Washington

Two Hard- Working Lobbyists

Lobbying, an old profession with arather shady reputation, is specificallyprotected by the Constitution , whichdeclares that" Congress shall make nolaw... abridging... the right of thepeople... to petition the governmentfor a redress of grievances." Thoughthis is reasonably clear, Congress some-times becomes extremely suspicious oflobbyists and decides to take a carefullook at their activities. That is hap-pening now, and it is a large order.Washington lobbyists peddle manyproducts in many ways.

The Congressmen will have to con-sider, for instance, both John W. Edel-man of the Textile Workers Union,( CIO) and Robert C. Jackson of theNational Cotton Council.

Edelman is a tall, thoughtful manwith long experience in the labor move-ment, and a boyish passion for wild-West movies. He is fifty- six years old,and is paid$ 5,200 a year for represent-ing the 450,000 members of his union.Jackson, who is thirty- eight, makesfifteen thousand dollars a year for rep-resenting an amorphous organizationof cotton farmers, ginners, warehouse-men, and merchants, as well as own-ers of textile and cottonseed- crushingmills. He feels that, in a way, he repre-sents the eight million people who liveon cotton farms or who make a livingout of processing cotton. These in-clude, of course, the cotton textileworkers whose union hires Edelman.More often than not, however, Edel-man and Jackson interpret the long-run interests of the cotton industry incontrary ways. They use vastly differ-ent techniques in trying to promotethose interests. Edelman goes in forpressure generated in a Congressman'shome district. Jackson is more fortu-nate: He can act directly through theready- made Southern cotton bloc inCongress .

Despite a law which requires lobby-ists to register with and submit finan-

cial reports to Congress , and in spiteof periodic investigations in the past, noone knows exactly how many lobbyiststhere are in Washington. Registrationforms are on file for over fifteen hun-dred, making about three lobbyists forevery member of the House and Senate .These registered lobbyists admit tospending more than eight million dol-lars a year. Most of this goes for suchprosaic items as salaries, office rent,and postage. The lobbyists' salariesrange all the way from none at all tosixty- five thousand dollars a year, awage received by Purcell L. Smith,president of the National Associationof Electric Companies. The average issomewhat less than a Congressman'ssalary- fifteen thousand dollars a year.The work is hard and generally thor-oughly respectable. Expense accountsare moderate; mimeograph paper is amore frequent item than cases ofchampagne.

Edelman got into the labor movement

as a teacher in a workers' school inNew Jersey . He worked as a pressagent for both Sherwood Anderson and Thorstein Veblen , and was Penn­ sylvania state manager of the 1924La Follette Presidential campaign. Forten years before the formation of thecro, he was research director of theAmerican Federation of Hosiery Work­ ers . In this job, he began to preachthe necessity of organizing the South,fought labor injunctions, and becamesomething of an expert on workers'housing( he is proud of the fact thatthe first draft of the Wagner HousingAct was written in his home). He hasbeen lobbying for the Textile Workerssince 1943.

Edelman is paid by the TextileWorkers, but he is expected to work onthe whole cio legislative program, andto co- operate with other cIo lobbyists.This year the general campaign hascalled for the repeal of the Taft- Hart-

ley Act, a higher minimum wage( forwhich Edelman organized and co- ordi-nated all cro testimony before Con­ gress ), a long- range housing program,and increased social- security benefits.

There are three degrees of lobbying.In the first, the lobbyist works on theCongressman directly. In the second,the lobbyist tries to persuade somebodyelse to do it for him. Quite often, thelobbyist tries to persuade somebody elseto persuade somebody else to contactthe Congressman; this is the thirdtechnique of lobbying. It works on theprinciple that if you get public opinionon your side, Congress will follow. Thethird type of lobbyist thinks that theeasiest place to influence Congressmenis in their home districts. What thisamounts to, when successful, is thatthe public does your lobbying for you.

Edelman is one of the lobbyists whodevote more attention to a carefulcultivation of the voters back homethan to buttonholing Congressmen inWashington. The Textile WorkersUnion has a political action committeein every one of its eight hundredlocals. Edelman admits that not all ofthe local committees function, but atleast they exist on paper. He sendsthem a constant stream of reports andsuggestions, which always include anexhortation to" write your Congress-man and Senators." The union haseven organized classes in how to writeto a Congressman. Despite all this,Edelman says," it's still the greatestaccomplishment in the world to get aworker to write a letter."

Edelman also uses the union's polit-ical action committees for indirect in-fluence on Congressmen." Find outwhat individuals or organizations inyour district have the greatest influ-ence with your Congressman," he tellsthe locals," then get them on yourside."

For example, Textile Workers' localsthroughout New England have been

The Reporter, October 11, 1949

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