End of Nipper-Snapping

Senatorial nipping and snapping at Andrew William Mellon came to an end, at least temporarily, last week when the Senate Judiciary Committee voted down, 10 to 3, a report that he held the office of Secretary of the Treasury illegally because of stock ownership in industrial corporations. An ancient statute prohibits the Secretary of the Treasury from being interested in "trade or commerce." Mr. Mellon freely admitted that he owns stock in the Aluminum Co. of America and other big concerns, but explained that he had resigned all his directorships and other business offices upon entering Federal service (TIME, April 29).

Senators Norris of Nebraska and Walsh of Montana led the last of the nipper-snapping against Secretary Mellon. They dug up an Aluminum Co. court case in which Mr. Mellon had deposed that he was consulted on important points of policy and from this attempted to argue that he was still in "trade or commerce."

Against this view was thrown the full weight of six men who had served as Secretary of the Treasury. Said onetime Secretary of the Treasury, now Senator, Carter Glass: "If Mr. Mellon is disqualified ... for holding stock, I was certainly ineligible for office, Alexander Hamilton was ineligible and so was every other Secretary of the Treasury."

The committee found a letter from Alexander Hamilton in which he said that, to meet the provisions of this old law, he has sold all his bank stock and government bonds but held his corporate shares.

Leslie Mortier Shaw, Roosevelt's Secretary of the Treasury (1902-07), wrote the committee: While Secretary of the Treasury I remained ... an active producer of farm products of many kinds which made me interested in trade and commerce. . . . I acquired a half-interest in a copartnership and became the largest stockholder in a corporation . . . both interested in state and interstate commerce. . . . The fact that we had to sell what we produced did not change the nature of our business from that of producer to that of trade or commerce. ... I was familiar with the statute, the manifest purpose of which I approve. . . ."

Other Secretaries of the Treasury who were stockholders in private corporations, of whom the Judiciary Committee learned, were George Bruce Cortelyou, Franklin MacVeagh, William Gibbs McAdoo, David Franklin Houston.

Against the Senate's inquiry, parliamentarians raised this point: Had Mr. Mellon been called and questioned and his case carried to the Senate floor, the Senate would have automatically disqualified itself to sit in judgment in the event the House of Representatives had impeached Mr. Mellon.