Old Blond Boss

Congressmen do their hardest, most important work off the floor. The real storm centre of Flood Control last week, was in the House Committee room where the irresistible legislative urge was encountering the immovable Coolidge ultimatum (see p. 8). On the floor of the House, pending the Bill's actual reading, the debate was general. It became more general when stentorian Mr. Schafer of Wisconsin arose and pointing his large finger at a puffy, untidy figure in one of the back seats, demanded to know what he was doing there.

The figure was William Lorimer, once known as "the Blond Boss of Chicago," whose reception with other Flood lobbyists at the White House last autumn stirred up such an indignant buzz among fastidious citizens (TIME, Nov. 21). For 12 years (1895-1901; 1903-1909), Mr. Lorimer was a U. S. Representative. Then for bribery in his election, he was as Mr. Schafer bluntly put it "kicked out of the Senate." Mr. Schafer roared that Mr. Lorimer, aside from his political disrepute, should not be privileged to come back and sit in the House during a debate on Flood Control, for the reason that Mr. Lorimer was personally interested in Flood Control. His William Lorimer Lumber Co. owns land in the area where the U. S. was to buy floodways under the terms of the pending Bill. Let Mr. Lorimer get out, roared Mr. Schafer.

Mr. Lorimer listened, hand cupped to ear. Members jumped up to remonstrate with Mr. Schafer. Mr. Sproul of Illinois demanded that Mr. Schafer's words be stricken from the record. Mr. Schafer refused. A knot of members surrounded Mr. Schafer while his remarks were being transcribed by the clerk. Finally "to save time" Mr. Schafer withdrew what he had said.

Off the floor of the House, where he could defend himself, the aging blond boss explained that his lumber company owned only 1,000 acres in the proposed floodway; that flood waters neither harmed nor helped his timber; that he was not seeking to sell anything to the U. S., would give his thousand acres. He said he had been interested in flood control work for 30 years.