National Affairs: Arson

Unperturbed as Nero, husky, hearty, loudspoken William B. Shearer sat last week watching the Washington conflagration which he had touched off become hot and roaring. The igniting spark was his suit against three shipbuilding companies —Bethlehem, Newport News, American Brown Boveri—for $257,655 back pay. He said he had spent amounts "well up in six figures" to "break up the Geneva Disarmament Conference" (1927), that the three shipbuilding companies had already paid him $25,000 for his services, had agreed to pay him much more. On inflammable tinder fell this spark. Up flared a Senate investigation of "this clandestine scheme" to obstruct U. S. policies by high-powered lobbying.

At the beginning of the Senate Committee's hearing, shipbuilding officials did their best to douse the heat and muffle the roar (TIME, Sept. 30). Bethlehem's Mr. Schwab "was so upset that he was in favor of scrapping all navies." Bethlehem's Mr. Grace "was convinced that it was unlawful." Bethlehem's Mr. Wakeman said he had been "jazzed off his feet" by Shearer. All admitted that Mr. Shearer had been paid $25,000 to go to Geneva, all insisted innocently that he was meant only "to observe and report."

But these quenching squirts were futile. Frederick Pomeroy Palen, vice president of Newport News Shipbuilding Co. admitted that he was "more responsible than anyone else for hiring Mr. Shearer," confessed that he had "wanted something more than plain observing." Gingerly he revealed that Shearer's name had always been omitted from his company's payroll. Henry C. Hunter, New York attorney, testified that he had been undercover man between Shearer and the shipbuilders. He it was who received the $25,000 "Geneva jackpot" from the companies in checks paid it over to Shearer in cash.

Most inflammatory witness was Newspaperman Drew Pearson, a U. S. correspondent at the Geneva Conference. Roar and heat aplenty were generated when he testified that at the conference four U. S. naval experts had held frequent confabs with Shearer, had voiced sympathy with his big-navy bluster. Most ardent of these conference-killers, Pearson declared, was gaunt, white-chinned Rear Admiral Joseph Mason Reeves.

Hearing of Pearson's testimony, Rear Admiral Reeves, Navy man since 1890, onetime famed Navy football tackle, now member of the Navy General Board, asked to make a statement. White whiskers bristling, face pallid, he denied that he had ever expressed hope of Geneva Conference failure, said that "no thinking officer" would desire to obstruct "a just agreement to limit navies."

As Lobbyist Shearer sat listening to the investigation, his imperial repose was rudely disrupted by Pearson's testimony. The newspaperman hinted that the "naval expert" had a Scotland Yard record. Heated, Shearer roared to his attorney, Daniel Florence Cohalan: "He's British. We'll clean those British spies out of Washington."

At last Shearer began to testify. He stomped up to the witness stand, glared about belligerently. Asked his name, he roared: "WILLIAM BALDWIN SHEARER, AMERICAN, CHRISTIAN, PROTESTANT, NATIONALIST."