THE CABIINET: West Case

THE CABINET

About 38 years ago, a young man from Vermilion County, Ill., just graduated from DePauw University, went up to Chicago to practice law. He was a stocky, cheery, vigorous lad and got along very well. Before long he met one of the bright young men who had been associated down East with Thomas Edison in his electric-lighting companies. This young man, a short, brisk little Britisher named Samuel Insull, organized a Chicago Edison Company. The lawyer from Vermilion County, whose name was Roy Owen West, became Mr. Insull’s attorney and put some money into the company. When Mr. Insull later organized a Middle West Utilities Company, Mr. West invested in that too. So did his wife and mother. All prospered.

Lawyer West, good mixer that he was, drifted naturally into politics. He became State chairman, then national secretary of the G. O. P., retaining his good law practice and investments the while. Samuel Insull, astute businessman that he was, became the public utilities potentate of the Midwest. When government regulation of public utilities was found necessary, Mr. Insull also drifted naturally into politics, in the role of large contributor to campaign funds. Illinois is a Republican State so Mr. Insull gave chiefly to Lawyer West’s party, though when he was quizzed two years ago about contributing heavily to help Commerce Commissioner Frank Leslie Smith of Illinois get nominated and elected to the U. S. Senate, he was able to show that he had given also to the Democrats. Nevertheless, when Senator-Suspect Smith was rejected by the Senate last year, Mr. Insull shared his embarrassment.

After Secretary of Commerce Hoover was nominated by the G. O. P. and Secretary of the Interior Work resigned to manage the campaign, President Coolidge looked around for a new Secretary of the Interior and chose Lawyer West.

Since the Secretary of the Interior is ex-officio a member of the Federal Power Commission, it came to pass that Mr. Insull’s lawyer, long a stockholder in the Middle West Utilities Co., sat last week upon that Federal tribunal to which that Insull company had to apply for a licence to exploit the Cumberland Falls on the Cumberland River in Kentucky. And so it was, in view of his Insull connection and of the Insull part in a political deal which the Senate has condemned, that many a Senator was grumbling about Secretary West’s appointment, which President Coolidge last week asked the Senate to confirm. Honest man though Secretary West may be, his past affiliations and investments could not have been more provoking to Senatorial sensibilities. In an atmosphere still surcharged with the Interior Department (oil) scandals of the Harding era and lately recharged by outcries against the so-called Power Trust, it looked very much as though Secretary West’s appointment would not be confirmed.

The Senate referred the case to its Committee on Public Lands, which straightway asked Secretary West to appear for a questioning.

The Cumberland Falls had another ramification that interested the Senate. Although locally called “the Niagara of the South,” the falls are not Kentucky’s or the South’s greatest.*But they are famed scenically. And wealthy T. Coleman du Pont, whose health obliged him to resign last week as a Senator from Delaware, has long been seeking to buy the site and present it to his native Kentucky as a 2,200-acre state park. The Insull interests have, through a contract which was unpublished till last week, enlisted the aid of the present Republican administration in Kentucky to get a Federal power licence, promising in return a 6,000-acre State park with highways and a bridge. Governor Flem D. Sampson, Congresswoman Langley and Congressman Robison of Kentucky, all Republicans, all testified pro-Insull at the hearing last week. Onetime (1924-27) Governor William Jason Fields of Kentucky, Democrat, was there to decry the Insull scheme as unsightly, the du Pont plan as preservation of natural beauty. The du Pont-Insull fight thus tended to become .an inter-party beauty contest.

Sitting in judgment with Secretary

West were Secretaries Davis of War and Jardine of Agriculture, who are also Power Commissioners. But if the decision goes against Senator-resigned du Pont, their presence will not greatly temper the Senate’s disapproval of Mr. Insull and the Insull lawyer, Secretary West. Senator-resigned du Pont is, moreover, a Republican; so his Senator friends may feel free to transgress strict party allegiance in a vote on Secretary West.

*When supplemented by the 80-ft. dam proposed by the Insull interests, they would yield only 40,000 horsepower. Tallulah Falls on the Tallulah River in Georgia yield 108,000. Few natural waterfalls in the U. S. have been developed for waterpower. Usually dams are found more convenient and efficient. Outstanding natural waterfalls now exploited are Niagara (1,535,000 h. p.); the Great Falls of the Missouri River in Montana (60,000 h. p.); Thompson Falls at Clark’s Fork Montana River, Mont. (35,000 h. p.); St. Croix Falls on the Mississippi in Wisconsin (35,000 h. p.); Snoqualmie Falls, Wash. (20,000 h. p.). Some famed undeveloped U. S. waterfalls:

Upper Yosemite (Calif.) 1,430

Widows’ Tears (Calif.) 1,170

Multnomah (Ore.) 850

Bridal Veil (Calif.) 620

Nevada (Calif.) 504

Illilouette (Calif.) 370

Lower Yosemite (Calif.) 320

Vernal (Calif.) 317

Lower Yellowstone (Mont.) 310

Seven Falls (Colo.) 266

Shoshone (Idaho) 210

Minnehaha (Minn.) 50