Monday, Jun. 21, 1926

Inquiry

Pennsylvania senatorial primary expenditures were last week scrutinized by a Senatorial Committee appointed to examine charges that the candidates, especially Vare and Pepper, had spent extravagant sums during their campaigns.

Heading the committee is inquisitive Senator Reed, Democrat from Missouri; the other Democrat on the committee is Senator King of Utah, one of the least silent men in the upper house. Young Senator LaFollette, Progressive Republican from Wisconsin, not inclined to be forward, has yet shown in the Tariff Commission investigation that he is not the type to sit back dumbly during cross-examining. The Republican side of the committee has Senator Goff of West Virginia, a so-called hard-boiled Republican of the genus bred in West Virgina, and Senator McNary of Oregon, known in the Senate as an able cloakroom politician.

Because Governor Pinchot had requested investigation, he was the first to be examined. His wife and his aunt (Mrs. Charles B. Wood) were in the committee room when the Governor sank his tall, lean frame into the witness chair, turned a saddened eye on Senator Reed, recalled the expenditure of $43,000 of his own personal money on the campaign.

Then he said his wife had contributed $40,000, his aunt $50,000, a college friend $11,000, his brother Amos $11,000. The grand total might be $195,000. That equals the amount for which Mr. Newberry of Michigan was "severely condemned and disapproved" by a previous investigating committee. However, Mr. Pinchot's Pennsylvania has more than twice the population of Michigan, hence the per capita amount was less.

With tilted cigar in one corner of his mouth, Senator Reed relishingly continued the grill. He spent much time seeking for traces of Anti-Saloon League complicity, but Mr. Pinchot said that there was no use, since the League had thown him over and followed Senator Pepper as the better bet," although Pinchot was the bone-dry candidate. Senator Reed observed: "They could be happy with either if the other dear charmer were away."

"Did the W. C. T. U. give you any financial support?" queried Senator King.

"No, but they worked very hard," replied the bone-dry man. His secretary later admitted paying $200 to Mrs. Azuba Jones, late of the W. C. T. U. for "dissemination of information," a phrase that rolled somewhat acidly off Senator Reed's tongue when he learned it meant speechmaking.

The Missourian Reed also noted an expenditure of $16 for water at the Pinchot headquarters and solemnly demanded to know if that item was not padded.

"I'll bet there's no such item on Vare's expense," he remarked. Pinchot witnesses testified that the Pepper committee assigned an average of 25 "watchers"* and the Vare committee an average of 10 "watchers" to each election district, paying them $10 each, the aggregate outlay for that purpose alone calculated at half a million dollars. It was also charged that there had been "juggling" in the counting of ballots in certain districts.

Later the Pepper expenditures were explored and even the seasoned members of the committee professed to be dazed. His campaign cost $1,087,000. Of this amount $390,000 had been borrowed and there is more than $100,000 to be paid. The Mellons' Pittsburgh committee had raised $306,000, and two other committees had each raised $125,000. One Pepper campaign manager testified that he had been the victim of misplaced confidence in expending money to promote additional registration of voters who later voted for Vare instead of Pepper.

When the Committee had ferreted through the accounts of Pinchot and Pepper, they examined the winning candidate's records and found that Vare, the light-wine and beer man, had spent upwards of $500,000, much of it in cash. Edward M. Kenna of Pittsburgh, of the Vare western headquarters, Allegheny County Treasurer for six years (at $6,500 a year), admitted after being pressed by Senator Reed, that he had contributed $20,000 of his own cash outright. Others in the Pittsburgh district donated amounts totaling $110,000.

After some hesitancy, Secretary Mellon undertook a "common sense" defense of everyone's expenses. Wages of political workers had risen like other wages, he said. It had cost $42,000 merely to mail one letter to every registered Pennsylvania voter. Huge advertisements had been thought necessary to combat the appetizing Vare beer cry. Political moneys spent in Pennsylvania were "as legitimate as money given to a church." If there was a culprit it was no man but the direct primary itself.

Sweltering on through check stubs, typewritten balance sheets (suspiciously fresh and pat, thought Investigator Reed), the committee determined that the Pennsylvania primary had cost about $2,000,000 altogether. It was ten times as expensive as the celebrated Newberry outlay in Michigan and exceeded the entire cost of the 1924 Democratic campaign.

Significance. All that the Senate Committee can do is to throw up its hands in horror at the Pennsylvania expenditures, and declare them against public policy-- unless actual corruption is discovered. The findings of the committee will undoubtedly make campaign material for some candidates, will make campaign managers cautious in the use of funds.

*A "watcher" is a person hired to visit voting booths to insure his employer's receiving all the votes cast for him. In Pittsburgh it was asserted that one-third of the voters were "watchers," allegedly purchased at $10 each.