POLITICAL NOTES: Organization

Lawrence Wood Robert Jr., called “Chip” because his father was called “Wood,” is an ebullient, convivial Georgian of 51 who has lived up to his nickname. In 1933 Chip left his Atlanta architectural and engineering firm, which had consulted in some $250,000,000 worth of building projects before Depression, to help Businessman William Woodin as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. Sober Henry Morgenthau relieved him of most of his important duties. But in Washington, where business often mixes with politics, Chip was meanwhile establishing a reputation as the Capital’s greatest little mixer. After newshawks caught him and Presidential Secretary Marvin Mclntyre at a hotel room party given by the lobbyist for Utilitarian Howard Colwell Hopson, the roly-poly New Deal hobgoblin, Chip resigned. Presently, through Jim Farley’s good offices, Chip bobbed up again as secretary of the Democratic National Committee. Today he and his beauteous second wife, “Evie” Walker, who has become a Washington chitchat writer (and last month, a mother), are the New Deal’s sportiest couple.

Last week an “economy” committee of the Georgia General Assembly, investigating the $5,000,000 contracts of the Department of Public Welfare for insane asylum buildings at Milledgeville and other projects, turned up one with Robert & Co. which promised the firm 6% (some $300,000) for “architectural and engineering services.” Finding that the services consisted partly of help in securing a $2,200,000 RFC loan and $1,800,000 PWA grant for the project, the committee balked. The Georgia House passed a resolution calling for cancellation of the Welfare Department’s contract with Robert & Co. Representative Delacey Allen baldly accused Chip Robert of “stealing” $45,000 of the taxpayers’ money, snorted: “I am reliably informed that cities and counties all over Georgia were told by Mr. Robert and his representatives that if they wanted to get Federal funds for their public projects they had better employ Robert & Co. … His agents went over the United States telling folks the same thing.”

Natty and indignant, Chip appeared before the committee to defend his fee. He claimed that engineering work on the project had put him $110,000 out of pocket, that he had taken Georgia’s Governor

Eurith Dickinson Rivers to Washington, helped in “contacting Federal agencies to obtain funds.” Asked if this was not “promotion” (for which PWA clients may not pay on pain of having their contracts voided), Chip responded: “Certainly not. That’s organization.”

PWA officials announced that “Honest” Harold LeClair Ickes would have the last word upon his return from California. Meanwhile, Secretary Morgenthau issued a statement explaining that Chip’s departure from the Treasury had been “voluntary and under honorable circumstances.” Aggrieved Chip filed and then withdrew a $50,000 suit for slander against Representative Delacey Allen. Hot-tempered Delacey Allen offered to meet Chip Robert “with or without gloves” in the stadium at Georgia Tech’s Grant Field, admission at $5 a head and the proceeds to “go toward meeting the State debt.”