The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-02-11


 after they leave the spotligh
 Professor Moley has gone in for publishing and consorting with various big business groups. Pro- lessor Tugwell has become vice president of the American Molas- ses Company. And Adolf Berle, Jr., now offered the job of Assistant Secretary of State, recently repre- scented two mining firms which had some difficulty in getting their stock registered before the Securities and Exchange Commits sion.
 One was Sunshine COnsOli- dated, I1,., an Idaho gold min- ing concern which the SEC would not register until it had held private hearings and re- quired eight clarifying amend ments. One of the amendments read: No silver showing of consequence has as yet been en- countered Gin the Gullickson tunneD by reason of develop ment work done so far"
 A relatively small number of private hearings are held by the SEC, so that officials must have found considerable fault either with the company or with the Brain Truster's presentation of the facts. After five months of jockeying the issue was registered. Berle and Berle (Adolf's brother Rudolf appeared before the SEQ got fee of $3,750, which is small for this type of work.
 The other concern was Callahan zinc-Lead, an Arizona company operating in Idaho, for which the Berle brothers got fee of $12,000.
 On this they did quicker job, but nine amendments were re- quired by the SEC. One of these stated: "The development work on the south vein has been disap- pointing" Another stated: The Galena mine is not beyond the development stage"
 Most interesting was an orig inal balance sheet ill which the company claimed that 754,833 shares of Blue Grouse Mining stock were worth $l72,069, and that 5OO,8o0 shares of Silver State stock were worth $199,811.
 After the SEC had finished dickering with the Berle brothers, the final registration listed the above stocks, claimed at $371, ,890, to be worth only g.
 Speech Writer
 Adolf Berle was the chief author of the Presidents famous Commonwealth Club speech in San Francisco in 1892, one of the most radical speeches of the cam paign, in which he virtually ad- vocated the curtailment of the profit system.
 Brain Trusters who prepared this speech were afraid that Roosevelt would balk at it, and privately attributed his use of it in toto to the fact that he had made a quick series of speeches along the West Coast and had temporarily exhausted his other material.
 Secret Advice
 Around the Commerce Depart ment, where echoes of the disaS- trouS Little Mems conference still are reverberating, they are wish ing they had taken the private advice of Democratic politicos to have the Governor of each State select the Little Men delegates.
 Instead, delegates were selec- ted on the basis of those who had written letters to the White House suggesting economic panaceas, and this type of let ter-writer always is inclined to be more temperamental than practical.
 NOTE-Thirty-nine Of the 48 State Governors are Democrats, and could have been trusted to select less "temperamental' del- egateS.
 Hard Coal Problem
 After he left the White House recently, Governor Earle of Penn sylvania gave the impression that the President was very much in- terested in his plan for federal purchase and control of the an- thracite coal fields.
 Actually, just the opposite was the case. What FDR really told Earle was that federal acquisition might be the last resort, but only after the State had exhausted every other plan of regulation.
 The Presidents view is that an- thracite is a Pennsylvania mon- opoly, therefore other States would oppose federal purchase: CD be- cause they have no anthracite; (2) because many of them pro- duce oil and gas, which are direct competitors of anthracite. Also,