Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-06-15

eating that subject, headed by Senator
Gerald w. Nye of North Dakota, will
succeed the lobby investigating COM
mittee and Senator Thaddeus Caraway
OF Arkansas as providers of material for
headlines.
Senator Nye and his committee are
already at work. Already they have paid
some attention to the amount of money
spent-in vain by Senator Grundy in
Pennsylvania and the amount spent by
Mrs. Medill Mccormick in Illinois.
The Nye committees work is not con-
fined to investigating charges made by
defeated candidates or others. They
do not need to wait for charges-they
can make their own accusations, And
they decidedly do not limit themselves
to Investigations after the events have
occurred-no mere grand Jury they
The committee CONSTITUTES its function to
include the averting of expenditures Cor
other practices) deemed by them to be
improper They look into expenditures
before they are made, while they are
being made and at all stages OF the
| process.
The Nye committee is a combination
OF detective and censor, as well as grand
jury, prosecuting attorney and, to a
very large extent, court. In the Penn
sylvania primary the committee, in the
person of the chairman, and through
announcements given out by him and
through investigators employed by the
committee, was on hand before the pri-
mary day and during it. Afterward
they summoned the two candidates, Mr..
Grundy and Mr.. Davis, as well as others.
before the committee and examined
them.
The Pennsylvania primary, in which
.
was the first important one after the
committee was created. If the COM
mlttee maintains that pace and guam
tlty OF vigilance, investigation, exhor-
tatlon and condemnation, 1t will follow
That we are going to hear q good deal
ABOUT money in senatorial primaries.
1t will be the subject of much argu-
ment, and the argument probably will
fail to include some aspects of the sub
Ject that deserve to be noticed.
Standards May Be Set Up.
Sooner or later the Senate, II it
keeps on this course (Which for certain
reasons 1t may not) will be obliged to
set up some standards on this point,
will be obliged to say Just how much
money in given State is safely on the
side of virtue and how much is too
much. They will be obliged to say,
also, sooner or later, whether quantity
Of money standing alone Is q bar to
the Senate-that is what they say now.
Or whether, as used to be the case, the
real question is not the quantity of
| money, but the way 1t Is used, with
weight, perhaps, to be given in some
cases to the source from which 1t comes
The present phase of the Senate's at
titude toward money in primaries (rath-
er startling when fully understood) Is,
like most practices and institutions in
government, an advanced stage of a
long evolution. To understand 1t, a
very brief summary will be useful.
In the old days. some seventeen years
or more ago, before there were any d.
rect primaries, and before the direct
election of Senators; in the days when
candidates for Senator in both parties
were named by conventions, and when
they were elected by State Legislatures
at that time, preceding about 1913,
there was a question about money, but
1t was q question, not OF amount but
of the way it was used.
When a Senator was nominated, not
by half q million or a million voters in
a direct primary. but by 200 or 800 or
400 men in a State convention, and
when Senators were elected, not by one
or two million votes more or less in
direct election, but by 200 or 800 men
in q State LegiSlature-lsnder that set
of conditions there was no occasion for
the use of much money. That is, there
was no apparent legitimate occasion.
If money was used 1t almost had to be
for a purpose not good and was
promptly so recognized. At that time,
and under that method of choosing
Senators, If any money at all was used,
it at once gave out a smell. The only
direct use for money would be to pro-
cure the individual vote Of an indi-
vidual member of Legislature or OF an
individual delegate to a State conven-
ton. Money used that way fltted
reasonably close. as a rule, to the def
milton Of corruption, and was so re-
garded.
Scandal did not occur often. There
were two historic examples. In the
year 1898 a wealthy owner of mines in
Montana, William A. Clark. desired a
seat in the United States Senate and
went after it with great directness.
The success of Mr.. Clark in the Mon
tana Legislature conceded with a
marked increase of affiuence on the
part of certain members of the Legis-
lature-rural members paying of mort
cages on their farms, other members
indulging themselves in the satiSfac
ton of a new house. or other elevation
in the standard of living; yet other
members displaying quantities of
money which they explained by saying
they had had extraordinarily good
Judgment in betting on horse races.
LOrimer Case Recalled.
The other case was that of William
Lorimer of Illinois. Lorimer was one
of the last men who came to the Sem
ate via the old route of election by
I Oh III, nrNfT
by the Illinois Legislature gave rise to
charges of which the Senate took no
tice and in due course, by a vote of
SIS to %, on July 10, 1912, the Senate
elected Lorimer on a charge described
as corruption on the part of his po-
litical managers"
That ended that chapter. Up to that
time, and under the old condition of
election by legislators and nomination
by conventions, the use of any money
in any considerable amount was almost
necessarily associated with the charge
of corruption-and the question of
money under those conditions was
freed from the complexities that we
now have to consider.
Beginning with the passage of the |
seventeenth amendment to the Con-
stitution, on May 81, 1918, Senators are |
elected directly by the people. A few |
years previous the direct primary had |
come into general use, and since then |
Senator'S are almost universally nomi-
mated in both parties by popular vote. |
That is to say, a Senator now must |
get his nomination by persuading some |
hundreds of thousands of people to |
vote for him in primary, and he must
then get his election by persuading
some more hundreds of thousands of |
people to vote for him in a general
election.
This takes money. To get people to
go to the polls and vote for YOU: to
get them, IN the first place, to take
notice OF you; then to get them inter-