An Insulted Herd

There are giants, also, in these days. Consider Andrew W. Mellon, James Couzens, Gifford Pinchot, Republicans, millionaires, public servants.

Governor Pinchot, it developed during the winter months, is no friend of Secretary Mellon. Prohibition was the avowed subject of their dispute.

Senator Couzens, it simultaneously developed, was no friend of Secretary Mellon. Taxation was the subject of their newspaper dispute.

Some ten days ago the Governor and the Senator drew nigh each to each.

Said the Senator, in effect: "I am on a sub-committee of the Senate Finance committee investigating Mr. Mellon's Bureau of Internal Revenue."

Said the Governor, in effect: "Have you caught aught?"

Said the Senator: "No."

Said the Governor: "Let me advise you. I remember in the grand days of my friend Roosevelt, of glorious memory, one Francis J. Heney who was capable of investigating anything and who never investigated in vain. You should employ this Heney."

Thereupon, Senator Couzens went back to his committee of five. The two Democratic members and Mr. Couzens voted to hire Mr. Heney at Mr. Couzens' expense.

Secretary. Mellon could endure no more. He wrote a letter to his President in which he, indignant, said:

"From the line of investigation selected by Senator Couzens and by the atmosphere which he has seen fit to inject into the inquiry, it is now obvious that his sole purpose is to vent some personal grievance against me. . . .

"This investigation has disclosed that no company in which I have been interested has received any different or better treatment than any other taxpayer. . . .

"I owe to you and to the people of the United States the duty to see that the Treasury conduct efficiently and faithfully the great tasks continuously presented to it, that its integrity be preserved and that its future be insured. This has been my sole thought as head of this department.

"When through unnecessary interference the proper exercise of this duty is rendered impossible, I must advise you that neither I nor any other man of character can longer take responsibility for the Treasury. Government by investigation is not government."

President Coolidge, having received the letter, and having been advised that Mr. Pinchot's Prohibition passion had been mixed with senatorial soup, could endure no more. He, indignant, wrote to the Senate of the U. S. a letter which caused that august herd to snort and trumpet like so many hippopotami surprised at the feeding hour.

Said the President:

1) Here is my Secretary Mellon's letter. Look at it.

2) "Seemingly the request for a list of companies in which the Secretary of the Treasury was alleged to be interested, for the purpose of investigating their tax returns, must have teen dictated by some other motive than the desire to secure information for the purpose of legislation." [This is one of the most direct attacks on the character of a Senator ever made by a President.]

3) The employment of Heney is contrary to the spirit of Section 1764 of the Revised Statutes. [This statute requires that all men doing work for the Government must be paid by the Government. It was responsible for the $1 per year men in the War.]

4) "Under a procedure of this kind, the constitutional guarantees against unwarranted search and seizure break down, the prohibition against what amounts to a Government charge of criminal action without the formal presentment of a Grand Jury is evaded, the rules of evidence which have been adopted for the protection of the innocent are ignored, the department becomes the victim of vague unformulated and indefinite charges, and instead of a Government of law we have a Government of lawlessness. . . . It is time that we return to a Government under and in accordance with the usual forms of the law of the land. The state of the Union requires the immediate adoption of such a course.

(Signed) "Calvin Coolidge. "The White House, April 11, 1924."

While all this was being aired, Senator Couzens was sick in bed with inflammation of the bladder.

Governor Pinchot proudly admitted his part in the performance in a strong Prohibition statement from Harrisburg.

Secretary Mellon went to his hometown, Pittsburgh, was feted. Again he was called "a second Alexander Hamilton."

The first snort came from Senator "Jim" Reed of Missouri. He proposed that the President's letter be expunged from the Senate record, because the Senate should have scorned to receive such a document. "It is an insult," cried he.

When the tumult was loudest, Senator "Jim" Watson of Indiana, premier politician of the Republican Party, rose to make the first speech he has made in months. He tried to quiet the tumult by "explaining" the President's letter. It was not directed at the Senate, but at Mr. Pinchot, said he. The explanation was weak and failed to explain.

Meanwhile, the letter was received by the country with hearty (although, of course, not unanimous) applause.

The President had picked an opportune minute to rap the Senate, for the reputation of Francis J. Heney is unpleasant in several particulars. California papers were quick to retell the story of "San Francisco's reign of terror." A rich man, Adolph Spreckles, animated by vanity or patriotic zeal, employed the man years ago. Heney secured the confessions of a number of the Board of Supervisors of San Francisco. Holding these confessions like blades of Damocles he "ruled" the city in accordance with the instructions of Client Spreckles. It became a "government by injunction." Tsar Spreckles, said the Los Angeles Times, "sat in his palatial home and delivered his ukases." When Heney ran for District Attorney he was soundly drubbed.