Men, Misery & Mules

Half a hundred newsmen jostled their way expectantly into President Hoover' circular office at noon one day last week. Word had spread that the President was thoroughly displeased at Republican mismanagement of his relief programs (for Drought and Depression) in the Senate, that for the third time he would have sharp-stinging things to say.sbA pleasant hearth fire crackled in the hushed room as the President lifted a paper from his desk, began to read aloud. His face grew red with feeling. His voice was harsh and annoyed. Excerpts:

"I observe that measures have already been introduced in Congress which, if passed, would impose an increased expenditure for the present and next fiscal year ... of nearly $4,500,000,000 and mostly under the guise of giving relief of some kind or another. . . . The sums which I have recommended . . . are the maximum which can be financed without increases in taxes.

"An increase in taxes . . . defeats the very purpose of these schemes. . . . Prosperity cannot be restored by raids on the public treasury. . . . Some of these schemes are ill-considered; some represent the desire of individuals to show they are more generous than the administration. . . . They are playing politics at the expense of human misery. The American people will not be misled by such tactics."/-

Bold? Nervous? This broadside began a week of sensational warfare between the White House and the Senate. Some observers saw President Hoover turning over a new and bolder political leaf, adopting Rooseveltian tactics to combat congressional vagaries. Others pictured him as a nervous, sensitive man who had been swamped by his own anger at the loss of support. Certain it was that his fingers played a new tattoo of worry on the arms of his chair, that his nerves were stretched by the failure of the country to rally sooner from its slump, by Republican reverses in the election, by the natural can't ankerousness of the Senate.

Provocations. What immediately provoked the White House outburst was a fiery speech the day before by Massachusetts' Democratic Senator Walsh in which he flayed the Administration for "niggardliness" in its relief plans. Declared Senator Walsh: "There are worse misfortunes tHan heavy taxes. One is the failure of the Government to remove the spectre of starvation and misery and idleness and unrest." Another provocation was the Senate's preference for a $60,000,000 drought relief program over the administration's $25,000,000.

Misery v. Taxes. When waspish little Senator Caraway of Arkansas read the Hoover statement to the Senate, the floodgates of Democratic abuse were opened. The most fair, the most logical attack was upon the President's $4,500,000,000 figure which was arrived at by the threadbare device of piling one duplicate bill upon another, of including all grotesque measures which die the moment they are introduced. Another point raised against the White House calculation was that in most of the "relief" bills the U. S. was giving away nothing but simply advancing programs and policies theoretically approved by the President himself. Hotly declared New York's Senator Copeland: "If we're playing politics with human misery, he's playing politics with tax figures."

Recalling the $100,000,000 U. S. food relief abroad after the War, Senator Caraway exclaimed: "If President Hoover had not had the job of spending this money, his biography would be a blank, except for the date of his birth."

Chimed in Mississippi's Harrison: "No man ever won more political favor upon the misery of the people than the President. No one accused him of playing politics when he went to administer Mississippi flood relief or when he went to distribute food to the starving Belgians."

Tennessee's McKellar, demanding a White House apology, paraded all the old outworn charges against the President-- the meat price boost after the War, the use of battleships on his South American tour, the employment of Marines to work about his Rapidan camp.

No. 1 Cooperator. To avert an extra session Democratic harmony and cooperation was to have been the prime touchstone of this session. No. 1 Democratic cooperator was Senator Robinson of Arkansas, the Minority leader, who signed the party's post-election pledge (TIME, Nov. 17).sb Leader Robinson has been in hot water ever since with followers who do not relish playing second fiddle to the Republicans. He was accused of having "gone White House." Therefore when he arose last week to reply to the President's statement, other Senators flocked in, gave him strict attention. Said he:

"The President lost his temper and made a statement that, of course, is to be condemned. I do not propose to follow his bad example. ... I would rather increase taxes than refuse to meet the obligations of Congress. . . . President Hoover felt there was a right to go into the Treasury and feed those in distress in foreign lands but for some mysterious, inexplicable reason it is now wrong to give our own citizens relief."

Referring to his party's harmony pledge, he continued: "There is room for question whether the particular gentlemen who signed the statement had any responsibility to do so; there is room for question whether the statement was couched in appropriate language; but there is no room to doubt the correctness of the principle underlying the declaration and I stand on it. ... I should like to see this Congress now act in a spirit of greater cooperation. I cooperate and intend to continue to cooperate. . . ."

Silence. To the Democratic fusillade upon their President, Republican Senators made no effective reply. Pennsylvania's Reed tried feebly to mollify the opposition by declaring the Hoover statement was nonpartisan, but was finally compelled to admit that he disliked its tone, questioned its wisdom. Connecticut's tall Bingham arose to announce: "It is easy to see that the campaign of 1932 is now under way." Otherwise the Republicans sat silently in their seats or lounged in the cloak rooms, leaving President Hoover defenseless on the floor.

17 on the Telephone. Desertion by his own party in the Senate came close to infuriating President Hoover. With his political pride badly hurt, he called Senate Leader James Eli Watson and Speaker of the House Nicholas Longworth to the White House where he demanded of them more public and energetic support. There was even a threat of another broadside. Leader Watson returned to the Senate, delivered the President's message to a private meeting of 17 of the most stalwart Republican Senators including Pennsylvania's Reed and Davis, New Jersey's Kean and Morrow, Delaware's Townsend and Hastings, Ohio's Fess, Connecticut's Walcott, California's Shortridge. These Republicans promptly expressed keen resentment toward their President because he had not notified them of his intention to flay Congress. They agreed they were unable to cooperate with him if he would not cooperate with them. They considered his statement "undefensible," which accounted for the fact they had not tried to defend him.

When Leader Watson suggested that he carry this consensus to the White House, his colleagues countered with a proposal that he telephone it, in their presence. This he did, with the other Senators nodding their heads in agreement as he told President Hoover what a political mistake his broadside was. In behalf of his colleagues, Leader Watson offered the President co-operation provided he would take Republican Senators into his confidence and seek their advice. The President accepted, made peace with his party.

Men & Mules. Meantime the subject of all this welter of words--the bills for drought and unemployment relief--shuttled back & forth across the way to enactment. The House passed the jobless bill at $110,000,000, which the Senate raised to $118,000,000 with a limitation on the President's power to shift funds from one project to another. The measure then went to conference for the House and Senate to haggle over their differences.

With only 20 members present, the Senate passed its own bill to loan $60,000,000 to drought sufferers for food for themselves and feed for their livestock. Administration leaders, contending for President Hoover's $30,000,000 measure limited to animal feed loans, declared that human food loans would be a dole. Sarcastically retorted Senator Robinson: "It's all right to put a mule on the dole but to put a man on the basis of equality with a mule is all wrong."

President Hoover suffered a sharp House defeat when Speaker Longworth, in an effort to pass his $30,000,000 drought bill by a two-thirds majority under a suspension of the rules, was voted down (20540-159) by Democrats who, refusing to be gagged, favored the larger Senate measure.

*President Hoover spoke out vehemently before against: i) Lobbyist Shearer's big-Navy activities at Geneva (TIME, Sept. 16, 1929); 2) Field Chief Kelley's shale oil charges in the New York World (TIME, Nov. 10).

/-Sample Senate bills calling for large outlays: $500,000,000 road building (Iowa's Brookhart), $500,000,000 River & Harbor development (Minnesota's Shipstead), $30,000,000 free wheat distribution by Federal Farm Board (Kansas' Capper), $50,000,000 increased War Veterans pension (Alabama's Black), $150,000,000 public works (Illinois' Glenn), $10,000.000 Mediterranean fruit fly relief (Florida's Trammel), $100,000,000 free jobless relief (Massachusetts' Walsh). A half dozen measures have been introduced in the House providing for $4,000,000,000 to cash soldier bonus certificates.

*Democratic Executive Chairman Jouett Shouse claims credit for that manifesto. He says he came running downstairs the morning of Nov. s and picked up the newspapers. He says he could see "nothing but Chaos--Chaos-- Chaos" in the big black headlines. Within three hours he had written the pledge, got by telegraph the approval of the other six leaders.

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