Light on Lobbying, Cont.

After long obscure ploddings the Senate Lobby Committee last week got back into news headlines with two facts which it had dredged up from the depths of its tariff investigation. They were:

Fact No. 1. The American Tariff League, pledged to protection, had a six-week alliance with the Republican National Committee during the 1928 campaign. It spent $40,000 to help elect Herbert Hoover, but failed to report its political expenditures. Its officers reached into Congress and hired two U. S. employes as "Washington correspondents." They were Edward Nelson Dingley, 68, white-haired tariff expert on the payroll of the Senate Finance Committee; and Clayton Moore, clerk of the House Ways & Means Committee. Expert Dingley is the son of the late Nelson Dingley Jr., for 18 years a representative from Maine and chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee which framed the Tariff Act of 1897 that bears his name.* Clerk Moore is the son of Joseph Hampton Moore, onetime Mayor of Philadelphia. Mr. Dingley got $1,541, Mr. Moore $1,866, in four years for contributing unsigned tariff articles to the league's American Economist, for supplying "research information" and for generally keeping the league informed as to what was going on within their respective committees. Mr. Dingley in campaign years makes Republican stump speeches.

Fact No. 2. Democratic Senator William Henry King of Utah, foe of high dye and chemical duties, received campaign contributions from Herman A. Metz, potent Manhattan dye importer, President of General Dyestuffs Corp. According to Samuel Russell, Senator King's longtime secretary and adviser, Mr. Metz sent to the 1922 King campaign in Utah $1,000 in cash, and forwarded to the Senator himself a $1,000 check for his 1928 campaign for reelection. Senator King denied knowledge of the cash contribution, claimed he had torn up the Metz check in 1928. Despite his general denials to newsmen, Senator King said he could see no reason to appear before the Lobby Committee and clear up the implications of the Russell story. Mr. Russell wept on the stand as he recited differences of opinion between himself and Senator King which led to their breach. In Manhattan, Mr. Metz confirmed the two contributions, remarked: "The revelations are amusing to me. . . . If senators can be bought for $1,000, all I can say is that they are damn cheap."

*The Dingley Tariff restored the high protective duties of the McKinley Tariff (1890) which had been reduced by the Wilson Tariff (1893). It stood until 1909 when the Payne-Aldrich Tariff was enacted, causing the Republican defeat in 1910.

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