Black Dirt

"There's enough dirt to keep 20 committees busy!" glowed Chairman Hugo Black of the Senate Lobby investigating committee as he resumed his scratching in the Power lobby's backyard last week.

"Dead Man." Hot after huge, unpopular Associated Gas & Electric Co., whose Warren, Pa. representative admitted last fortnight that he had sent Congressmen hundreds of unauthorized telegrams against the Public Utility Bill's "death sentence" (TIME. July 29), the Black committee summoned telegraph and utility men from York, Pa. Testimony was offered that an A. G. & E. subsidiary had prepared some 2,000 anti-"death sentence" telegrams, filed them in batches of 100 or more.

Seven hundred had been signed with the names of employes of York Street Railway Co. and their next of kin.

"If they objected to their names being used, to whom would they object?" a Senator asked Quay C. Haller, A. G. & E. representative from York.

"Their bosses, Your Honor," replied nervous Mr. Haller.

Just the kind of publicity-making titbit the committee wanted was turned up by a York telegraph official who testified that one Charles E. Small, purported signer of a protesting telegram to Pennsylvania's Representative Haines, had been dead for two years. But two days later A. G. & E. got more & better publicity by producing a fresh letter from Charles E. Small to Representative Haines. Wrote Mr. Small, father-in-law of an A. G. & E. plant superintendent: "I wish you to know that I am the man that is supposed to be dead, who wrote you and wired you opposing the Rayburn-Wheeler utility legislation. I am very much alive. . . ." Early in the week the Federal Communications Commission stepped in, ordered U. S. telegraph companies to produce by Aug. 15 detailed, sworn data concerning faked telegrams against the "death sentence," destruction of files containing protest messages. Thereupon Senator Black devoted the rest of the week to looking for dirt in a cigar box.

Cigar Box. Up for questioning was President John William Carpenter of Texas Power & Light Co., a subsidiary of American Power & Light Co. which is an affiliate of Electric Bond & Share Co. Asked Chairman Black: "Did you or did you not. between 10:30 and 12 o'clock on the Sunday before the House vote [on the "death sentence"], give anyone anything in your room at the Mayflower Hotel?"

"I don't think I did," answered Mr. Carpenter. "I may have given some cigars."

"Will you swear," pressed Chairman Black, "that you did or did not give some-thing to a Congressman which was wrapped in a piece of paper in a cigar box and that this was carried out of the hotel?"

"I won't swear that I did or that I didn't," said Mr. Carpenter. "I don't remember. . . ."

Again & again Chairman Black repeated his question, making clear meantime that Texas' Nat Patton was the Representative he suspected of receiving the box. Each time Mr. Carpenter's shaky memory refused to produce anything but a few cigars. Finally Chairman Black told him to go home and refresh his memory, come back next day.

Mr. Carpenter reappeared with his memory refreshed by a telephone call to his son in Dallas. The son. he now recollected, had noticed Representative Patton reaching for a cigar, generously presented him with the whole box.

Joseph A. Worsham, attorney for Mr. Carpenter's company, took the witness stand. He had just learned from Representative Patton, he declared, that the mysterious package contained two Department of Agriculture books on livestock raising. Representative Patton had taken them to Mr. Carpenter's room as a pres-ent for his son, then remembered that he could save Mr. Carpenter some postage by using his Congressional frank to send the books to Texas, hence had wrapped them up in a newspaper to take back to his office.

For Wife & Texas. Afire with self-respect, Representative Patton stomped into the hearing room next day with an empty cigar box, two Department of Agriculture books wrapped in a newspaper. He was there, he explained, for the sake of "the great State of Texas," and "the pretty little country girl I married." Mr. Carpenter's son, he said; had given him the cigars during a friendly visit. Thumping the box on the committee table, Representative Patton cried: "They're nickel cigars. There were 50 of them, and I'd like to have never gotten rid of them. . . . That's the truth. I hope to God I might be struck dead if that isn't the whole truth--the whole expose of the whole business."

Great was Nat Patton's dismay when his friend Eugene Sellers took the stand to testify that the box he saw Mr. Patton carrying away from the Carpenters' did not seem like a cigar box to him. It was too small and light. Furthermore, Representative Patton's nephew, Norris Shook, had declared: "Hell, no, that wasn't cigars." And several days later Representative Patton told Friend Sellers: "Well, I bought one of those baby bonds." Afterward, Nephew Shook had hinted: "Uncle bought a bond and it wasn't pay day."

Gaped Representative Patton: "I've never been so chagrined. . . . I never heard tell of the little box."

Apparently more than willing to believe that Power had paid up to $3,000 for the vote of one obscure Representative, the committee inquired how had Representative Patton, admittedly a poor man. managed to buy $3,000 worth of Government bonds during a period when his salary was only $3,150?

"It might be," said overwrought Nat Patton, "that I used some money out of my own pocket." Over the week-end he recalled ownership of $886 in lien notes and Texas State warrants which, added to $1,100 in mileage and cash on hand," brought his total funds for the period up to $5,136.

Million-Dollar Lobby. Still scratching hard as the week ended. Chairman Black had yet to achieve crowning success by proving that the Power lobby had actually bribed anyone. But Congressmen and consumers alike were calculated to be impressed by the fact that expenditures admitted by lobbyists in their fight against the Public Utilities Bill already totaled $1,059,662.

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