W. Va.). Though its members are chosen by the Commerce Secretary, it is not part of the Government; any influence it might have would come largely because of the collective influence of its high business-brass membership.

When White got through explaining about B.A.C., Chairman Celler blustered about a contempt citation because White failed to bring along his 35 filing cabinets. Next day Secretary Weeks called a special press conference to defend business against "massive attacks" by politicians. "With prosperity at a peak level," said Weeks, "this seems an odd time to try to undermine confidence in private enterprise." On Capitol Hill Congressman Celler called Weeks's statement "palpable nonsense," threatened to "subpoena everybody in sight" (when he comes back from vacation in October) to penetrate "the aura of secrecy" around B.A.C.

There the matter rested at week's end. Congressman Celler has his fishing lines out, and every now and then--especially on dull days for the reporters--he can be expected to give them a giant jerk. One of these days he hopes to catch something.

* To beat Republican Lester D. Volk, Celler photographed the deserted sidewalk outside Macy's Manhattan department store on a Sunday morning, flashed it on neighborhood movie screens with the caption, "If Volk wins, this is what happens to business--depression."

* A sampling of its 60 members: Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. Chairman and President Harold Boeschenstein, General Motors President Harlow Curtice, General Electric President Ralph Cordiner, New York Stock Exchange President Keith Funston, Du Pont President Crawford Greenewalt, Standard Oil Co. (N.J.) Chairman Eugene Holman, Cornell University President Deane Malott.

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