Black Dirt (Cont'd)

On behalf of the Senate's lobby investigation, Senator Hugo La Fayette Black last week diligently plied a spade in his dirt pile, "big enough to keep 20 committees busy." Almost equally diligent was Chairman O'Connor of the House Rules Committee, bent on a similar investigation. Some spadefuls they turned up:

P: With the aid of an order from President Roosevelt opening income tax returns to their inspection, Senate snoopers found that plump Vice President Fred S. Burroughs of Associated Gas & Electric had a salary of $60,000 paid by one of plump Howard C. Hopson's holding companies which in turn charged other companies in the system an aggregate of $150,000 a year for their respective shares of Mr. Burroughs' services.

P: A representative of New York State's Public Service Commission testified that he had found that Mr. Hopson's personal holding company had milked the system of $2,800,000 in profits during 1929-33.

P: Roly-poly Mr. Burroughs, who swore that he did not know the whereabouts of his boss, roly-poly Mr. Hopson, was equally uncertain about A. G. & E.'s corporate setup. "I can't any more tell you the corporate organization of all the companies than you can tell me the corporate set-up of the alphabetical agencies of the Government."

P: Bernard B. Robinson, lobbyist of A. G. & E.. testified that he had talked with Mr. Hopson by telephone four days earlier but did not known his whereabouts. "Mr. Hopson is not a well man. I've been told by physicians that if he ever developed a sore throat he would choke to death." "If you knew where he was would you tell the committee?" "Well. I don't believe I would." "Then we will ask you. Do you know where he is?" "No. I do not."

P:Alarmed by Mr. Hopson's illness,* Senator Black asked the Department of Justice to serve a subpoena on him in Manhattan. A deputy marshal failed to find him. Not surprised by the Senate's failure was Judge John E. Mack, conducting a utilities investigation for the New York Legislature. For six months Judge Mack has been trying, with a notable lack of success, to find Mr. Hopson. At Albany last week he quoted from The Scarlet Pimpernel on Runaway Hopson: They seek him here, they seek him there.

Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.

Is he in heaven? Is he in hell? That damned elusive Pimpernel! Smiled Judge Mack: "The Scarlet Pimpernel hasn't a damned thing on Hopson!"

P: Senate investigators reported that A. G. & E.'s admitted expenditures of $700,000 to defeat the Public Utility Bill were $92,000 short of the mark. Among those reported to have had A. G. & E. retainers: the law firms of Patrick J. Hurley, Herbert Hoover's Secretary of War, and of Basil O'Connor, onetime partner of Franklin D. Roosevelt and brother of House Rules Chairman John J. O'Connor, each $25,000.

P: Best spadeful of the week: discovery of a 2,000-word letter from Edwin P. Cramer, New Jersey adman, to Clarence Edward Groesbeck, chairman of Electric Bond & Share Co.. urging a four-point program in opposition to the Public Utility Bill. Point No. 3 made big black headlines: "A whispering campaign designed to create popular suspicion that the New Dealers and especially the New-Dealer-in-Chief either are incompetent or insane, discrediting them in the same way that Michaelson* [sic] so successfully discredited Hoover." "Have you ever seen the President?" shouted Senator Black. "No," gaped Mr. Cramer, aglow with embarrassment inside his seersucker suit. "Have you ever seen anyone who saw him?" "No." "Had you heard any such statement from any doctor?" "Certainly not." "Did you think such a thing was true?" "I think there was something wrong." "What?" "Well, there's so much confusion down here.". . .

"Are you ashamed?" "Certainly." "Your suggestion was despicable?" "Yes." It developed that Mr. Groesbeck had never seen Stockholder Cramer's letter, that Mr. Cramer had got two fellow stockholders to protest when he received no reply, that after two months, one George Walker, a young assistant of Mr. Groesbeck, had written Stockholder Cramer that his suggestions were "very pertinent."

*In August and September 1933, Mr. Hopson, on a motor trip for his health, could not be found when Ferdinand Pecora wanted to question him on behalf of the Senate.

* Charles Michelson, publicity man for the Democratic National Committee.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.