A Lobby's Weapons

Do right and fear no man. Don't write and fear no Congressman. So might Sugar Lobbyist Herbert Conrad Lakin of Manhattan have paraphrased the adage when, again last week, he faced the Senate Lobby Committee. President of Cuba Co. with its $165,000,000 invested in sugar plantations, mills, railroads, Lobbyist Lakin went to Washington the first of the year to work against an increased sugar tariff. Cuban planters chipped in to pay his expenses. President Machado of Cuba blessed his activities. So disarmingly had he told his story before that the Lobby Committee praised him for his "frankness" (TIME, Nov. 4).

But last week's disclosures of Lakin lobbying won no praise from the Committee. Lobbyist Lakin had engaged as the lobby's attorney Edwin Paul Shattuck, a Manhattan lawyer who had served with Herbert Hoover in the Food Administration. To the committee this employment looked like an effort to "hire White House influence." Lobbyist Lakin's letters to Cuban clients, to President Machado himself, told his story for him. Excerpts:

"By great good fortune Mr. Shattuck ... is perhaps Hoover's closest legal friend. He is the personal attorney for Hoover and all his family. I have persuaded him to undertake a confidential mission to convince Hoover ... on behalf of Cuba. . . . Because of Shattuck's prominence and his intimacy with President Hoover, I expect we shall pay Shattuck . . . something like $75,000. . . . His connection with President Hoover is our strongest weapon. . . . President Hoover has taken a direct hand. He has already suggested a possible solution to Senator Smoot and to Mr. Shattuck.

"I shall be able to have a personal talk with Stimson. I have known Stimson intimately for nearly 30 years."

Nowhere did the testimony show that Lobbyist Lakin had actually obtained anything from the White House by Mr. Shattuck's employment. The President had evidently remained strictly neutral. The Lakin lobby letters were simply a salesman's reports to his employers.

The apparent fact that he had been hired because he was the President's friend and attorney brought an explanation from Mr. Shattuck: "Such an impression is untruthful and unfair to the President and myself. Neither I nor any other friend of the President would attempt to use such a friendship in the manner suggested. . . . It would defeat its own purpose. ... I informed Mr. Hoover of my connection [with the Cuba sugar lobby], not to obtain his approval but so that there would be no misunderstanding. I have never sought anything from the President."

Lobbyist Lakin's letters revealed two proposals which the committee called "sinister":

1) the regimentation of other Latin-American countries against the U. S. on the sugar tariff;

2) approach of Masonic Congressmen by Cuban Masons.

Because Lobbyist Lakin communicated directly with President Machado on the sugar tariff fight, Senator Walsh of Montana reminded him that the Logan Act, providing a $5,000 fine and three years' imprisonment for U. S. citizens who interfere in their country's foreign affairs by direct negotiation with other Governments, was "still good American law." Lobbyist Lakin replied that he had never heard of the Logan Act but admitted that his plan to stir up Latin-American animus towards the U. S. was "wrong,"

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