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As a domestic legislator, his greatest single achievement was the Boulder Canyon Project Act which he turned into an onslaught upon the 'Tower Trust." [His satisfaction soured when the project's name was changed to Hoover Dam.] As a good Californian, he votes for top-notch duties to protect Californian products, seeks to exclude all Filipinos.
He voted for: War (1917), 18th Amendment (1917), Volstead Act (1919), Jones Act (1929), Restrictive Immigration (1924), Soldier Bonus (1924), 15-Cruiser Bill (1929), Tax Reduction (1924, 1929), Reapportionment (1929), Farm Board (1929), Tariff (1930), Muscle Shoals (1931), Direct Jobless Relief (1932), Anti-injunction Labor Bill (1932).
He voted against: Debt Moratorium (1931), Hughes for Chief Justice (1930). He was paired against the R. F. C. Act (1932).
He votes Dry, drinks Dry.
Legislative Hobby: Federal supervision of private foreign loans. Late in 1931, he initiated a Senate investigation of U. S. investments abroad, raked "international bankers'' severely over the coals for their part in U. S. losses.
In appearance he is short (5 ft. 6 in.), chunky (160 lb.), with a white crest above a round, deep-lined, bespectacled face. He favors brown suits with white-braided vests. Like Coolidge, he smokes cigars in paper holders. Next to Idaho's Borah, he is the Senate's most forceful orator. No casual debater, he carefully prepares his infrequent addresses, draws a big gallery. His delivery is marked by physical violence, his whole body vibrating, his pointed finger shooting skyward. His voice is loud and clear, with words coming out like bursts from a machine gun. He sprinkles exclamatory "Sirl's" throughout his text and makes homely words crack like a whip. His humor is cold, caustic, unsmiling. A speech by him is a highly emotional event for all concerned.
Outside Congress: He lives at No. 857 Green Street in San Francisco, swims regularly at the Olympic Club. His Washington home on Maryland Ave. S. E., half a block from the Capitol plaza is an old renovated brick house filled with French period furniture. There he lives with his wife, the former Minnie McNeal who, aged 17, married him, aged 20, in 1886. Their two sons practice law in San Francisco. Worried about his waist line, he works daily in the Senate gymnasium. Joe, his Chinese cook, he has had for over 20 years. He gets about in a Locomobile town car. He lost two cars by fire when he was living at Calvert Manor, outside Washington which, much to his ire, was bought from under him by Arkansas' late Senator Caraway. He sallies occasionally into official society, entertains friends at home with current cinema hits on his private standard-sized projector. He is well off. not rich.
Impartial Senate observers rate him thus: a shrewd, industrious legislator of independent intelligence but devoid of leadership: a good hater who is roundly hated; a voluble Progressive afraid to take a positive stand on the Mooney-Billings case in his own backyard: a would-be President embittered by successive failures: a loud vital force who will leave a large imprint on the Senate, if not U. S. history. His term expires March 4, 1935. — ED.
Scott & Christ
Sirs: