Hull Wins

Many a U. S. Senator indignantly criticized last year's film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, said it was artificial, unreal, undignified, and phony--in short, not at all the way U. S. Senators really act. Last week the entire U. S. Senate in real life played out a political comedy that was artificial, unreal, undignified and phony.

Up for discussion was an act to extend until June 12, 1943 the power of the Secretary of State to negotiate reciprocal trade agreements. At stake was a principle that the best minds in both major parties have long agreed is above partisan politics--that reciprocal trade agreements are the best known method of smashing world trade barriers.

To the anguish of most major GOP businessmen, the Senate's Republicans rejected this principle, for the high-minded pleasure of casting 23 solid votes against something approved by Franklin Roosevelt. To the shame of many a thoughtful Western Democrat, many Democratic Western Senators rejected the principle, on the theory that the import of $4,411,853 worth of Argentine canned meats is injurious to the $1,144,000,000 U. S. cattle industry. In this emergency, the Administration feared to trust wholly to Kentucky's Alben Barkley, Senate leader. Afraid that "Peerless Leader'' Barkley might lose votes and alienate people, the White House called in Mississippi's "Grey Fox," Pat Harrison, begged him to get busy.

Senator Harrison and the conservative Democrats favor Cordell Hull as the logical compromise 1940 candidate. Defeat of his trade agreements meant political death to the one man within the New Deal they can swallow. Democrats of all hues intended Mr. Hull to win. Yet many a Western Democrat still felt he must first go on record against the agreements in order to convince farm, cattle and mining interests that he was fighting for them.

As the Senatorial geese quacked, the Mississippi fox prowled the cloakrooms, his manner courteously persuasive, his approach discreet and chummy. At last he wangled enough commitments from Senators that, if the final vote got too close, they would switch to his side.

From start to finish there was no doubt that the Hull agreements would go through, materially unchanged, for, although the fight was close, too many men on both sides were determined not to let it end in Mr. Hull's defeat. Most crucial vote came on an amendment by Nevada's florid Key Pittman to permit the Senate to ratify all future agreements as treaties, by a two-thirds vote. Mr. Pittman talked with straight face of the unconstitutionally of delegating this old Senate power, although he has voted consistently for such delegations throughout the last seven years. Well Key Pittman knew that in the last 25 years many reciprocal agreements have entered the Senate chamber, while none have left;* that in five years Cordell Hull has negotiated 22 such agreements; that few good citizens want a return to the old system of logrolling tariffs.

The vote against the Pittman amendment was 44-to-41. Foxy Pat had won (had actually got one more vote than he needed); the Senate Republicans hoped they had a campaign issue; the Western Democrats were on record in defense of the interests they represent; the Southern Democrats had safely preserved the candidacy of Mr. Hull--a candidacy now theoretically perfect except for the fact that few Democrats believe he can win the election.

* John Hay once said wisely: "A treaty when it enters the Senate is like a bull entering the arena. Nobody knows what will immediately happen, but everybody knows that at last the corpse of the bull will be dragged from the arena."

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