Elliott screamed at the hearing, “You are persecuting me because my name happens to be Roosevelt.” The Republicans who conducted it immediately got cold feet.
Their temerity in hounding Elliott and Johnny was not forgotten. Three years later, the radical lame duck Senator, Claude Pepper, conducted an investigation to try to prove that former committee chairman Brewster had tapped Johnny Meyer’s wires.
If he did, he must have had a good time. We know. We were with Johnny in his Statler suite, and he was with us in ours. His “in” is former Washington Governor Mon Wallgren, who is an old drinking and poker-playing crony of the President. Wallgren has entree at all times to the White House and now holds a Government hand-out job so he can keep his lines and connections in order.
While on the subject of lame ducks, we mustn’t forget Scott Lucas, former Senate Majority leader. He is now ready, willing and able to handle such Washington legal and contact matters as may be brought to the attention of himself and partner, Charles A. Thomas.
Many of the lawyers, lobbyists, fixers, five-percenters, etc., with wires into high places, do not actually practice in Washington, preferring to do their work through correspondents or connections.
One of these is Jake Arvey, the Illinois Democratic boss and associate of Mafia hoodlums, who operates through the Washington office of Louis Johnson. Arvey is the kingpin of the wire-pullers.
Often the extent of a fixer’s ability is overrated. An intermediary needs only to be seen with a big politician to have the word get out that he’s “in.” Then, after spending thousands, a client sometimes gets the idea he’s got to hire another lawyer to do the actual work. Sometimes the fixers themselves turn the actual leg work over to capable attorneys, sit back, and take the credit.
There are many of these bread-and-butter lawyers who accomplish what all the politicians and five-percenters can’t, because they really know the law. For instance, one prominent politico told us that while few tax cases are “fixed” at the Washington level, many a fearful and repentant chiseler has been fleeced by smart operators who told him they were wonder-workers. For results, he recommended two relatively unknown but very successful practitioners, Bert B. Rand, Washington-wise attorney, and Nathan Wechsler, hard-hitting, astute C.P.A., because they had the staff and experience to meet the government on an equal basis.
Similarly, in the field of constitutional law and the intricacies of corporation procedure, and claim work, they look up Loring Black, a former Congressman from Brooklyn, who retired from the House in 1934.
One young fellow who can do more for you in Washington with less fanfare doesn’t make it his business. He is Hal Korda, onetime newspaperman, who has many powerful friends on both sides. When the Dems found out he knew Republicans, and vice versa, they began to use him as a channel to square things they didn’t want to talk about directly to each other, and he secured campaign contributions for both.
Many members of Congress lobby, legitimately, for their own communities, or the industries thereof, or for public organizations in which they have a deep interest.
For instance, Joseph Rider Farrington, the delegate from the Territory of Hawaii, who holds a seat in the House but no vote there, has been foremost in the fight to secure statehood for the Islands. Farrington has labored mightily in that cause, and could show the professionals a thing or two. If Hawaii ever achieves statehood, Farrington can take the bow.
Incidental to that great libertarian campaign, Farrington also plugs the produce and products of the Territory and is its chief booster for tourism. His office in the Old House Building resembles a cross between a steamship agency and a Chamber of Commerce.
On the other hand, Henry Latham, one of the three Republicans in the House from the City of New York--if you count Javits a Republican--is a strong and sincere booster for the Navy. Were it not for his “lobbying” in committee, we would have no Marine Corps today.
Latham, a Navy officer in World War II, did not know he had been run for Congress or elected until his ship went into a South Pacific coaling station two months after the 1944 elections. He has been reelected ever since.
He spotted the joker which would have wiped out the Marine Corps in the administration Defense reorganization measure and tied the bill up until the Devil Dogs were assured of being more than a mere “police force.”
Acey Caraway, finance director of the Democratic National Committee and longtime pillar of that body, is opening an office for “consultation” in the LaSalle Building. Acey, often referred to as the “junior Jim Farley,” probably knows more Democratic rank-and-filers than anyone else in the party.
Among the law firms which have had the most success in lucrative immigration matters is the New York one in which Rep. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., is a partner.
Thomas Shoemaker, a former Commissioner of Immigration, also shows remarkable results in such cases.
New York’s left-wing New Deal Republican Congressman Jacob K. Javits is a partner in Javits and Javits, 1025 Connecticut Avenue. Several immigration matters have been settled successfully by them.
Wholly apart from such legal practices, the current price for bringing in a rich refugee who can’t make the quota or other entry requirements is $75,000. This is split between three Senators and/or Representatives, to sponsor so-called “private” bills.
These bills are always passed, because the three interested members buttonhole other Congressmen, who themselves need support to pass their own private bills. That is called “Congressional courtesy.”
An embarrassing incident happened recently when President Truman vetoed one such bill, after the 75 Gs had been passed and spent.
The Vice President’s son-in-law, Max Truitt, lobbies for American flag steamship lines, and has had conspicuous success in obtaining government handouts. He is effective also for the Kansas City wheat pit, a favorite whipping boy of the administration he’s married into.
Lobbying before the Maritime Administration is dream business. It had 17 billion dollars’ worth of ships to sell after the war.
Much of this government property found its way into the hands of the right people, who floated their purchases, if not their ships, by borrowing from the government, then immediately reselling at double or triple to corporations they organized.
In addition, these purchasers charged off hundreds of thousands against their income taxes for expenses, on transactions which they frequently went into with no more than a few thousand dollars to start with.
Truitt is the most active in the ship field and is registered as a ship lobbyist with Congress.
The firm of the late Secretary of State Stettinius also dabbled in Maritime Administration work. His associate was handsome ex-Congressman Joe Casey, of Massachusetts.
One of the most up-and-coming of the lawyers with “inside” connections is Margaret Truman’s “date,” Marvin Braverman. It is doubtful whether he has much influence, but people are beginning to credit him with it, and he is no chump. He is taking advantage of the publicity.
Braverman is related to Harry Hershfield, the radio wit and cartoonist. And if his small talk is anything like Harry’s, we don’t blame Margaret for liking him. Because Harry is the funniest man alive.
Former Housing Administrator Wilson Wyatt, a roaring Fair Dealer, is lobbying for big interests to repeal war-time taxes as well as for the Dominican Republic dictatorship.
Clark Clifford, the President’s former legal adviser and ghost-writer, is not starving in private practice, either.
Clifford says he “doesn’t need law books.” He uses the Mayflower Hotel menu instead.
Another law firm with great influence is Fulton, Walter and Halley, with offices over the Occidental Restaurant. Hugh Fulton was chief counsel for the Truman Committee. Rudolph Halley was on the staff. The firm has done handily representing Howard Hughes, owner of TWA. As special counsel for the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad, between New York City and suburban New Jersey, they secured a 50-percent fare increase from the ICC. In our book _Chicago Confidential_, we said that the underworld had large blocks of stock in the Hudson and Manhattan. Since then Halley, who was the counsel of the road, confirmed our statement, reluctantly, and we have affidavits to prove it.
A law degree is not always necessary to a successful contact man. Some of the most prosperous in Washington bill themselves as press agents. There is, for instance, a little man from Missouri, Victor Messall, who dresses like a race-track follower and has his walls plastered with pictures of the President. Messall was a beaver on the President’s Senatorial campaigns. Later he was on his secretarial staff in the Senate. He has testified under oath that he has so many clients he can’t remember them all. A witness charged before the Kefauver Committee he had given Messall $1500 to help him to get sugar-points illegally from the OPA during the war. The chairman of the committee was a Democrat. The counsel was the aforementioned lawyer for the Truman committee, Rudolph Halley. The subject was suddenly dropped.