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The NAM and the Congressional Investigations of 1913: A Case Study in the Suppression of Evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

A. K. Steigerwalt
A. K. Steigerwalt
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Business History, School of Business Administration atUniversity of Michigan
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Abstract

Over a famous Congressional investigation lies the shadow of evidence suppressed for political reasons and long ignored by scholars, who by too glib acceptance of the printed testimony have perpetuated bias as historical fact.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1960 , pp. 335 - 344
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1960

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References

1 Link, Arthur S., Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910-1917 (New York, 1954), pp. 1–2Google Scholar. See also Diamond, William, The Economic Thought of Woodrow Wilson (Baltimore, 1943), pp. 85–88Google Scholar. Diamond shows clearly Wilson's intellectual shift from a confident belief in “entrepreneurial liberalism” to a confident belief in “positive government action as the means of eliminating economic maladjustments.”

2 For a study of the organization of National Association of Manufacturers in 1895 see A. K. Steigerwalt, “The Founding of the National Association of Manufacturers,” Bulletin of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio (April, 1952), pp. 126-142. For later developments see the author's doctoral dissertation, “The National Association of Manufacturers: Organization and Policies, 1895-1914” (1952) available on microfilm from the Library of Congress or from the University of Michigan Library. See also Richard W. Gable, “Birth of an Employers' Association,” Business History Review (Winter, 1959), pp. 535-545.

3 See Morison, Samuel Eliot and Commager, Henry Steele, The Growth of the American Republic (4th ed.; New York, 1950), vol. II, chap. XVIII, especially p. 433Google Scholar. See also Hofstadter, Richard, The American Political Tradition (New York, 1954), pp. 238 and 256Google Scholar.

4 Link, Arthur S., Wilson: The New Freedom (Princeton, 1956), pp. 187–190Google Scholar.

5 Chicago Tribune, June 29, 1913.

6 Mulhall was shown later not to be a “Colonel” but simply had appropriated it to fit his lofty pretensions.

7 Chicago Tribune, June 30, and July 5, 1913.

8 Herring, Edward Pendleton, Group Representation Before Congress (Baltimore, 1929), passimGoogle Scholar.

9 63d Cong., 1st Sess., United States Senate, Maintenance of a Lobby to Influence Legislation, Hearings Before a Subcommittee or the Judiciary (4 vols. and Appendix; Washington, D.C., 1913), vol. III, p. 2433. Inasmuch as the Hearings in the House of Representatives covered the same ground, the material here is based upon the Senate record. For the House material see 63d Cong., 1st Sess., House Reports, No. 570, No. 571, and No. 572; and 63d Cong., 2d Sess., House Report, No. 113.

10 Carroll, Mollie R., Labor and Politics (New York, 1923), p. 44Google Scholar. See also Lorwin, Lewis L., The American Federation of Labor (Washington, 1933Google Scholar), passim; Lombardi, John, Labor's Voice in the Cabinet (New York, 1942), p. 61Google Scholar; and Commons, John R., History of Labor in the United States (4 vols.; New York, 1918-1935), vol. IV, p. 151Google Scholar.

11 One facet of the progressive movement was the increasing power of the press which “became a vital force in the lives of the masses.” One of the most powerful was the New York World, purchased by Joseph Pulitzer from Jay Gould in 1883; it was an ardently pro-Wilson paper which had long supported labor and reform causes. Although not as sensational as the Hearst papers, the World had grown in circulation and power in great measure on the basis of exposé, crusades, and strong Democratic partisanship. Link, Arthur S., American Epoch (New York, 1959), pp. 37–38Google Scholar.

12 National Association of Manufacturers, Board of Directors, Minutes, Oct. 23, 1911, p. 1. See also U.S. Senate, Maintenance of a Lobby …, vol. IV, pp. 3929-3932 and 3940–3948Google Scholar.

13 Ibid., p. 4096.

14 Ibid., vol. V, pp. 2989-3017.

15 For Littlefield's position on the labor question see 56th Cong., 1st Sess., House Report, No. 1887 and 56th Cong., 2d Sess., Senate Document No. 58. The fact that the A.F. of L. made a determined bid to defeat Charles E. Littlefield in 1906 is completely overlooked by critics of the NAM. See Carroll, Labor and Politics, p. 44; Commons, History of Labor, vol. IV, p. 151; and Lorwin, A.F. of L., p. 90.

16 U.S. Senate, Maintenance of a Lobby …, vol. V, pp. 4603–4607Google Scholar; vol. III, p. 2730; vol. IV, p. 3536; and vol. V, p. 4590.

17 Robert M. McCarter, Counsel to the National Association of Manufacturers, to Lee S. Overman, Chairman, Senate Lobby Committee, July 26, 1913.

18 Wm. G. McAdoo, Secretary of the Treasury to Lee S. Overman, July 2, 1913, transmitting Report on Michael M. Mulhall signed by W. H. Moran, Acting Chief of Secret Service Division. National Archives, Records of the United States Senate, 63d Congress. This report was abstracted from two volumes of “Papers relating to the Dismissal of Special Operative M. M. Mulhall,” Item #48 in Fiscal, Administrative and Judicial Records, 1865-1929, Records of the United States Secret Service, in the National Archives since at least 1948.

19 Wilson, H. H., Congress: Corruption and Compromise (New York, 1951), p. 20Google Scholar.

20 Ibid., pp. 20–30. Several aspects of Mulhall's pecuniary relationship with McMichael deserves consideration. James A. Emery (Counsel to the National Council for Industrial Defense) and Phillip J. Bird (General Manager of the National Association of Manufacturers) were aware of the “payoff” but assisted in having Mulhall relieved of his duties by the board of directors, in part of these grounds. Further, the act complained of by the House had ceased almost two years prior to the investigation and no evidence was elicited to show that the NAM members condoned such a practice or that staff members had engaged in such practices outside of this one isolated instance. My research into NAM records and discussions about this investigation with the late James J. Emery convinces me that he and the Association were not corrupt and would never knowingly permit such improper acts to be practiced.

21 63d Cong., 2d Sess., House Report, No. 113; passim. The House report's “blistering” quality was the product of several factors, one of which was Representative McDermott's excessive impropriety in other ways not connected with the Mulhall charges. Thus the report represents in part a misjoinder of judgments only one of which is directed at the NAM. Further, subsequent House reports on the matter of lobbying were primarily extrapolations by other committees from the original and in some minority reports involved flagrant political overtones.

22 For an excellent discussion of this problem see Key, V. O. Jr., Politics, Parties and Pressure Groups (4th ed.; New York, 1958), pp. 3–170Google Scholar. For a complete bibliography see Tompkins, Dorothy C., Congressional Investigation of Lobbying (Berkeley, 1956)Google Scholar.

23 U.S. Senate, Maintenance of A Lobby …. Appendix, vol. IV, p. 4169Google Scholar.

24 As recently as 1951, a trade book devoted exclusively to the subject of lobbying extracts the last possible ounce of venom from the 1913 Report of the House Lobby Committee. In a chapter entitled “Masters of Government,” Karl Schriftgiesser warms over the standard approach complete with such contemporary phraseology as “NAM stooge.” Schriftgiesser, Karl, The Lobbyists (Boston, 1951)Google Scholar. Schriftgiesser apparently relied heavily upon Crawford, Kenneth G., The Pressure Boys (New York, 1939Google Scholar) for the Lobby investigation of 1913. Schriftgiesser was also wrong in other respects about the Lobby investigation. For example, he names Senator A. B. Cummings, Insurgent Republican from Iowa as chairman of the Lobby Investigation, p. 40. An interesting but unsupported theory about the investigation is set forth in Gross, Bertram M., The Legislative Struggle (New York, 1953Google Scholar), where he states that “The 1913 investigation of the NAM was the product of the A. F. of L.'s campaign for the Clayton Act,” p. 24.

25 Handlin, Oscar et al. , Harvard Guide to American History (Cambridge, 1955), p. 24Google Scholar.

26 See U.S. National Archives, Guide to the Records in the National Archives (Washington, D.C., 1948), pp. xiGoogle Scholar ff. See also; Preliminary Inventory of the Records of the U.S. Secret Service, p. 14.