The Huntsville Daily Times
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Description: O'Connor Requests Replacement;
Senate To Reconsider Stone;
Plea For Passage Shoals Legislation;
Big Guns Turn On Prohibition;
Chester Gray Quizzed By Probers;
Wets Driving For Repeal;
Secretary Directed To Answer;
Army Officers Long Flight
Newspaper published in: Huntsville, AL
Source: Library
Page/Column: Page 1, Cols 3-5; Page 9, Cols 4, 6-7
================ Page 1, Column 3 =================
BULLETINS
WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 (AP) – Chairman O’Connor of the shipping board today requested President Hoover to replace him as head of that government agency but said that he would retain his membership on the board.
O’Connor said his health made it necessary for him to be relieved of the chairmanship.
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WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 (AP) – The Senate agreed today to reconsider the selection of Charles Augustus Stone to be member of the board of regents of the Smithsonian Institute after Senator LaFollettee, Republican, Wisconsin, asserted Mr. Stone was connected with “one of the greatest power organizations in the United States.” He would succeed Charles Evans Hughes, recently elevated to the chief justiceship.
================ Page 1, Column 4 =================
PLEA FOR PASSAGE SHOALS LEGISLATION
WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 (AP) - A plea for passage of Muscle Shoals legislation at this session of congress was made in the house today by Representative Patterson, democrat, Alabama, said the production of cheap, concentrated fertilizer on a large basis was needed.
He asserted that when the house took up the question of an investigation into the cotton seed oil industry, he would seek to have the inquiry include the “fertilizer trust.”
================ Page 1, Column 5 =================
BIG GUNS TURN ON PROHIBITION
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Measure Proposing Repeal 18th Amendment Heard By House Committee
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WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 (AP) – Opponents of the prohibition laws ranged their heavy artillery against the anti-liquor statutes and conditions attributed to them today in the house judiciary committee’s hearings on measures proposing that the 18th amendment be repealed.
Two men of prominence and power in the industrial workings, W. Atterbury, president of the Pennsylvania railroad and Pierre S. DuPont, chairman of the board of the E. I. DuPont de Nemours company – occupied conspicuous places on the list of witnesses drawn up for today’s session.
More than a dozen persons espousing the wet cause remained to be heard, making it improbable that the anti-prohibition side of the argument could be completed before the close of the day, although the committee had deemed to limit its inquiry to four days for each side, with the fourth for the wets coming today.
However, chairman Graham said that the committee had no desire to place an arbitrary limit upon the time to be devoted to the hearings and indicated that should the wets be unable to conclude the presentation of their evidence by nightfall they would be enabled to do so when the hearings are resumed next week. The hearings will be in recess after today until next Wednesday.
Among the wets remaining to be heard in addition to Atterbury and DuPont, were Dr. Samuel H. Church of Pittsburgh, president of the Carnegie Institute; Mrs. W. W. Montgomery and Robert Norris, New York City health official; Ralph M. Shaw, a Chicago attorney, and John C. Gebhart, head of the research department of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment.
The phrase “the protestant church lobby” crept into the hearings late yesterday. Henry B. Joy, former president of the Packard Motor Co., was on the stand and asserted that “the financial cakers [sic: backers] and churchmen of the protestant lobby have a heavy responsibility for the deaths, sufferings and crime which they have brought about and are continuing to cause.”
================ Page 1, Column 8 =================
CHESTER GRAY IS QUIZZED BY LOBBY PROBERS
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American Cyanamid Company Paid for Publicity
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FARM EXPERT INTERESTING WITNESS
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Black of Alabama Asked Many Questions Concerning Publicity Work
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WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 (AP) – Chester H. Gray, Washington representative of the American Farm Bureau Federation testified today before the senate lobby committee that the American Cyanamid Company had paid for distributing publicity prepared by him in regard to Muscle Shoals legislation.
Previously Gray had testified that he had been authorized by the federation to advocate the proposal of the Cyanamid Company to lease the power and nitrate plant at Muscle Shoals.
Explaining the arrangement he told the committee the publicity referred to was handled more than two years ago by the National Agricultural Publishing Company. He added that he did not know what it cost until W. B. Bell, president of the Cyanamid Company, testified recently before the house military affairs committee that the expense was $7,000.
Gray was asked why he had not told this to the senate agricultural committee two years ago when questioned by Senator Norris, republican, Nebraska. He replied that he thought questions concerning the publicity should be answered by the publishing company handling it.
Gray said he knew at that time that the Cyanamid company was handling the publicity.
Gray said his duties consisted of attempting to get bills passed in congress which the federation advocated and in attempting to defeat other bills. In addition he said he attended to federation business before the agriculture, commerce, war and interior departments.
The policies of the federation, he explained, were determined by the approximately 1,000,000 members, acting through the board of directors and the legislative committee.
Gray said the federation had authorized him to advocate the proposal of the American Cyanamid Company for Muscle Shoals.
Gray responded that he did not believe he had testified as quoted by Caraway. He stated he had declined to answer the questions two years ago because they had related to publicity not handled by himself.
Questioned by Senator Black, democrat, Alabama, Gray said he had advised Bell, head of the Cyanamid Company, to stay out of Washington because he might be called before the lobby committee and that later he and Worthington agreed that Bell should appear before the house military committee.
Black asked if that decision was reached because the house committee was “friendly” and because there would be no cross examination.
Gray explained that Bell had appeared before the house committee several times and he thought the explanation of the publicity payments should be made before that committee.
Gray also was asked by Black if he and Worthington had agreed that R. F. Bower should do some field work for the Alabama Farm Bureau Federation while being paid by the Union Carbide Company.
Black asserted that Edward A. O’Neal, president of the Alabama organization, had refused to concur in the plan and that Bower did not go.
Gray testified that his organization had used persons paid by some one else to do the work of the federation and defended the practice as long as the employees carried on the federation’s work.
================ Page 9, Column 4 =================
WETS DRIVING FOR A REPEAL
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They Produced Witnesses In Rapid Fire Order Before Committee Today
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WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 (INS) – There is no prohibition, state or federal, in St. Louis, Mo., former Senator George H. Williams of Missouri told the House Judiciary committee today at a hearing of bills to repeal or modify the prohibition law. “The prohibition amendment is as completely nullified as you in the South have nullified the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments,” he replied to a question from Rep. Summers, Democrat, Texas.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 20. (AP) – The wets, nearing the end of the presentation of their case against prohibition, produced as witnesses in rapid fire order today, a former United States senator from Missouri, a former special assistant attorney general, a former assistant secretary of war, and a Chicago lawyer and directors of business corporations, and all argued for repeal or modification of the dry laws.
George H. Williams, St. Louis, was the former senator, and his argument was supported by Benedict Crowell, Cleveland, Ohio, who served in the war department during the world war period; Frederick R. Coudert, Sr., New York City, who was attached to the office of the attorney general in 1913-1914, and Ralph M. Shawn, of Chicago, general counsel for half a dozen or more big business organizations.
One after another they took their turn in the witness chair of the house judiciary committee, which is considering resolutions proposing outright repeal, modification or a referendum on the Eighteenth Amendment.
Each told the same story – that their city was wet.
Williams said that “nullification of the prohibition law was a fact to be observed not discussed in his section, St. Louis county.”
“Overwhelmingly wet,” was the way Crowell described Cleveland – Ohio’s largest city and fifth among those in the nation.
Coudert said that the government would be overthrown at the polls or civil war would result from a “real effort to enforce prohibition.”
Shaw asked why, if as he said, Illinois were wet, it did not repeal its state enforcement act, replied that on a referendum on the issue the Illinois voters had lined up five to one against the dry law.
================ Page 9, Column 6 =================
SECRETARY DIRECTED TO ANSWER CHARGES
WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 (AP) – F. E. Bonne, executive secretary of the Federal Power commission, today was ordered to prepare detailed answers to charges of maladministration against him at the end of a three hour hearing before the Senate Interstate Commerce committee.
The committee adopted a resolutions by its chairman, Senator Couzens, Republican, Michigan, which demanded that the power commission produce a list of all projects in which the accounting department questioned items involving more than $5,000. The resolution also called for the names of all applicants for development permits.
The Senate committee began its general investigation of the power commission Monday and at a breakfast luncheon today President Hoover urged Senator Couzens to push legislation which would reorganized the commission. The chief executive indicated he wanted it made a permanent commission along the lines of the Interstate Commerce Commission.
================ Page 9, Column 7 =================
ARMY OFFICERS HOP OFF ON LONG FLIGHT
WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 (INS) – Three officers and one non-commissioned officer of the air corps hopped off from Miami at 6:10 this morning on a projected non-stop flight to Panama, a distance of 1200 miles it was announced at the War Department.
The pilots were Lieutenant Albert Hegenberger of Hawaii of flight fame and Lieut. Ennis Whitehead who once made the flight around South America.