CHICAGO HEARINGS SENATORIAL CAMPAIGN EXPENDITURES MONDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1926 UNITED STATES SENATE, SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON EXPENDITURES IN SENATORIAL ELECTIONS, Chicago, Ill. The committee met, pursuant to the call of the chairman, at 11.15 o'clock a. m., in the Federal building, Chicago, Ill., Senator James A. Reed presiding. Present: Senator Reed of Missouri (chairman). The CHAIRMAN. I have been handed an anonymous communication, and I will say now to the people who are here that anonymous communications are of no value whatever to this committee. À man who is not willing to back up a statement by his presence, or by his name, can not do us any good. I wish to say to the members of the press and to the witnesses that I got here as soon as I could this morning. I am afraid I am the only member of the committee who will be here, because Senator Goff is in Europe, Senator La Follette is ill and in bed, Senator MeNary wires that he can not be here for some days, and Senator King I have not heard from. However, under the authority of the resolution I will proceed, in the name of the committee, with such matters as we have to take up. All the witnesses who have been subpoenaed and are in the room. will please stand and give their names. (The following witnesses responded:) C. A. Willoughby, George B. Safford, E. J. Davis, James Simpon. Mrs. James Morrison. TESTIMONY OF GEORGE B. SAFFORD-Resumed (The witness was sworn by the chairman.) The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Safford, you were examined once before by this same committee Mr. SAFFORD. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Your connection with the Anti-Saloon League is that of superintendent for Illinois? Mr. SAFFORD. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Do you know the Reverend Robert O'Brien? Mr. SAFFORD. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Is he connected in any way with your organization? Mr. SAFFORD. He is not. The CHAIRMAN. How long have you known him? Mr. SAFFORD. I know him only from two visits which he paid to our office. I never met the gentleman before. The CHAIRMAN. When did he make those visits? Mr. SAFFORD. One was on the-well, I can not tell you exactly, Senator, but the second visit was on the 25th of September; and the previous visit was around a month before. I can obtain that information from my memoranda if you desire. The CHAIRMAN. For all practical purposes I presume it is sufficient to say that the first visit he made was in the neighborhood of August 25. Mr. SAFFORD. Around there. The CHAIRMANN. And the second was on September 25? Mr. SAFFORD. I can give you the exact dates if necessary. The CHAIRMANN. Did you discuss with him the senatorial political situation in Illinois? Mr. SAFFORD. That was the sole topic of conversation. The CHAIRMAN. In whose interest did he talk? Mr. SAFFORD. He came professing to represent a group which desired to secure a candidate to run against Colonel Smith. The CHAIRMAN. Can you in any way indicate what that group was; what character of men, or how many men there were in it? Mr. SAFFORD. He told me that Julius Rosenwald, a Mr. Stearns, a Mr. Ickes-I am now discussing the first visit, Senator-the district attorney of Waukegan— The CHAIRMAN. Do you remember his name? Mr. SAFFORD. Smith-and there were some others whose names I do not recall. The CHAIRMAN. What were they going to do? What was their object? Mr. SAFFORD. The object, as he stated it, was to induce Colonel Smith to withdraw and select a candidate to run in his place. The CHAIRMAN. Why did he come to you with this? You are not in politics. Mr. SAFFORD. Perhaps he came to me for advice. He The CHAIRMAN. He came to you to enlist the Anti-Saloon League in this enterprise, did he not? Frankly, is not that the situation? Mr. SAFFORD. Frankly, Senator, he came to enlist us in the support of Mr. Smith, the district attorney of Waukegan County. had it in his mind that influences from Washington were going to see that Colonel Smith was removed-this is what he said-and wished the Anti-Saloon League to unite with him in support of the county attorney of Waukegan as a candidate. The CHAIRMAN. That is County Attorney Smith? The CHAIRMAN. Do you remember his first name? Mr. SAFFORD. I think it is A. V. Smith. I told him that Mr. Smith was a man of very high character for whom we have a very high regard, but that in my judgment it was idle to talk about running any man as an independent; and the Anti-Saloon League, o far as it had any interest or influence in the matter, could not concur with him in any such move. The CHAIRMAN. When you say Mr. Smith was a man of high character you refer to Prosecuting Attorney Smith? Mr. SAFFORD. Yes, sir. Smith is the man I am discussing now. And he stated that influences were at work to secure the retirement of Col. Frank Smith as a candidate. The CHAIRMAN. From Washington? Mr. SAFFORD. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. What were those influences? Mr. SAFFORD. He did not tell me. The CHAIRMAN. What did you understand, from the course of the conversation, that he referred to? Mr. SAFFORD. I understood it to mean that some sort of an appointment would be tendered to him. The CHAIRMAN. By the administration? Mr. SAFFORD. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. That is, by the Coolidge administration? Mr. SAFFORD. Yes, sir; and I repudiated the idea and told him that I did not believe he knew what he was talking about. The CHAIRMAN. Did he tell you who had made this arrangement? Mr. SAFFORD. He said that Mr. Rosenwald had just got back from Washington. The CHAIRMAN. And whom had he seen there? Mr. SAFFORD. He did not say. The CHAIRMAN. That is, Mr. Julius Rosenwald? Mr. SAFFORD. Yes, sir. I was stating what I said. I told him that we would not be interested in anything of that kind, running any man entered as an independent at that late hour; with the powerful party organizations at work it was futile for any man to run as an independent; that if Colonel Smith withdrew, then there would be some chance for his candidate; that we knew him to be a good man and were entirely friendly to any moves in that direction. The CHAIRMAN. You knew whom to be a good man? Mr. SAFFORD. This Mr. Smith, of Waukegan; but that unless Colonel Smith withdrew, it was foolish to talk about him, and we would have nothing to do with him. The CHAIRMAN. Whom were you going to support? To whom were you going to give your support? Mr. SAFFORD. We are supporting Colonel Smith. The CHAIRMAN. That is the first visit, you have been telling us about? Mr. SAFFORD. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. What about the second visit, a month later? Mr. SAFFORD. I heard or saw nothing more of Mr. O'Brien until September 25. Superintendent Scott McBride, general superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League, and myself were in conference at the Anti-Saloon League office when Mr. O'Brien came in. He said he wanted to talk to us about senatorial candidates. I told him that if he had any new propositions to make, it was foolish to make them; that five weeks before a campaign it was impossible to make any headway with an independent candidate. Mr. O'Brien then divulged the fact that they had arranged with Mr. Hugh Magill to run as a candidate. We immediately protested and said, "Why do you want to sacrifice a good man like Magill? You know that he has no chance." He said, "You don't know the power or the strengt of the forces that are behind him." Then we both protested and argued. The CHAIRMAN. That is, you and Mr. McBride? Mr. SAFFORD. And Mr. McBride; and told him that if he brought a new candidate into the field at this time, and he had any success at all, it would only result in the election of Mr. Brennan, whom we are opposing because he is wet. Mr. O'Brien then, in order to show the strength of his backing, repeated the names of Mr. Rosenwald Mr. Stearns, Mr. Ickes, and others. I said, "What authority have you to speak for them?" The CHAIRMAN. You say "and others." Let us get the others. mean. The CHAIRMAN. Were they capitalists? If you are going to give me a military title, I want to be promoted. I want to be at least a general. Mr. SAFFORD. I am trying to observe all of the dignities. The other things he said were so much more interesting to me that I do not remember. The CHAIRMAN. I am trying just for the moment to see whether if you can not remember the names, it was a group of capitalists he named. it was. happen Mr. SAFFORD. Well, yes; it left the impression in our minds that But at any rate, then, the conversation turned to what would The CHAIRMAN. You have not answered my question-if you can answer it, Doctor-whether the others in addition to Rosenwald, Stearns and Ickes, were a group of men of means. Mr. SAFFORD. Yes, sir; he left that impression. The CHAIRMAN. You started to say what he had said and you had said. Mr. SAFFORD. Then we said to Mr. O'Brien, "Why, Mr. O'Brien, you could not possibly make a successful or even any kind of a campaign at this late hour without the expenditure of a very large amount of money." He said, "We will spend from three to four hundred thousand dollars." I said to him, "You could not raise any such sum as that." He brought his fist down on the table and he said, "We have got the money and we intend to spend it." I said to him, "You are not a bit better than the fellows you are criticizing. If you do a thing like that you are in the same class as Mr. Brennan and the supporters and backers of Colonel Smith in regard to the expenditure of money." Mr. McBride said to him, "Don't you know that if you spend a sum like that you will violate the law? The law limits the amount that can be spent in a senatorial election to $50,000. There is no limit to the amount that can be spent in a primary, but in a senatorial or general election it is limited to $50,000." He said, "We know that; but we think there are some holes through which we can get." I said to him, "Mr. O'Brien, you are utterly unworthy to support a man like Magill or have anything to do with such a proposition. You are deliberately proposing to violate the law." "Well," he said, "we are going to do it. We are going to put on a big campaign." We said to him: "Mr. O'Brien, you know your man can not be elected." He said: "We think he can." McBride pointed his finger at him and he said: "O'Brien, you know you can not elect your man." He said: "That may be; but we will at least succeed in electing Mr. Brennan." I said to him: "That is where you and we part company. We are as far apart as the poles. You are willing to at least succeed in electing Brennan. We are determined to do all we can to prevent the election of Brennan. That is where we stand. You and we can have nothing to do with each other." Senator, when this man began to say these things I pulled over my tab and wrote these three or four particular statements right at that moment. I have them now. I put them in my memorandum book, and I have them now. The CHAIRMAN. Have you it at present? Mr. SAFFORD. I haven't it with me, but I can produce it. The CHAIRMAN. I would be glad to see it, being of a curious mind. Mr. SAFFORD. All right, sir. The CHAIRMAN. You say that you said to him that if he expended this large amount of money he would be as bad as Smith or Brennan, who were expending large sums of money? Mr. SAFFORD. Open to the same criticism. The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Do you know of any large sums of money that Brennan is spending? Mr. SAFFORD. He did not need to spend so much. The CHAIRMAN. No; but I am not asking that. I am asking if you know of any large sums of money that Brennan is spending? Mr. SAFFORD. The amount that was reported by your committee. That is what I referred to. The CHAIRMAN. You did not regard that as astonishingly large, did you? Mr. SAFFORD. Not so particularly large. The CHAIRMAN. That is not as much as the Anti-Saloon League is spending, is it? Mr. SAFFORD. We are not spending that much in this campaign. The CHAIRMAN. How much did Brennan spend or account for? Mr. SAFFORD. I suppose about twenty thousand or so. The CHAIRMAN. You are spending a good deal more than that, are you not? Mr. SAFFORD. No, sir. The CHAIRMAN. How is that? Mr. SAFFORD. No, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Who is paying out the money for the Anti Saloon League? Mr. SAFFORD. I am. The CHAIRMAN. You are? Mr. SAFFORD. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. We will come back to that after a while. Mr. SAFFORD. All right. The CHAIRMAN. When you said to this man that if he was going to spend three or four hundred thousand dollars he would be as 103434-26-PT 32 |