Taxmaster

Better than any living man, Senator Byron Patton Harrison of Mississippi represents in his own spindle-legged, round-shouldered, freckle-faced person the modern history of the Democratic Party. For all but a fraction of the years since the fledgling Republican Party rose to power in 1860, the lot of the Democrats in national politics has been to denounce and deplore. For all but a fraction of his 17 Senatorial years, Pat Harrison, a Democrat by temperament as well as by birth and conviction, has played his Party's historic role with superb skill and enjoyment.

In the 1920's he was the No. 1 gadfly of successive Republican Administrations. Equipped with a deep, mellow drawl, a sharp Southern wit, the tall, loose-jointed Mississippian drew a laugh, scored a hit almost every time he rose to tease, tweak, twit and torment the party in power.

Wrote the Saturday Evening Post of Senator Harrison in 1923: "He is the official sniper and sharpshooter of the Democratic side. ... He is constantly rising to his feet behind the desk that once belonged to Jefferson Davis and planting a poisoned dart or a red-hot bullet in the person of a Republican Senator or thrusting a keen harpoon into the Republican Party, or casting with unerring aim a wreath of poison ivy upon the brows of President Harding. ..."

That portrait of an irresponsible critic remained accurate throughout the Coolidge and Hoover regimes. Even as late as 1932 Senator Harrison was still being spurred to flights of irony by such items as a Government pamphlet which he called "The Love Life of a Bullfrog." But the portrait bears no recognizable likeness to the Pat Harrison of 1936.

Metamorphosis. Three times since the Civil War has the Democratic Party been sobered by the awful power of simultaneous possession of the Presidency and Congress. It was Pat Harrison's destiny to be a senior Senator on the third occasion. No politician in memory has undergone so profound and startling a metamorphosis. As if W. C. Fields were to begin playing Othello, Senator Harrison has become a legislative drudge.

When Franklin Roosevelt cast about for a pair of seasoned stalwarts to direct his battles in the Senate, Majority Floor Leader Joseph Taylor Robinson of Arkansas, blustering, heavy-fisted, domineering, was a natural choice for commander in the field. Just as logically indicated was shrewd, likable, persuasive Pat Harrison for the expert diplomatic task of bar gaining and maneuvering behind the lines. His long service had elevated him to one of the hardest and most important legislative jobs in the U. S., the chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee. Through his committee have been routed, on one pretext or another, Beer, Liquor Control, NRA, Social Security, the Bonus and four tax bills. He got the Reciprocal Tariff Agreement Act passed by refusing to debate it, letting his opponents talk themselves out while he cajoled votes in cloakroom compromises. He preserved the tax bill of 1934 from mutilation by promising Senator Nye a munitions investigation. Last year he let President Roosevelt virtually call him a liar rather than reveal the true facts, when the nation howled down the President's proposal to pass a "share-the-wealth" tax bill in four days by attaching it as a rider to a House resolution (TIME, July 8). Senator Harrison, who won his seat from the late James K. Vardaman in 1918 after that politician had horrified Mississippians by criticizing Democratic President Wilson, was still faithful to his first campaign platform: "Stand by Your President." Tax Task. Twice President Roosevelt has proposed tax bills without waiting for careful Treasury study. Twice the House has produced hodgepodge measures conforming more or less to the President's wishes. And twice the duty of saving the President's face and enacting a workable bill has fallen to Pat Harrison and his Finance Committee. Last week Chairman Harrison was in the midst of the second and meanest of these jobs. Said he as Congress opened last January: "There seems to be a great deal of interest in taxes. . . . No more taxes are necessary at this time." But Pat Harrison could not read the minds of the Supreme Court and Franklin Roosevelt. When invalidation of AAA's processing taxes and passage of the Bonus knocked an $800,000,000 hole in his Budget, the President took occasion to ask not merely for new revenue but for a revolution in methods of revenue raising. The House's nonchalant response to this request was discredited in the eyes of the nation and even in those of many a New Deal Senator by the vigorous unanimity with which businessmen exposed and condemned the measure. After listening to expert dissection of the House bill, a majority of Senate Finance Committeemen began a revision of their own last fortnight.

As Chairman Harrison emerged from his smoky committee room one evening, looking as he never had in the blithe days of Republican rule, a newshawk accosted him with a sympathetic query. Penalties of power and responsibility spoke in the sober Senator's plaint: "A fellow would naturally be pessimistic after having worked hard on a proposition without getting an agreement."

Great Bargain. No man to stay long discouraged. Pat Harrison lighted a fresh cigar next day, plunged into his job with fresh vigor. From behind closed committee doors last week emerged the trend of the bargain he was driving. He would retain and increase all the old taxes, add a small, experimental undistributed profits tax for the gratification of Franklin Roosevelt. Cannily Chairman Harrison let himself be overridden when a majority of the committee moved to down this new tax from the 42% high set by the House to 4%. But when the majority next threatened to do away with the tax altogether, Pat Harrison tossed out a counter-threat to write a minority report, take the fight to the Senate floor. Result was a compromise on a 7% undistributed profits tax (except for banks, trust companies, insurance companies and certain corporations). Bargains were also driven on:

1) A flat 18% corporate income tax.

2) Extension of the normal 4% individual income tax to stockholders' dividends.

3) An 80% windfall tax on recoveries of illegal processing taxes.

This was a great triumph for a great political bargainer. The compromise: 1) guaranteed an increase in revenue, which the House's untried taxes did not; 2) limited the undistributed profits tax to a comparatively harmless size; 3) preserved the semblance of the President's tax proposals. But Chairman Harrison's troubles were not over. The Treasury came back with a report that his compromise would yield only $629,000,000 revenue the first year, $529,000,000 thereafter. Pat Harrison wearily asked the Treasury to try figuring out a bigger yield from the same taxes.

More reason than one had Senator Harrison for his pessimism. Even after he got his bill out of committee, there would remain the arduous task of steering it through Floor debate and conference compromise. And this year Pat Harrison is eager to close up his desk, be off for home. It is not that he dislikes Washington, for no Senator enjoys life in the Capital more than this small town Mississippian. A one time college and semiprofessional pitcher, he likes being where he can get off to a big-league baseball game with Vice President Garner as often as possible. He likes being near the Burning Tree Golf Club where he shoots in the 80's with Democratic Senator Barkley or Republican Sena tor McNary for opponents. He likes being where he can spend an evening watching a wrestling match or sitting in on a game of bridge or poker, which he plays expertly, with considerable bluffing. He likes to be where his hosts of bigwig friends are com ing & going, where cronies like Joseph Tumulty, Marvin Mclntyre and Steve Early can drop in on him and Mrs. Harri son at their pleasant home on Cathedral Avenue. But Pat Harrison currently yearns to get away from all this as soon as he can because he is facing his first serious campaign for re-election since he went to the Senate 17 years ago. Reason: Theodore Gilmore ("The Man") Bilbo. Down & Outer Up. During his second term as Governor of Mississippi (1928-32) blatant Theodore Bilbo kept in his office an almost life size picture of a skeleton with "Mike Conner" inscribed across the skull. At the end of that term, Martin Sennett ("Sure Mike") Conner, a bright young Bilbo protege who had broken away, defeated Bilbo's candidate for Governor, ousted the Bilbo faction. When "The Man" Bilbo turned up in Washington three years ago and asked Senator Harrison for a job, he was politically down & out. With an old trouper's generosity, Pat Harrison lent Bilbo money to live on, got him a $6,000 job clipping newspapers for AAA. In 1934 Bilbo saw a chance for a comeback, returned to Mississippi to try for the U. S. Senate seat held by Hubert Stephens. Loyal to his junior colleague, Senator Harrison backed Senator Stephens let him have most of the Mississippi patronage available that year. When Bilbo won, Harrison, though not fond of him, saw the wisdom of renewing his generosity. He introduced the gnarled little man to the Senate, showed him how to get New Deal money for his constituents, let him have nearly all of their State's WPA patronage. Last year Senator Bilbo used it, on the expiration of Governor Conner's term, to get his friend Hugh White elected Governor. When Governor White gave Pat Harrison credit for getting big Federal appropriations for Mississippi, including a $42,000,000 highway fund, the Senior Senator stood up before a joint session of the Legislature, shared the credit with Senator Bilbo and Mississippi's Representatives. Thus all went well until Senator Bilbo was well entrenched. Then last January President Roosevelt nominated Judge Edwin Ruthven Holmes, a son-in-law of Pat Harrison's old patron, the late, great Senator John Sharp Williams, for promotion from a Federal District Court in Mississippi to the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit. Fourteen years ago when Mississippi's Governor Lee Maurice Russell was being tried for seduction of a State Capitol stenographer. Theodore Bilbo refused to testify against his friend, was jailed for contempt of court by Judge Holmes. Now Senator Bilbo saw his chance for revenge, set out to prevent Judge Holmes's confirmation by the Senate. He declared the nominee "personally obnoxious" to him, swore that Judge Holmes had jailed him for political motives. He brought before the Judiciary subcommittee the story of Pat Harrison's financial misfortunes in Gulf Coast real estate, charging that Judge Holmes had ratified the receiver's agreements by which some of Pat Harrison's debts to the defunct First National Bank of Gulfport had been reduced. The Judge admitted that he had done so as a routine function, pointed out that the compromises had been first approved by the Comptroller of the Currency. Insolvent Senator. Pat Harrison bravely faced the Senate committee, thumped his fist on the table and, looking Senator Bilbo in the eye, declared: ''This was not brought in here to hurt Judge Holmes. It was brought up in an effort to hurt me. And I can take care of that before the people of Mississippi. I thought, back in 1925, like a great many other people thought, that I'd done very well in a business way. I always had started from nothing and always had wound up poor as the devil. But I did very well for a time. I think I paid over $12,000 in income taxes in 1925, and possibly $10,000 or $11,000 in 1926. I thought I had made about $450,000 and that I would be pretty well fixed for the rest of my life. But the collapse came. The property I had sold at high prices had to be taken back, and I've paid taxes on it now for ten to twelve years. I became insolvent. I had to borrow money and to make notes which I have struggled to reduce, and which I did reduce and which some day I'll pay." Announcing that he would contest Senator Harrison's renomination in the August primaries "from hell to breakfast," Senator Bilbo declared, "I'm in the market for a colleague who will have some respect for me." The U. S. Senate showed its feelings in the matter by confirming Judge Holmes's promotion 59-to-4 (TIME, March 30). Mike Conner, on the strength of a good record as Governor, announced himself a candidate for Pat Harrison's seat. "The Man" Bilbo chose between his old and new hatreds, instructed his lieutenants to line up for Conner. Chief Conner campaign cry: "Pat Harrison has got too big for Mississippi and is too busy with work for Roosevelt to take care of his consti-tuents." Quail 'Legging. Some political observers concluded that Pat Harrison was considerably perturbed about his coming election fight when they heard a story which angry wildlife conservationists were telling last week. Source of vast alarm to sportsmen and conservationists in recent years has been quail bootlegging, which grew up as an organized racket in Mississippi shortly after the War, has since spread to neighboring states and is seriously depleting the South's supply of its most popular game bird. Quail are trapped by farmers, bought by racketeers who sell them in violation of State and Federal laws to breeding firms and shooting preserves as "field-bred" or "im-ported Mexican" birds. A furtive and elusive business, this rural racket has been fought for years with little success by the Department of Justice, the U. S. Bureau of Biological Survey, State Game Commissioners and conservation societies. In 1932 one M. E. Bogle, reputed originator and longtime ringleader of the racket, was indicted in Western Tennessee, fined $1,800, given a suspended sentence of 18 months. Near Addison, Ill., one night last December two brothers named Andrew and Dwight Walley were caught redhanded with 200 live quail which they were trucking from Mississippi to a nearby game farm. Happy were quail protectors, for the Walley brothers, alleged proteges of Bogle, were reputed to be topnotchers in the Mississippi racket. Jailed in Chicago on charges of conspiracy to violate a Federal game law, they faced possible sentences of $10,000 fine, two years' imprisonment. After a silence of more than three months Biological Survey agents, who had arranged with the U. S. District Attorney to be kept in touch with the case, went to that official, asked about its progress. They were told that the Walleys had walked into Federal Court fortnight before, pleaded guilty, been dismissed on payment of $25 fines. Investigation by furious game protectors disclosed that the Walleys were members of an old Mississippi family who exert considerable influence in their State's politics. Their late father, a Methodist preacher, was a onetime State Senator, regarded by many wildlife enthusiasts as the source of Racketeer Bogle's political protection. Rev. Columbus Walley was also an old friend of Senator Pat Harrison.

In Chicago last fortnight Conservation Director Samuel Barry Locke of the Izaak Walton League screwed up his courage, wrote a letter to Senator Harrison asking point-blank what truth there was in the rumor that he had used his influence to bring the Walley brothers' case to its shocking conclusion. Back came a prompt and courteous reply. "To the extent that I had known these young men and their parents over a great number of years," wrote the Senator, "I did attest to their character. ... If my letter to the District Attorney asking for leniency brought any results, I am very happy."

Comptroller General? If Pat Harrison goes down to defeat in Mississippi's pri-mary this summer, it will not be a sentence of exile from his beloved Washington. A level-headed party regular whose lack of enthusiasm for some New Deal experiments has not abated his zeal helping to bring them into being, he has served his President with a loyalty which cannot well go unrewarded. The Comptroller Generalship, which John R. McCarl will vacate July 1, is believed by many to be his for the asking. In that $15,000-per-year job he would be sure of 15 more years in Washington, free from all shift of political fortune. But Mississippians who sent Pat Harrison to support a Democratic President of 1918 may yet be told that a Demo-cratic President of 1936 cannot do without him.

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