Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1938-05-10
THE POLITICAL
MILL
BY G. GOULD LINCOLN.

OCopAbc dStOullCliAS CAAdA 6Co "a Po1oe-
cal corruption. made by Democrats
against other Democrats, in the Penn
sylvania primary campaign involving
candidates for the Senate, no one has
raised hand or uttered a whisper urg-
ing senatorial investigation. How diff
ferent from the days of 1926, when the
late William s. Ware was running against
former Senator Pepper George Wharf,
toni and Clifford Pinchot for the Re-
publican senatorial nomination! Then
the Senate went into action, with Jim"
Reed of Missouri as its chief inquisitor.
The result was that Ware, who won the
nomination and later was elected, never
was given a seat in the Senate.
The expenditure of large sums OF
money and improper influence in cleo
tons leave the public cold today, ap-
parently, or there would have been some
Republican or some Democrat to rise in
the Senate during the last few weeks to
demand at least the appointment of a
senatorial campaign investigating COM
mittee. There was such committee two
years ago. Desperate efforts were made
to get that committee to 60 into very spe-
cific charges of political corruption-in-
volving the use of public funds through
the w. P. A. The charges were backed
up by affidavits. But the committee just
clamped the lid down little tighter and
there was no public investigation.
In the past day or two demand has
come to Senator Borah of Idaho, Repu-
ican, that the Senate do something
about investigating alleged slush funds
expended by Joe" Pew, oil man, and
Joe" Grundy and others of the old
guard Republicans in Pennsylvania in
support of the organization candidate for
the Senate, Judge Arthur H. James,
who is opposing former Gov. Pinchot, and
in support of the candidacy of National
Committeeman OWlett against Senator
James j. Davis. Senator Borah has re-
piled that he will not take any step in
the matter unless he is given some con-
crete information about these expendi-
lures. No Democratic Senator is likely
to rise and ask that these Republican
expenditures be investigated-for the
simple reason that would probably mean
an investigation of the Democratic pri-
mary, too.
No one seems to know really just how
much money the Democrats are throwing
into their primary in Pennsylvania, but
the worst is suspected. No one knows,
for example. how much money is being
expended by the United Mine Workers
for the Kennedy Wilson ticket; or how
much is being put forth for the Jones'
Earle ticket by the Pennsylvania Demo-
cratic organization which has fund all
its own collected from the State EMPLOYEES
and estimated to run into the hundreds
OF thousands or even millions of dollars,
or by Matt McCloskey, the contractor
friend of Gov. Earle
The Democratic set-up in 1898 has
many of the earmarks of the old Repub-
lican set-up in Pennsylvania in 1926.
There is McCloskey. for example, who
loans money to Gov. Earle and who
handles finances for the Democratic Or
ganization. Ware was a contractor back
in the heyday of the Republican organi-
cation. There is Senator Joe Guffey,
who has become senatorial boss of the
State comparable in influence to the
earlier Republican bosses like the late
Senator Penrose The Democratic State
chairman. David Lawrence, has been
charged with selling beer legislation
in the 1885 Legislature after Earle had
become Governor.
1t was Mayor Wilson of Philadelphia,
who has been Republican as we'll as a
Democrat and who is now a candidate
for the Democratic senatorial nominal
ton. who charged that Gov. Earle bor-
rowed money from Matt McCloskey. the
contractor. If the senatorial Campaign
Funds Investigating Committee of 1926
had had any such juicy morsel turned
up for its benefit in those days it would
have made a Roman holiday for that
aspirant for senatorial honors-and he
would have been tossed to the lions. But
nothing is done now about Gov. Earle
and how much he is spending or how
much he has borrowed in connection
with his senatorial aspirations.
X
The public has become hardened to
charges of huge expenditures of money
to influence elections. 1t has heard for
years the charges that the New Deal
Democrats spread millions and millions
Of dollars of relief funds in those places
where the money will do the most
good" politically. Nothing has been
done to bring out the truth publicly.
There has been no public inquiry by any
congressional committeeman the New
Deal Democrats have seen to it that
none was had.
ZIG 1VCpuUliCd1 IIleIuDeTS OF CIe senate
might lift their voices and urge an in
quiry into the alleged political corrup-
ton IN Pennsylvania-on the Democratic
side as we'll as the Republican-but they
seem to have lost the initiative. The use
Of political influence, If current reports
and charges are correct. is coercing the
voters. These charges have been made
by Democratic leaders against Demo-
cratic leaders. They could be ventilated
II the Senate would do something
about 1t.
From Boston comes the report that
"Tom" Eliot, grandson of President Eliot
OF Harvard, is seeking the Democratic
nomination for the House against the
veteran Republican, Representative Luce,
in the Cambridge district. Whether the
Democrats will give him the nomination
or whether he can defeat Mr. Luce are
matters for the future to tell. But tom"
Eliot, just 80 years old, is . colorful fig
ure. He has been in on the ground
floor Of the New Deal since he came
down here In 1933-just after he had
obtained admission to the bar In New
York. He started at $l,700 year, but
he was soon assigned to the Department
Of Labor and there to the Presidents
committee which drafted the Social Sc
curity Act. For the past two years he
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