Furtive Information
June 5, 1929 THE COMMONWEAL 117 FURTIVE INFORMATION THERE will be no nine days' wake if the Senate should abandon the rule of secrecy for the proceedings of executive session. Editors and...
...In the extremities of debate, the most effective check is always a reminder that remarks will appear in the Record, that they will be seized upon by maliciously alert "paragraphers," and the Senate will be degraded on the Main Streets of the land...
...The ball of information rolls down one of them without much chance of being lost on the way...
...Even some of those who were hottest for calling into judgment the young newspaperman who discovered and made public the roll-call on the ratification of Mr...
...More than a few senators have been victimized...
...So generally accurate have these stories been that they are received with at least as much respect as the interviews once attributed to a White House spokesman...
...In a small way, it is analogous to that newer experiment which also seeks a respectable result through methods similarly hostile to free principles...
...He wants to "take away from that individual the market for his own dishonor," and "from those who want to buy stolen goods the opportunity to do so...
...On the other hand, it has enabled them to vote according to private interests without fear of any kind of consequences...
...When they are not working, it is often unfair...
...Norris and Mr...
...If there is one thing which the Senate as a body fears more than another, it is to appear ridiculous...
...It was intended as a cover under which senators might vote upon important executive nominations according to their own convictions and without fear of political consequences...
...Those who have spoken out, unable to conceal vexation, have done so at the risk of expulsion...
...He may count upon Senator Heflin who would not care to be prevented from telling his constituents how he voted on a foreign appointment, for example, and why, although the rule has not always dammed his eloquence...
...but in recent years it has not worked very often...
...And certainly it is no secret that the rule of secrecy is irksome to many senators...
...Suppose a Senator repeats in executive session a statement which he has made before in open meeting...
...others, like Mr...
...Senators have done that very thing...
...To false charges, based on rumor, they have been unable to reply without revealing their true part in the session concerned, and thereby violating regulations...
...LaFollette, deliberately...
...It is apparent that the usual channels are deeply grooved...
...And on Senator Caraway, more plain-spoken and direct than his fellows, who fears that "somebody for a consideration is peddling" confidential information about the Senate's doings...
...Originally an experiment in honest government, after all these years we may reasonably say that its results have not been gratifying...
...Wheeler if a vote is ever taken on one of the resolutions to amend the rule which he periodically introduces...
...What is to prevent him from repeating it again in public...
...If he is bold enough he will declare beforehand that he means to narrate his part in the proceedings to his constituents...
...And similarly fails...
...On these grounds Senator Jones may count upon Mr...
...He may count upon Senator Blaine, who speaks of darkness begetting secrecy, and secrecy fathering corruption...
...And the campaign to abolish it, under way 118 THE COMMONWEAL June 5, 1929 for some time, received no end of encouragement as the result of this incident...
...Blaine and Mr...
...And senators on both sides of the argument made it appear more so: the indignant parliamentarians unconsciously, perhaps...
...The best of them is that it has not worked as intended...
...Through the usual channels it has been learned, etc.," is now the standard, surefire phrase for leading off a story concerning the events of a secret session...
...Well, and if it can be demonstrated that a rule exposes senators to such a danger, its existence will not be greatly prolonged...
...As Senator LaFollette intimated, evasion is honorably and openly possible...
...When it works, it works in two ways...
...This, with the increasing enterprise of newspapermen, makes us fairly certain of receiving reliable information about what happens in secret session...
...Lenroot as a federal judge, agreed with Devil's Advocate Blaine that the rule is outworn, unnecessary and unfair...
...But simpler than this compromise with the letter of a rule would be to do away with it, especially since it is not in accord with the principles of free government, however decent the end which it first sought to attain...
...For one thing the squabble which rose over it, at a time when everyone could remember that the same reporter's disclosure of the roll-call on the nomination of Secretary West passed unchallenged, was absurd...
...It happens that there is no good reason for retaining the rule in question except that it has been in force about one hundred and fifty years...
...And thus, when the channels are working, the rule is impotent...
...Editors and others will flatter the public on another victory for open-handedness in governmental affairs, and the public, quite sensibly, will wonder whether it will make any difference in the price of beans...
Vol. 10 • June 1929 • No. 5
