All in the Congressional Family

YET as the undue attachment to friends or favorites assumes the dangerous forms of favoritism, so does the excessive attachment to the members of one’s family become nepotism. — LIEBER, Political Ethics

I

DURING the last days of the Seventy-first Congress a sparkling news cocktail was served the jaded Washington correspondents when the Honorable U. S. Stone, Congressman from Oklahoma, introduced H.R.16700. The bill, in part, proposed that all Senators and Representatives be prohibited from appointing relatives to jobs on the Federal pay roll. After a century and a half of laissez faire, nepotism had been finally called to account by a ‘lame duck’ member of the House!

Up in the press gallery, the correspondents leaped upon the story as a gift from the journalistic gods — and wrote sombre, facetious, and ironical requiems for the bill that was doomed to die. On the floor, Congressman Stone’s confreres shrugged their shoulders and remained discreetly silent. Undaunted, the Oklahoman pressed for a hearing and supplemented his request to the committee chairman, Congressman William Williamson of South Dakota, with this vigorous assertion:

I will state for your information that I have received a great many letters which are a reflection on both houses of Congress, and I am certain that the Members accused would be glad to have an opportunity to appear before the Committee and exonerate themselves, and I know those who are not guilty of the practice are only anxious to have their names cleared, as a great deal of publicity has been given this bill.

But Chairman Williamson shook his head: —

As you know, I was ill all last week with the influenza. . . . As you know, it has been my practice to grant hearings at the earliest practicable date . . . but in view of the hearings already arranged . . . I can see little prospect of reaching your bill in the immediate future.

As predicted by the political illuminati on Capitol Hill, there was no hearing, and H. R. 16700, a delicate piece of legislative dynamite, failed to explode. And so died the first antinepotism bill introduced in an American Congress. Once more nepotism had survived the critical onslaught of its enemies, as it has survived all attacks since the beginning of the Republic.

As early as 1803, Thomas Jefferson condemned the practice of placing relatives on the Federal pay roll, and in an arraignment of one flagrant offense he remonstrated: —

The public will never be made to believe that an appointment of a relative is made on the ground of merit alone, uninfluenced by family views; nor can they ever see, with approbation, offices the disposal of which they intrust to their President for public purposes, divided out as family property.

Nevertheless, nepotism endured. It emerged unscathed from the Jeffersonian assault, fended off the savage thrusts of Andrew Jackson, and blithely turned a deaf ear to the philippics of lesser statesmen who followed in the wake of the seventh President. It ignored entirely the furtive, desultory attacks of the American press.

The public, inured to these bloodless raids, regarded the business apathetically — until the Stone bill was trumpeted from the headlines. And then it was shocked into action. Indignant voters began to sniff and bay at official heels, while the great dailies thundered a noisy obbligato. Overnight, nepotism became a brisk controversial topic in the forty-eight sovereign states. But when the Congressional inquisition failed to materialize, the hue and cry of the citizenry sank to a faint pianissimo; the newspapers delivered the conventional salvo of regrets, patted the Oklahoma crusader on the back, and turned to other subjects for editorial material. The storm was over.

II

It is quite likely, however, that nepotism will be dragged again into the spotlight, for its critics cling tenaciously to the belief that it is nothing less than a vicious form of pay-roll racketeering — a shameless exhibition of official greed not to be tolerated. It is possible that the criticism is just. Or it may be grossly unfair. Let us see.

The controversial warfare rages over the old Congressional custom of awarding secretarial positions to the various members of Congressional families. Each year Congress spends in excess of $3,000,000 for clerk hire, and it is charged that an army of Senators’ and Representatives’ wives, sons, daughters, nephews, nieces, and in-laws collect the major portion of this amount.

In 1929, Congress raised the salaries of its office employees. Previous to July 1 of that year, each Senator received an annual allowance of $8590, distributed among four clerks; while each Representative invariably confined his $4000 allowance to two. Committee chairmen in both houses were granted more substantial allotments, the amount varying with the clerical requirements of the several committees. The new bill provided for an increase of more than half a million dollars and boosted the allowance of each Senate and House member, not a committee chairman, to $10,320 and $5000 respectively. Cynics in Washington still wax facetious over the popularity of that bill, and the speed with which it was passed. In the House, a lone statesman — a new member from Arkansas — made a gallant gesture when he boldly announced that the $4000 allowance was enough. It should be added that while this heretical utterance startled his four hundred and thirty-odd colleagues, it did not change their votes.

No Federal red tape governs Congressional appointments to secretarial positions, barring a single ruling which states that no appointee shall receive a salary in excess of $3900 a year. The determination of personnel is left entirely to the discretion of the Senators and Representatives, and astute political observers estimate that from 60 to 70 per cent of our national lawmakers appoint relatives to these desirable office jobs on Capitol Hill. Incidentally, a survey of the records tends to authenticate that estimate. Congressional appointive activities, however, are not confined to these purely personal nominations. The entire government service is littered with job-holders who owe their snug berths to the direct, or indirect, influence of members of Congress. Nevertheless, public disapproval is voiced chiefly over the personal appointments of the legislators, and the rank favoritism displayed in the distribution of these clerical plums.

To the withering cross fire of its critics, the defenders of nepotism counter sharply with the assertion that the practice is quite legitimate. It is — when the ethics are observed. But its more belligerent champions raise a debatable point when they add that their family appointments are ‘nobody’s business.’ Judging from the tenor of the mail and telegrams which deluged Congressman Stone during the last two weeks of the Seventy-first Congress, it would appear that the constituents back home entertain a diametrically opposite view. Following the introduction of the Stone bill, one South Carolina paper, t he Charleston News and Courier, rumbled ominously: —

The appointment of members of their families to places on the government pay roll by Senators and Representatives is not a decent custom.

No one of the nine Senators and Representatives in Congress from South Carolina at this time will dare to say on the stump in 1932 that he expects to see that some of his kin draw salaries from the Federal Government.

Not a man of them, whatever his practices in the past, will dare to say, if asked the question, that he will request the appointment of his cousins or his uncles or his aunts, his wife or his daughter or son, to a secretaryship or clerkship.

This ‘nepotism’ of which Mr. Stone complains is practised in the dark. Nothing that a Congressman cannot defend in the light is defensible anywhere or at any time. It is only when these things are not mentioned that Congressmen are not punished on account of them, and they know it.

The News and Courier has heard of Congressmen who obtained appointments for persons who were seldom in Washington, who performed nominal public duties, but assiduously attended to the private business of the Congressman at home, saving him the expense of paying a private employee out of his ora pocket. No incident of that kind in South Carolina has been heard of lately, but there have been such doings and they have been done by persons who advertised themselves as economists and reformers.

In the progressive State of Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Journal contributed a sardonic note: —

Congressman Stone of Oklahoma, who, the more’s the pity, retires March 4, has started something down at Washington that ought to be finished. Mr. Stone has a bill to separate the relatives of Congressmen from the government pay rolls. And what a hornet’s nest he has stirred up. He himself has been ostracized by the pay-roll pensioners until, no doubt, he will be glad to get back to the Cimarron country. But his work ought to go on.

. . . Here is something for Wisconsin Congressmen—and Senators—to espouse, those that are not working the racket themselves. The other day our own legislature passed a joint resolution declaring it to be the policy of the state that both husband and wife should not be on the state’s pay rolls, except at institutions that required the services of a married couple. Here is the same question, almost exactly. If our progressive legislature is against it, our progressive Congressional delegation ought to be. Will Senators Blaine and La Follette, for instance, take up the fallen banner?

III

Apparently this barrage laid down by the American press failed to satisfy the voters. Citizens, hot on the Congressional trail, clamored for more sanguinary warfare and demanded the names of the offending legislators, particularly the Congressmen from their home districts. But if any newspaper in America checked up the records of the Senators and Representatives from its own state, it neglected to publish its findings — a journalistic anomaly which still remains a puzzle to students of the Fourth Estate. In all fairness, it should be explained that the compilation of a complete list of statesmen with nepotic tendencies is an involved and laborious business. An accurate check of the family ramifications of more than five hundred legislators is, obviously, a job to be sidestepped by any alert Washington correspondent, especially when the investigator knows he will be confronted with a maze of endless red tape, evasions, and downright hostility.

But to any individual who is courageous enough to attempt the task, two government publications will be found invaluable as research aids: the Annual Report of the Clerk of the House of Representatives and the Report of the Secretary of the Senate. It is highly probable that the average citizen will experience some difficulty in obtaining these reports through his Congressman; it is very likely that he will encounter infinitely more difficulty when he essays to analyze them — the House document particularly. But in the statistical jumble of these reports is an authentic, if somewhat obscure, record of the names and salaries of all Congressional appointees in the Senate and House Office Buildings and the Capitol.

In the office of the disbursing clerk of the House, a rigid censorship has been placed on the dissemination of information pertaining to the Congressional pay roll. The writer encountered the official frown when, in an endeavor to ascertain the names of the few Congressmen who do not use their entire $5000 quota for clerk hire, he was advised that orders had been issued prohibiting the release of any information to newspaper men. This dictum was supplemented by the statement that ‘the newspapers have made enough trouble for us.’ It is possible. The press did raise an infernal din for a week or two, and prominent among the agitators was the New York World, which, shortly before its demise, tossed this ironical brickbat into the verbal mêlée:—

Just think of having private, personal family affairs aired in public! Just what business is it of yours, Mr. Stone, that one Southern gentleman, a member of the House, had his father or grandfather down on the pay roll as a clerk? What if the father or grandfather did draw$16,000 without ever having set foot in Washington? ... It is of record that one Western representative who was chairman of a committee employed his son at $2240, a daughter at $1440, and a nephew at $2230 a year. It is of record that one Senator had his wife for a secretary, his father-in-law for a clerk, and a son engaged as a page. And one Congressman had his fifteen-year-old daughter down on the pay roll for $940 a year, which helped pay the child’s way in school and gave her the pin money that any schoolgirl can use incidental to getting an education.

In some sectors, the criticism assumed a graver tone and sinister charges were hurled into the ranks of the nepotists — of pay-roll ‘dummies,’ of forced ‘drawbacks’ from secretarial salary checks, and of hypocrisy in the last Congress over the relief of the unemployed. At the time, violent exception was taken to the performance of the $10,000-a-ycar statesmen who sympathized profusely with the jobless sufferers — and continued to keep members of their families on the government pay roll, thus augmenting, directly or indirectly, their own personal incomes.

Lately, the ‘working secretaries’ of Capitol Hill have added their voice to the clamor and strenuously maintain, usually in anonymous communications, that while they are responsible for all the work done in the offices, favored relatives receive the bulk of the salary spoils. A dispassionate investigation discloses that their charges are often backed by irrefutable evidence. Unquestionably, many of the ‘preferred’ appointees are paid for nebulous services rendered.

An amusing side light is afforded in the case of J. Thomas Heflin, Jr., son of the redoubtable ‘Tom-Tom’ Heflin who was recently defeated for reélection to the U. S. Senate. The metropolitan newspaper files attest that on April 9, 1929, young Mr. Heflin arrived in New York from Panama. According to Universal Service, he was in a ‘hilarious mood’ and appeared to have an ‘aggravated case of sea legs.’ On June 19, he was arrested in Washington, charged with driving under the influence of drugs. On September 3, he was arrested for drunkenness in Phoenix City, Alabama, and charged with violation of the prohibition law. All of which is merely a recital of stale news of dubious interest except for the fact that during the period Mr. Heflin, Jr., was having his unpleasant experiences with the officers of the law he was also on the government pay roll as a clerk to his father, the Senator from Alabama. The average citizen may wonder how the young man could be in Panama, New York, and Phoenix City, Alabama, and still attend to his clerical duties in Washington. A satisfactory answer does not occur to us — and we pass on.

Even to the casual observer it is apparent that other members of the upper house have been influenced by family blood ties in making their secretarial appointments. At least the Report of the Secretary of the Senate for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1930 (the latest available pay-roll record of the Seventy-first Congress), reveals an interesting similarity between the names of various Senators and their office employees: —

The list is not complete. Research among the multitudinous family affiliations of the Senatorial members discloses a more impressive representation, but the foregoing exhibit may serve as an index to the sentiment which prevails in the greatest deliberative body in the world.

IV

At the other end of the Capitol a majority of the four hundred and thirty-five Representatives have assembled under their office banners an army of wives, sons, daughters, and miscellaneous relatives. Occasionally, alert political opponents point out these family favorites to the citizenry, and it is a matter of record that as a rule the indignant constituents do the rest. Take, for example, the case of Mr. Edgar C. Ellis of Kansas City, who spent ten years in Washington as a Representative from the fifth district of Missouri. In last November’s finals, Mr. Ellis, seeking reëlection, was pitted against one Mr. Joseph B. Shannon. As the campaign winged to a stormy close, nepotism became a bitter controversial issue when the Shannon forces announced that Mrs. Ellis was on the Congressional pay roll as a clerk in her husband’s office at a salary of $2000 a year. Incidentally, Mrs. Ellis’s age — she was past seventy — was dinned into the ears of the amazed Missourians, and when the votes were counted it was discovered that both Congressman and Mrs. Ellis had been retired to private life.

It is interesting to note that while the wives of most American business and professional men rarely become a part of their husbands’ office personnel, Congressional wives continue to remain in vogue on the House pay roll. These salaried helpmates, together with the legion of lesser relatives employed on Capitol Hill, form an imposing list with some diverting side lights. For instance, there exists in the lower house, in addition to the more conservative legislators who make but one ‘family’ appointment, a more radical group of statesmen who keep their entire $5000 allowance within the confines of the family. Official confirmation lies in these informative excerpts from the House report: —

For some inexplicable reason, legislators hailing from the rural districts of the South and Middle West appear to be particularly susceptible to the nepotic urge. The Eastern states, with a population largely urban, have comparatively few ‘family men’ representing them in Washington. Further probing among House statistics discloses that the ‘regulars’ of both parties have an infinitely larger proportion of nepotists in their ranks than the insurgent bloc; that the Drys succumb more readily than the Wets; and that the appointive records of headlined Congressmen often compare unfavorably with those of their unsung compeers.

The following instances may be of general interest: the name of Fame Cramton appears on the office pay roll of Louis C. Cramton of Michigan, a Republican regular of regulars and militant prohibitionist who was defeated in last November’s elections and later awarded the government post of ‘dictator’ of Boulder City, Nevada. Thomas Alva Yon, Democratic Congressman from Florida, whose oratorical flights have aroused so much facetious comment both off and on the floor of the House, has a secretarial aide at $3200 per annum, listed simply as D. M. Yon. This may or may not be Congressman Yon’s wife, Daisy Mullikin Yon. Congressman Jeff Busby, who in a spirited debate over a $306,000 road contract in Dixie divulged the amazing information that more than 20,000 Union soldiers are buried in the national cemetery at Shiloh, has a Joanna M. Busby, at $3300 per year, serving him in a clerical capacity. Congressman William Williamson of South Dakota, committee chairman who frowned upon the Stone biff, has a C. D. Williamson, at $1260, employed in his office. C. D. Williamson has for a co-worker one C. L. Dice, whose salary is $3740. Inasmuch as Mrs. Williamson’s maiden name was Clara Dice, it would appear that the WilliamsonDice family alliance has a 100 per cent equity in the monthly pay check. These are only a few high lights in the nepotic parade. It is an endless procession — with both political parties actively represented.

The writer cannot subscribe wholeheartedly to the statement of the Carolina editorial writer that nepotism ‘is practised in the dark.’ At the same time he will admit there are some instances of political shadow boxing in Congressional circles where nepotism is involved. Interesting examples are offered by Congressman James G. Strong of Blue Rapids, Kansas, and Congressman Charles G. Edwards1 of Savannah, Georgia. After scrutinizing the biographical sketches in the Congressional Directory, — all ‘based on information furnished or authorized by the respective Senators and Congressmen,’ — we are forced to the conclusion that the Strong and Edwards hagiographies, while probably accurate, are also incomplete.

For instance, we learn that Congressman Strong married Frances Erma Coon. . . . They have two children, George E. Strong . . . and Mrs. Paul E. Haworth, whose husband is an ex-service man and is engaged in the real-estate business in Washington, D. C.

The Washington directory confirms the assertion that Paul E. Haworth is in the real-estate business, and the House pay-roll records indicate that he supplements his income from that source with a $3300-a-year job as clerk lo the War Claims Committee, of which his father-in-law is chairman.

Congressman Edwards’s biography includes the information that he married Miss Ora Beach; they have one son, Charles Beach Edwards, a practising attorney at Savannah, Georgia.

The Savannah telephone directory does not list the name, but there is a Charles B. Edwards, $2700-a-vear clerk, employed in Congressman Edwards’s office in Washington.

In making a study of the extent of nepotism in the lower house, the following list may prove interesting. It is admittedly incomplete, citing as it does only the instances where the names of the clerical aides correspond with those of the statesmen who appointed them. In a single instance, identity of name proves nothing, of course, but the identity of 115 pairs of names seems to indicate something: —

V

Obviously, the persons most affected by family favoritism on Capitol Hill are the ‘working secretaries,’ and they are responsible fora bewildering and caustic verbal shellfire — directed chiefly at the non-working relatives. The compulsory return of part of their salaries to the employing Congressmen is also denounced in no uncertain terms. A flood of mail which deluged Congressman Stone’s office signalized the beginning of this secretarial rebellion. Full of bitterness and sardonic humor, the letters are a merciless indictment of the vicious system. Unfortunately, most of the missives are anonymous and, in fairness to the legislators accused, cannot be reproduced here. However, to show the iniquitous possibilities, I will quote from a statement by a clerk whose name is of course withheld: —

I have been a secretary on the House side for over five years. The Member I am secretary for has a member of his family on the pay roll who does not perform any work whatever connected with the office, but is attending school. My name appears on the pay roll for quite a good salary, which would lead the average observer to think I was well paid. The fact, however, is that I am compelled to return to the Member almost half of the amount for which my name appears on the roll. The half which I return is given to his wife. I am receiving $1500 a year and his family the remainder of the $5000 given for clerk hire.

This same Member has educated all his children with the money which was intended for his secretary and clerk. He is a man of considerable means and there is absolutely no justification for this graft at the expense of the laborer who is worthy of his hire.

Although indignant protests against nepotism are the rule throughout the country, most Washingtonians, inured to the practice, are inclined to regard it with an amused tolerance. While America at large grew excited over the Stone bill, a dispassionate calm prevailed on the north bank of the Potomac. In official circles, opinions were discreetly noncommittal. At the White House, President Hoover, while reported to be interested, did not voice his personal views to the gentlemen of the press. In the House, however, there was an undercover hostility from some legislators — a resentment that found expression in an anonymous note which was laid on Congressman Stone’s desk. Attached to a newspaper clipping relating to tin; anti-nepotism bill was the brief and belligerent query: Just how far are you going with this?

To the sporadic demand for action from voters in the remote sectors little hope can be offered. Vague rumors indicate a possible reopening of the nepotic controversy, but it is hardly likely that when t he Seventy-second Congress convenes in December another statesman will jump into the shoes of the Oklahoma crusader, for it means tampering with highly explosive political dynamite. After all, nepotism is an entirely legal practice, however dubious its ethics may be, and it should be remembered that ethics are defined variously, in Washington as elsewhere. It would be possible, of course, to restrict the business by placing all clerical appointments under the Civil Service, but with no powerful ‘people’s lobby’ in Washington to force a Congressional show-down any unorganized drive in that direction would probably resolve itself into an absurd and futile gesture.

Even the newspapers of America seem to be in a bit of a quandary over the nepotic menace. It is diagnosed by them as a cancerous political growth, but none has yet suggested to its readers the press panacea for all political ills: Write your Congressman about it! Obviously the old nostrum won’t do. A new prescription is required.