The Senate Week

Work Done. The U. S. Senators: P: Debated the resolution by Senator Walsh of Montana to investigate public utility corporations, their profits & policies (TIME, Dec. 26); voted 40 to 36 to send it to the Committee on Interstate Commerce.

P:Confirmed Presidential appointments.

P: Passed a resolution of regret at the death of Senator Andrieus Aristieus Jones of New Mexico; adjourned immediately in his honor, until Jan. 4.

Balance of Power. Angina pectoris (heart disease), from which he had long suffered (last year he had an attack in the Capitol barbershop), carried off Senator Andrieus Aristieus Jones, New Mexico Democrat. The Senate expressed profound regret in a resolution. Vice President Dawes detailed ten Senators to attend the funeral in Las Vegas, N. M.

Besides attending their colleague's funeral, the Senate's emissaries listened closely to political talk in New Mexico, waiting to hear who would be the late Senator Jones's successor.

Though New Mexico's Senators were both Democrats, her Governor, Richard C. Dillon, is a Republican. Senator Jones's death put the technical balance of the Senate's power into Governor Dillon's hands. With Senators-suspect Vare of Pennsylvania and Smith of Illinois off the floor, the Republicans mustered only 46 votes, requiring the vote of Farmer-Laborite Shipstead (Minnesota) to bring them even with the 47 Democrats; and the vote of Vice President Dawes to break a partisan deadlock. Now the Democrats were reduced to 46, and the Republicans stood to gain a seat in Governor Dillon's appointee.

In New Mexico, the expectation was that Governor Dillon would not avail himself of his partisan opportunity, but would call a special election, that having been the course followed when Senator Albert Bacon Fall was called to be President Harding's Secretary of the Interior in 1921.

Indianapolis' Postmaster. When the Klan squatted upon Indiana like a roc in a dust bank, one of the things its leaders promised would hatch out was a new postmaster for Indianapolis. So, when the term of Postmaster Robert H. Bryson of Indianapolis expired two years ago and President Coolidge reappointed him, Representative Ralph E. Updike of Indianapolis went before the Senate Committee on Post Offices and objected. Senator Robinson of Indiana also helped obstruct Mr. Bryson's reappointment. Finally, last week, with Indiana's chief klansman behind bars for murder and the whole state in revolt at things Klannish, Senator Robinson dared obstruct no more. Two years late, the Senate confirmed the reappointment of able Postmaster Bryson of Indianapolis.

In Store. Last week was far more notable in the Senate for its glimpses of the future than for its actions of the present.

P: Chairman Norris (Nebraska) of the Judiciary Committee introduced (through Senator Walsh of Montana) his ancient proposal to amend the Constitution so that the President of the U. S. would be inaugurated on the 15th, and Senators and Representatives take their seats on the 2nd of the January following the November of their elections. This means of abolishing the "lame duck" sessions of Congress, and of putting the people's choice promptly into the White House, has been passed by the Senate before but rejected by the House.

P: Senator Moses (New Hampshire) was leader in the battle to have the public utilities inquiry sought by Senator Walsh (Montana) referred to "the Interstate Commerce Committee. The latter, with small-eyed Senator Watson of Indiana for Chairman, "bristles with Old Guard bayonets." In the vote to refer, 13 property-interested Democrats joined 27 Republicans. A behind-scenes fight was predictable on the part of "progressive" Republicans and downright Democrats to push the Walsh resolution through the committee and set the inquiry afoot.

Hearst v. The Senate. The Senate's special committee to discover whether Publisher William Randolph Hearst had tried to make the Senate his debtor, his newsboy or his strong-arm man by publishing documents purporting to show attempts by Mexico to bribe four U. S. Senators (TIME, Dec. 26), continued its hearings. The four Senators (Borah, Norris, LaFollette, (Heflin) having been immediately cleared, the outstanding testimony last week was that of one Robert H. Murray, an employe of the Bank of Mexico, who stated that the U. S. Embassy in Mexico City had long been "in the market" for forged state documents, and that onetime Ambassador-to-Mexico James R. Sheffield had seen some of the documents now in question, prior to their purchase by Publisher Hearst. The U. S. State Department speedily denied Witness Murray's tale.

Dawes's Dinner. The Senate pages (small, serious boys in knickerbockers), the Senate doorkeepers (smiling gentlemen in cutaways) and other Senate employes (young and old men in sack suits), attended Vice President Dawes's annual dinner (turkey, pumpkin pie), given for them in the minority room of the Senate Office Building. Emulating the Gridiron Club (Capital newsgatherers' society), the guests staged skits, the chief one of which featured the safe landing at the White House of "the trusty plane, Helen Maria," after a record-breaking "hesitation flight" (sarcasm referring to Vice President Dawes's reluctance to be a candidate).