THE CONGRESS: Boomerang & Blackjack

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Minute later questions were popping so fast that Witness Gadsden found himself open-mouthed to answer one question while Chairman Black was already asking another. That, however, was the only trouble the cool little utilitarian had with his answers. Freely he testified that up to June 30 the Power lobby had spent $301,365 on its fight against the Public Utility Bill. Half of this sum had been donated by holding companies, half by Edison Electric Institute. Two Manhattan law firms were paid $75,000 each. The famed publicity firm of Ivy Lee & T. J. Ross received $5,000 per month, plus traveling expenses. Mr. Gadsden himself, with a salary of $30,000 per year from the U. G. I., got $500 or $600 per month for Washington expenses. Yes, it was quite possible that expenditures by individual operating companies might bring the Power lobby total up to $1,000,000. No, he did not agree with Chairman Black that $1,000,000 was "a ridiculously low estimate."

"We don't feel that we're on the defensive here at all," remarked Witness Gadsden. "We felt that this bill was destroying valuable property and did our best to prevent its passage, as we considered it our Constitutional right."

Further testimony disclosed that, as everyone already knew, the Power lobby had employed its Constitutional right of petition to influence Congressmen against the bill by letters, telegrams, speeches, broadcasts, advertisements. But no whit of evidence was turned up to prove that Lobbyist Gadsden, descendant of the U. S. Minister to Mexico who negotiated the Gadsden Purchase, had used a single dollar of his funds to purchase votes or otherwise corrupt the Congress.

Back at his office, Mr. Gadsden found that in his absence a Black committee investigator named Blomquist had ransacked both his official and personal files. "He actually went through my personal checkbook," cried the furious utilitarian. "I think it's an outrage!"

Replied Investigator Blomquist: "I don't know what are his personal files and which are his official ones. This is a lobby investigation."