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In direct action it was Tommy the Cork who beheaded RFC's Edgar Dunlap for helping Senator George in Georgia. And fear of Tommy the Cork has congealed the blood of Senator Tydings' Federal satellites in Maryland to a point where old observers thought last week that Chesapeake Bay might freeze over.
Larger Object: Laws— After the present political season passes, Corcoran & Cohen have greater work to do. The Wages-&-Hours Law is less dramatically monumental than the Securities Exchange Act or the Public Utility Holding Company Act. It is less exciting than fighting for Attorney General Cummings' clumsy Court-Packing Bill. But it is even closer to the hearts of the partners. Ben Cohen wrote the similar act adopted by New York and many another State, and defending the Federal act's constitutionality this winter will be his next major assignment. Partner Corcoran will be with him in the thick of the Wages-&-Hours defense, which they regard as an entering wedge for a guaranteed annual wage. Besides completing the defense of their law-writings to date, the firm expects to tackle between now and 1940 the following unfinished tasks: Anti-Trust Law revision, Tax revision (for a broader base), Reorganization, Regional Planning (more TVA's). In their path, like dead old rampikes to be chopped down, they also see three historic 5-to-4 Supreme Court decisions: on child labor in interstate commerce, tax exempt Government securities and stock dividends. All their activities, political and legislative, are aimed at these objectives.
After 1940. Sometimes an enemy says that the ardor of Janizaries Hopkins, Ickes, Corcoran, Cohen, Jackson, Keenan, Niles, J. Roosevelt, et al. in preparing for 1940 is due to the fact that they will be nowhere if "His Nibs"—as they sometimes refer to Roosevelt II—does not get a third term. From the viewpoint of the extremely able law firm of Corcoran & Cohen that is delicious. They are two relatively young men with no ardors except for work* and anonymity. They exist very comfortably on $9,000-$10,000 per year—having moved perforce out of the "Scarlet Fever House on R Street" (a rich woman bought it for $75,000) to diggings where the telephone bill ($300 per month) is their only big expense, and they are carefree enough to share it 50-50, sight unseen. They are, as one observer has put it, enjoying the unique experience of "experimenting with the nation." Simultaneously, they are establishing a legal reputation which should easily be worth six figures a year when Corcoran & Cohen decide to set up in private practice. This they fully expect to do—with Robert Houghwout Jackson as Partner No. 3— when the time comes.
If voluble Partner Corcoran's preachments about successful Americans then are practiced, both Lawyer Corcoran and Lawyer Cohen will be ready again for their country's call to service, about 1960. They will have served their Governmental novitiate. They will also have made their pile. They should by that time be senior bastions in the "bridge of men" between private and public life about which Partner Corcoran likes to talk when his mind can get off the Client.