National Affairs: Sucker List

To make a horrible example out of one lobby and one lobbyist, the Senate investigating committee kept James A. Arnold on the witness stand for five days last week while its members probed and pricked every nook and corner of his legislative career. Middleaged, heavy-jowled, canny.Lobbyist Arnold is manager of the Southern Tariff Association(organized to develop protective sentiment in the South) and of the American Taxpayers League (pledged to repeal the federal inheritance tax).

Lobbyist Arnold’s lobbyist career began in 1908 in Austin, Tex., whence he was driven by an irate governor. He worked in vain for the railroads against the Adamson eight-hour law, for the brewers against Prohibition, for special groups against the 19th amendment (woman suffrage). In 1918 he was investigated by a congressional committee for spreading German propaganda. According to Chairman Caraway of the Senate lobby committee, Lobbyist Arnold would take any side of any public question for pay.

Interlocking agencies, the Tariff Association and Taxpayers League share the same Washington ‘offices, the same office staff, the same cash solicitors. Their collections are pooled. Their field agents last year brought in $209,586. In return they supplied contributors with “educational bulletins” on tax and tariff matters, gave “expert” advice on fiscal affairs. Sample expenditure: $700 to Frank D. Mondell, onetime Republican floor leader of the House, now a lobbying lawyer, to urge a higher duty on peanuts before the tariff commission. The sum of $77,936.44 went to Lobbyist Arnold and his three chief assistants, one of whom, a Mrs. Darden. had a “stage name for collecting money.” Lobbyist Arnold pleaded poverty.

Into the record went a list—a “sucker list,” Wisconsin’s Blaine called it—of last year’s contributors to this joint lobby fund. Samples:

Timken Roller Bearing Co. . . .$4,000.00

The State of Florida 2,058.75

Joseph R. Grundy (TIME, Nov. 4) 10.00

W. L. Mellon (nephew) 1,000.00

The Minneapolis Tribune 50.00

William Wrigley Jr. Co 1,000.00

The Frankfort Distillery, Ky. . 25.00

Insull Properties 1,500.00

Niagara Falls Power Co 10.00

O.P.& M. J. Van Sweringen. 1,000.00

Curtis Publishing Co 10.00

Aluminum Co 1,000.00

Stone & Webster 1,500.00

Colt’s Firearms 10.00

Hornblower & Weeks 50.00

Youngstown Sheet & Tube 100.00

Armour & Co 1,500.00

Sharply the committee scrutinized Lobbyist Arnold’s activities on the current tariff bill. Testimony indicated a broad streak of duplicity. Letters showed that while he was working with Southern Democrats for special protective rates, he was also passing along to the Republican Regulars secret information of the Democratic-Insurgent coalition against the measure. Once he wrote that he would “put courage into” President Hoover to make him “stand” for the House rates on sugar.