Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-12-05
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM\EILE.

It Is none other than the Machiavel-
liam hand of Uncle Joe" Grundy that
Senator Jim Davis friends see behind
the plot to challenge his right to re-
main in the seat he's now warming.
From quarters influenced by Davis
conquered predecessor, it's charged,
came the Nye committees belated in
formation about unreported Pennsyl-
vania slush funds. There Is a chain
of circumstantial suggestions which.
Davis partisans say, support them in
inspiring the eleventh-hour drive on
the former Secretary Of Labor. Grundy
has never ceased to grumble and grteve
over his smashing defeat in the sena-
torial primary last May. Violating all
Penn political tradition, he failed to
telegraph the winner congratulations.
Throughout the election campaign, the
Davis people felt they were always hay
ing to reckon with Grundy knives ready
to be plunged into the candidates
clavicle wherever possible.
T.. ~
Senator Grllndy had the right and
privilege-some authorities say 1t was
his duty-to be in his place when the
stay there until Davis credentials were
presented. The claim Is even made
that Grundy had a chance to vote in
favor of seating his successor. Until
Davis was actually sworn in. all the
emoluments and perquisites of the job
belonged to Grundy. SO, as things
turned out, he bagged an extra per
diem's pay through Davis compulsion
to stand aside "a hours. Thereby hangs
tale Report has 1t that "Uncle Joe"
oy raising the anti-Davis campaign funds
issue, hoped to hang onto the seat in
definitely, or at least till the Senate
decided once for all whether Jim the
Puddler" was inadmiSsible. In the event
Davis were finally declared ineligible
and the seat automatically declared va
cant, the story goes that Gov. Pinchot
would have deferred appointing any one
for a long time. Meanwhile Tariff
Incidentally. Davis people back home
are reminding Senators who voted against
seating him that Grundy spent tons
more money in the primary than Jim"
did.
Speaking Of campaign funds, it's Just
become known on Capitol Hill what
really happened to Henry J. Allen In
Kansas last month. It wasn't the
undying hostility of organized labor.
1t wasn't anti-Hooverism. 1t wasn't
crouch. 1t was Henry's little but lucra-
tive list of angels. He filed it himself,
soon after his successful primary cam
paign, with the secretary of state, at
Topeka. It showed that Lewis L. Strauss,
Kuhn-Loeb banking partner, of New
York, and one-time Hoover private sec
rotary, was down for $4,000, and that
Sflas H. Strawn. Chicago corporation
lawyer and packers counsel, had dis
gorged the same amount. The list also
disclosed that Cleveland and Kansas
City utility and corporation minions
had come TO Aliens aid. The sum total
was something over $22,50o. The Demo-
Gratis mimeographed the telltale tabula-
ton and circulated it all over the State
by thousands. What hurt Allen most
was the revelation that practically all
his financial sinews had come from
outside of Kansas.
~
]. Butler Wright, American Minister
to Uruguay, Is spending a month in
Washington. following his recent trans
fer from Hungary, where he distin-
guished himself for three years at the
head of our legation in Budapest. Mr..
Wright Is q fluent Spanish scholar.
one of the principal reasons for send
ing him to Uruguay is that the next
Pan-American Conference viii be held
in Montevideo, its capital, a couple of
years hence, and President Hoover
wants q man on the job who can be
relied upon to do Sagacious spade
work. The expectation at Washington
is that the forthcoming pow-wow of
the 81 Americans may be the most mo-
mentous of all the six or seven that
to that date will have been held. Cur
rent events in South America, and
generally fiuctuating attitude toward
the United States, are the issues that
will I'LL the Montevideo Conference with
vital and far-reaching Importance.
Minister Wright once was rancher in
Wyoming.
Women proud to be called vets are
railying around that anti-prohihition
nag in Washington tonight for the