GEORGIA: Mr. Willkie’s Uncle George

To folks down Atlanta way, Georgia Power Co. is “Uncle George.” By & large, they think well of Uncle George. They also understand how Uncle George keeps politically fit. Georgians are not surprised when their lawyer-legislators after election get to be attorneys for the power company. Last year two out of five members of the important Legislative Economy Committee had been special attorneys for Uncle George; the Speaker of the House in Atlanta was a onetime power company representative. This system has been functioning well for upwards of 30 years. If let alone, Georgians will presumably continue to let it alone.

The company has total assets of $280,536,903, operates entirely within the State (in 138 counties, 626 communities & cities). Ever since red-gallused Gene Talmadge as Governor in 1933 forced a cut, Uncle George’s rates have been among the lowest in the U. S. Politically, the company’s two top figures are white-thatched, personable President Preston Stanley Arkwright and bulky, pervasive Fred B. Wilson, assistant to Mr. Arkwright. Neither able Mr. Arkwright nor Uncle George is entirely independent. Georgia Power is a subsidiary of Commonwealth & Southern Corp., whose president is GOProspect Wendell Willkie. As a subsidiary, Georgia Power is subject to the Public Utilities Holding Company Act of 1935 and SEC regulation. Last week this set of circumstances generated some high-voltage news.

The New York Times reported that SEC was digging into Uncle George’s political ramifications. According to the Times, the investigation’s nose was pointed towards grey, New-Deal-hating Senator Walter Franklin George of Georgia and his 1938 campaign (when the New Deal failed to purge him out of the Senate). Next was heard a loud bang from Atlanta. Roared Mr. Arkwright (after consulting Mr. Willkie): “. . . The Administration is now trying to smear Senator George. . . . Another pet hate of the New Deal is the utilities. This is an effort to smear both—to kill two birds with one stone, thrown underhanded.” Mr. Arkwright then went further, denied things that SEC had not publicly charged: that Uncle George had 1) contributed to Senator George’s campaign fund; 2) asked its employes to contribute to State, county or other campaign funds in Georgia. Under the Holding Company Act, all such activities by a subject power company are criminal offenses.

Senator George nearly hit the ceiling of his Washington office, rolled up his sleeves to denounce this New Deal calumny. Calmer friends restrained him, suggesting that the smearing had actually been done by Mr. George’s friend Mr. Arkwright; no SEC party concerned had officially mentioned the Senator. In Washington a telephone line soon connected SEC Chairman Jerome Frank and Candidate Willkie, who might well have considered himself the target of a third underhand stone. Canny, calculating Jerome Frank’s first administrative tenet is to lay off avowed foes of SEC whenever possible. Up to now, in line with this strategy, he has generally laid off Mr. Willkie. Chairman Frank did his best to assure Mr. Willkie that no stone had been thrown his way, then said SEC’s first public word on the subject: “Several months ago a complaint was made to the commission regarding the Georgia Power Co. . . . The commission has come to no conclusion as to whether there are any irregularities. The complaint made no charges against Mr. Wendell Willkie.”

To this statement Mr. Frank informally added: “I know of nothing to justify any suggestion that Mr. Willkie has had anything to do with the alleged irregularities.” Scripps-Howard Columnist Ludwell Denny, accepting this disavowal at its face value, put forward another reason for doubting that SEC was aiming at Mr. Willkie. Observed Writer Denny: “The last thing in the world they [the Democrats] want to do is to prevent Mr. Willkie’s nomination. They will do all in their power indirectly to make him the Republican candidate.”

An SEC regional director in Atlanta announced that the complaints had come from several sources, that they concerned both State and national 1938 campaigns in Georgia. Knowing Georgians, wondering who put a fire under Uncle George, looked sideways at Atlanta’s energetic U. S. District Attorney Lawrence Camp, who failed to defeat Senator George in 1938. Mr. Camp averred, with a convincing air, that he was not the informer. Gossiping Crackers then remembered that their Governor Eurith Dickinson Rivers has at least two unremitting foes: 1) Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, whom the Governor recently outsmarted in a PWA hospital deal; 2) clever, eerie-eyed Gene Talmadge, who is still up & doing in retirement at McRae, Ga. Governor Rivers and Uncle George get along all right.