• U.S.

UTILITIES: Backfire

4 minute read
TIME

Senator Thomas James Walsh, legislative specialist on Oil and on Power, returned to Washington last fortnight from a private business trip to New York to mix a fresh brew of political news. Just before the Senate recessed for the holidays he introduced a resolution providing for a Senate investigation of the Colorado shale-oil charges leveled against the Department of the Interior by Ralph S. Kelley (TIME, Oct. 6 et seq.}. Last week he swiveled his aim back to Power when the new Federal Power Commission, as its first executive act, dismissed two of its prime employes.

Senator Walsh along with other “anti-Power Trust” members of the Senate considered them among the chief defenders of public power rights against sharp private power companies. The men dismissed were Solicitor Charles A.

Russell (salary $8,000) and Chief Accountant William V. King (salary $7,500). They were turned out not by the full Commission of five but by Chairman George Otis Smith and Commissioners Claude L. Draper and Marcel Garsaud organizing as a quorum of three. Also dismissed just as he was submitting his resignation was Executive Secretary Frank R. Bonner, often accused of being too friendly and lenient with private power companies seeking licenses before the old Commission.

Between Messrs. Russell & King and Secretary Bonner had long raged a war of power policy. Solicitor Russell was intent upon squeezing what he claimed was “water” from the capitalization of private power companies. No less zealous was Accountant King in making them toe the financial mark. The complaints of these two against Secretary Bonner and their disclosures of the old Commission’s methods before the Senate Interstate Commerce Commission were largely responsible for subsequent legislation to reorganize the Federal Power Commission on a full-time non-Cabinet basis (TIME, March 10). The discharge of Messrs. Russell and King, stirred Senator Walsh and others to loud and threatening protest. Senator Walsh bluntly wrote Chairman Smith: “I am unable to interpret this action in any light except as punishment of two devoted public servants. . . . Not a word has ever been uttered against either implying anything more than excessive zeal in safeguarding the interests of the public.

… It is a matter of profound regret that the confidence I hoped the country would have in the new Commission should be so early and so rudely disturbed.” At once an insurgent Senate movement was on foot to reconsider the confirmation of the three Power Commissioners when Congress reassembles next week.* Senators Borah, Norris, Brookhart, Dill and Wheeler, promising support to Senator Walsh, clamored to have the question reopened. A report spread that Chairman Smith and his two Commissioners, to avert a Senate explosion which might blow them out of their new jobs, were considering rehiring Messrs. Russell & King. Commissioner McNinch, not yet in office, wired his “surprise” from North Carolina that his colleagues had broken their pledge not to deal with personnel until after Jan. 1.

Meanwhile Chairman Smith sought to justify the dismissals on the ground that they were made “for harmony,” that the rival employes “were blackguarding each other to their very faces,” that he supposed Congress wanted “a fresh start made.” His promise: “We expect to protect the public interest . . . just as effectively as some of these labeled protectors of the public.”

Significance. These dismissals, to insurgent Republicans and Democrats, seemed to dramatize and personalize their favorite issue of Power, to build it up for presidential 1932. They felt that the oustings were inspired by President Hoover, and served as a large and concrete wedge to widen the gap between the Administration and the Progressives (see col. 3). They recalled that the dismissal of Forester Gifford Pinchot in 1910 which helped split the G. O. P. and defeat William Howard Taft in 1912 was just such an incident at the time.

* A motion to reconsider nominations must be made within two legislative days after their confirmation, by a Senator recorded as voting for them in the first instance. The Power Commissioners were confirmed the day the Senate adjourned.

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