The Senate Week

Work Done. Last week, the U. S. Senators:

P:Passed Senator Johnson's resolution for an investigation of bituminous coal mining and strike conditions in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio. Chairman Watson of the Interstate Commerce Committee appointed Senators Gooding, Pine, Wheeler, Metcalf and Wagner to visit the mines, Senator Couzens refusing to join in what he called "a hippodrome," "a circus performance."

P:Amended the Walsh resolution for an inquiry of interstate public-utility corporations; passed it (see below).

P:Passed a resolution by Senator Smith (South Carolina) for an inquiry by the Committee on Agriculture into operations and relations among cotton exchanges, cotton spinners and the U. S. Department of Agriculture, to look for market manipulation and "fixing" of cotton-price predictions.

P:Debated the Alien Property Bill.

Power and Power. When the resolution by Montana's grim and stormy Walsh for a Senate investigation into the financial and political practices of the "power trust" (TIME, Feb. 13) was reported favorably to the Senate, anxious looks passed among the Democrats. "There is more than one way in which power can be abused," said these looks. Georgia's quiet George offered an amendment to his colleague's resolution, shifting the investigation from the Senate's hands to the Federal Trade Commission.

Inquisitor Walsh thundered, Missouri's Reed hammered, Virginia's little Glass poured sputtering acid, Nebraska's cold Norris heaped disdain, upon 17 Democrats who joined Senator George with evident relief. Anger replaced relief as the debate grew hot, until Maryland's elderly Bruce, who usually just bumbles along, shrilled out: "The Senate is drunk with its investigating powers!"

The George amendment passed. Power interests congratulated themselves. The Federal Trade Commission will almost certainly make no report before Election Day and after that the "power trust" will be forgotten.

Of more immediate interest than the "power trust" now is the elaborate and expensive "lobby" it maintained in Washington to escape a Senatorial inquisition. Senator Caraway of Arkansas had already framed a bill requiring all lobbyists to register upon arrival and state their business. Senator Walsh of Massachusetts introduced another such measure last week and the defeated Inquisitors determined to look back into the power lobby to see just who did kill Cock Robin.

All of which lent point to a bit of political theorizing, indulged in last week at an American Bankers' Association banquet, by President Glenn Frank of the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Frank's boldly rational suggestion was that Congressional lobbyists should be recognized, dignified, legalized and set up as a Third House of Congress--"House of Technologists" was the best name he could think of at the moment. Let business, finance, agriculture, labor, transportation, education, etc., etc., elect their own variously specialized representatives to such a Third House, said Dr. Frank, so that the lines of economic force in the U. S., which no longer parallel what remains of old political demarcations, might cease colliding with and cancelling one another.