(5 of 6)
Referring to Wilshire Boulevard of Los Angeles, mentioned by a correspondent in TIME of Sept. 29 issue, p. 12, can any citizen of that (Continued on p. 53)
(Continued from p. 12)
city explain why this magnificent thoroughfare is as barren as a desert of trees, shrubbery, flowers or grass? With these embellishments Wilshire Boulevard would be without a rival among the capitals of the world. Is it the lack of water for irrigation purposes from which Los Angeles suffers that prevents greenery? In my admiration of this wonderful Boulevard I have often wondered why this absence of parking.
AUGUST FAST
Denver, Col.
Oregon's Hawley
Sirs:
Will TIME be good enough to give us a brief history of the record and activities of W. C. Hawley, Congressman from the 1st Oregon district?
A. M. DALRYMPLE W. W. CAIRNESS FRANK C. FERGUSON S. B. MILLS W. F. BROWN.
Salem, Ore.
The record of Representative Willis Chatman Hawley of Oregon is as follows:
Born: near Monroe, Ore., May 5, 1864.
Start in life: schoolteacher.
Career: His parents went West by the Oregon Trail, hewed out a farm near Monroe. Aged 15, he chopped wood for a professorial neighbor who read him the Congressional Record, fired him with an ambition to sit in the House of Representatives. That ambition guided his early life. Graduated by Willamette University at Salem, Ore. (1884), he taught school, went on chautauqua circuits, made political friends. Aged 21, he married Anna M. Geisendorfer who bore him two sons, one daughter. (His son Cecil ("Stu"), chief road man for Texas Co., last summer set a New York-Los Angeles round trip automobile record of 141 hrs. in a Buick.) He served as president of Oregon State Normal School (1888-91), president of Willamette University (1893—1902). Studying law on the side, he was admitted to the bar in 1894. By 1906 he had sufficiently cultivated his district to get himself elected to Congress where he has served continuously ever since.
In Congress: Seniority of service (23 years) has advanced him to the Republican chairmanship of the potent House Ways & Means Committee where all tax and tariff legislation originate. Though his position is outranked only by those of the Speaker, the Majority Floor Leader, the Chairman of the Rules Committee, he does not exercise an influence on the House equal to his high rank. In committee younger members like New Jersey's Bacharach supply the real driving force.
He voted for: Tax Reduction (1922, 1924, 1927, 1929), Boulder Dam (1928), Farm Relief (1929), the Jones ("Five & Ten") law, Reapportionment (1929), Tariff (1929, 1930).
He voted against: Farm Relief (1928).
He votes Dry, drinks Dry.
As chairman of the Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation, he has a supervisory power over the Treasury's large tax refunds.
Occasionally in a volley of statistics he defends these refunds against Democratic attack.
The only famed legislation that bears his name is the 1930 Tariff Act ("Hawley-Smoot") of which he is proud.