Pennsylvania Tangle

Senator David A. Reed of Pennsylvania is a champion for his state--more exactly, he is the most outspoken and vigorous champion for that potent coterie of Mellon-Reed-Pepper, which has its politico business headquarters in Pittsburgh. A member of this group and a good friend of Senator Reed is Cyrus E. Woods,* who was recently nominated for the Interstate Commerce Commission by , President Coolidge. Senator Reed was busily bestirring himself to secure Mr. Woods' confirmation in the Senate, when the hawk-eyed New York World intervened and thwacked him editorially last week.

Mr. Woods' appointment, said the World, recognizes the vicious principle that geographical balance of power should influence the choice of Federal commissioners; he was a onetime lawyer for the Pittsburgh Coal Co. and hence would be biased in important decisions now pending before the Interstate Commerce Commission; he was manager of the Pepper-Fisher primary campaign last spring, with its slush record of $1,800,000.

Winding up, the World editorial grew hot: "A more vulnerable nomination could hardly be conceived. It places Mr. Coolidge in the position of yielding to Senator Reed's bluster, and of indorsing Secretary Mellon's attempt to whitewash the Pepper-Vare primary. It throws an experienced and impartial Commissioner out of office to give his place to an untried corporation lawyer whose latest political effort is a poor recommendation."

Senator David A. Reed read and grew hot. He arose in the Senate with fire on his tongue: "The poison that taints the pen that writes such editorials as that, demanding the highest and most meticulous virtue from every public man, but knifing defenseless men behind their backs on false charges, where they have no opportunity to reply, is absolutely indefensible."

Next day, the World asked that Senator Reed disprove any of its statements, "if he can." Unrebuffed, Senator Reed went to the White House and assured the President that the Senate would soon confirm Mr. Woods' appointment by a substantial majority. He counts on the aid of the regular Republicans, plus the Southern Democrats who have their eyes on two appointments for the Tariff and Federal Trade Commissions, which will probably go to Democrats. Political plums often make salve.

Mr. Woods' appointment seems to be tangled up with everything that has happened in Pennsylvania politics from the spring of 1926 to what will happen in the spring of 1928. Even the rock-ribbed Republican New York Herald Tribune supplied the following comment in its news columns last week: "It is declared that the real reason why he has been selected for the Interstate Commerce Commission is that the Mellon forces in Pennsylvania have set out to control the Pennsylvania delegation in 1928 for President Coolidge and that Mr. Woods, in this influential Federal post, will be in a situation to be helpful."

And all through the heated tangle, Mr. Woods has kept tactfully silent.

*Lawyer, Ambassador to Spain (1921-23) and to Japan (1923-24), he is now 65.