Monday, Mar. 12, 1934

Senators' Sons

Senator's Sons

Still digging deep into the refuse pile of canceled airmail contracts. Alabama's smart little Senator Black last week plucked out some new names that made news because of their connections with the Senate.

James G. Woolley, onetime vice president of Western Air Express, revealed that Ernest Winder Smoot, son of Utah's pious Reed Smoot, longtime Republican chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, had been hired to "expedite" Comptroller General McCarl's approval of a Western Air bid for an airmail contract. Harris Hanshue. Western Air president, admitted that Ernest Smoot had "sold" his company the idea that he could put the contract through.

Quickly called to testify was Ernest Smoot, youngest of six children, who served his Mormon father as secretary, his father's committee as clerk. A fair-haired, quiet man of 32, Son Ernest sat most of the time with his hand to his mouth. There were embarrassing documents in the record. One was a telegram he had sent to Mr. Hanshue: "Still have hopes General will approve your high bid. ... If he renders decision giving you contract under low bid, accept first checks under protest and file claim for the difference. This seems . . . foolish but it is a precedent in-the general's office. ... If nothing happens first next week my father and I will see McCarl again." A letter written after the contract had been approved presented a bill for $15.000 "for the specific services you instructed me on Nov. 13 to perform in Washington." Still another from Mr. Woolley to young Smoot declared that Western Air "regards yourself and your father as one of our major assets."

Answering questions in a barely audible voice. Son Ernest admitted that at the time he had been drawing a salary of $3.325 as clerk of the Finance Committee. For his services to Western Air he had finally been paid not $15.000 as billed but $2.500. While on the Senate payroll his outside earnings had totalled $19,750.

Ernest Smoot was not the only son of a famed father to draw money for services to air transport companies. Others whom Mr. Hanshue mentioned were Lehr Fess, son of Ohio's Senator Simeon Fess, who represented National Air Transport at an air operators' conference; William Hudson Philp, son of onetime Fourth Assistant Postmaster General John Philp who did the same; Julius Kahn, son of Representative Florence P. Kahn of California who represented Western Air Express in Washington.

These family details stirred a storm of denials. Onetime Senator Smoot of Salt Lake City asserted he had "no connection whatever" with Western Air, knew nothing of his son's connection. Lawyer Lehr Fess. in Toledo, declared that his firm was counsel for National Air Transport in Ohio, had merely done "the usual routine work."

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