Mr. PAGE. I do not know of any.

The CHAIRMAN. But that could easily be the case.

Mr. PAGE. I think it could. There is a provision in the law in regard to individuals filing statements if they have not contributed to a political committee, which committee is supposed to file a statement to show the facts; but I have never received any individual

statement.

Mr. PHILLIPS. One of the difficulties I see about cutting down expenditures would be that a man might have working for him or against him a powerful association of people. Various organizations might be working against you in one way or another. Now, with respect to limiting expenditures, they would not have to file anything under this law, and yet the time and money they would use might be very great. On the other hand, if you have a political committee spending anything their expenses would all have to be filed.

Mr. PAGE. That presents a difficulty. If an organization is operating within two or more States. and I do not care what it is named or what its original purpose may be, if it is active politically on behalf of a candidate or a ticket at an election at which Representatives in Congress are to be elected, it is my humble judgment that they come within the law.

Mr. LOZIER. If they do not now come under regulatory statutes, they should be brought under them.

Mr. PAGE. It is my opinion that they are now under the law; but the great difficulty is for Congress within its powers to reach organizations of a local character such as Mr. Phillips has referred to. Mr. TYDINGS. A small club or anything like that.

Mr. PAGE. That operates wholly within a State.

The CHAIRMAN. Would there not be almost insuperable difficulties in the way of administering the law that would seek to do the things that were suggested by Mr. Phillips? That is a little under a different line than you are discussing. You will remember his question.

Mr. PAGE. I have no hesitancy in saying that I think that is a matter to be governed entirely by State law. I think that is about the only way you could reach it, if you attempt to reach it at all.

Mr. PHILLIPS. If the Federal Government puts a limit on a person's individual activity, or on the activity of the associations supporting him, and not put a crimp in the activities of the organizations which it alone can reach, there might be injustice. Mr. PAGE. That discrepancy exists, too.

Mr. PHILLIPS. That is one objection I have to limiting the expenditures, to cutting a candidate down too low. Now let us take another case. A man in Congress or in the Senate has a certain amount of notoriety or publicity. He may also use the frank to send out various things that would help his candidacy. He thus has a jump on a man on the outside of perhaps several thousand dollars. He might have an advantage to begin with of perhaps $10,000. The other candidate might have to spend $10,000 to put himself on a par with the man who is already in office. That is a severe handicap. I would be in favor of limiting a man in office to about half the amount another may spend because he has already been advertised at public expense.

Mr. TYDINGS. If you take that idea and carry it into effect, you might have a governor or a State Senator running against a Member of Congress. There, perhaps, the Member of Congress might be at a disadvantage.

Mr. LOZIER. Yes; but on the other hand, the governor would have the patronage of the State which is generally a valuable political

asset.

Mr. Page, has it ever occurred to you, in thinking over the question raised by Mr. Phillips as to local committees, that the activities of these local committees relate purely to the election of Federal officers, and that the arm of Congress, the arm of the Federal Government, can reach into the State and exercise a supervising control or regulation over local organizations which deal directly with the election of officers of the Federal Government?

Mr. PAGE. Yes, sir. I suppose the present provision of existing law in regard to candidates for Congress is predicated upon the provision in the Constitution that Congress shall have the power to regulate the time and manner of holding elections of that character. The practical difficulty concerning us, however, is that the Federal law with respect to committees has defined them to be committees operating in two or more States.

Mr. LozIER. That is the legislative limitation.

Mr. PAGE. Well, it has recognized the limitation of Congress by making it apply to two or more States, making it interstate instead

of intrastate.

Mr. TYDINGS. It is a question whether Congress can step into intrastate activities and do that.

Mr. PAGE. They do it with respect to a Representative in Congress. It would seem that has never been questioned.

Mr. TYDINGS. That has never been raised?

Mr. PAGE. It was never questioned in debate when these bills were under consideration in the Sixty-second and Sixty-third Congresses. Mr. CABLE. This law is pretty old, is it not?

Mr. PAGE. Since 1912.

Mr. PHILLIPS. Suppose a candidate had his own campaign committee in his district and he was permitted to spend a certain amount of money and he then finds that that amount is not going to put him across. He looks around and he finds that his political party has a State organization, so he gives that organization $10,000; and he goes a little further and he finds that the national committee is willing to take some money, and he gives that committee $20,000. He tells those committees that he is having a hard time in his district and intimates his election will aid the State and national ticket. The committees may then extend him contributions by sending speakers, literature, and pamphlets into his district. Could you reach that? Would a man who had expended his $5,000 be prohibited from contributing to the State and national campaign committees ?

Mr. CABLE. Surely, a man can not buy his seat.

Mr. PAGE. I have known of instances of contributions made to a city committee, to a State committee, and to the national committee of a political party, and some of that money will be spent in a general sort of way, which will affect the election of that contributor. Now, the contributor does not intend primarily that it shall. He is

simply making contributions to those agencies for general party uses. Now, in the case of a city committee, that is purely local, being governed by State law. That committee would make its report under the State law. That is true with respect to the State committee. Then, the national political committee would have to show such contributions as might have been received from either of those sources, and show expenditures as well.

Mr. TYDINGS. In the end, you get a public slant on it.
Mr. PAGE. Imperfectly.

Mr. TYDINGS. Imperfectly, but it is all shown, where their expenditures went.

Mr. LOZIER. In answer to Mr. Phillips's inquiry I think that this would be a reasonable construction of those acts. No matter what his specific purpose might have been, or may be, directly or indirectly, the contribution to a national committee is a contribution to secure the election of a ticket represented by that party, on which ticket the contributor is a nominee. Inevitably and obviously that contribution will, to a greater or less extent, inure to the benefit of the donor locally, although none of the money may be spent in his district. The amount so donated might be spent by the national committee a thousand miles away from his district, but a similar sum derived from other sources might be expended in the district of the donor.

Mr. TYDINGS. Or it might come back directly.

Mr. PAGE. Now, a candidate must have knowledge of anything contributed to his support or expended in his behalf before he is required to include it in his statement. I have had come before me reports of local committees, sent in voluntarily, and I returned them stating that in my judgment such statements, if within the knowledge of the candidate, should be included in his report and that the Federal act did not run against a local committee of that character. I had one case in New York City where the Member, the candidate, came to me and said that so far as he knew his statement was absolutely correct, and he was within the law as to the amount; but he said:

I know that there is a political committee in my district, of which so and so is the treasurer, but how much money they have received or how much they have spent I do not know. All I know is that there is such a committee and that they have been active in my support. Shall I include that in my report?

My reply was:

If you have personal knowledge of the amount, it ought to go in.

If it had gone in, it would have carried him over the top of the limitation. It did not go in. He did not feel that he was required to put it in because of his lack of personal and exact knowledge of what that committee had done.

Mr. TYDINGS. I would like to make an observation right there. I am for this proposition, but I do not care how carefully you draw that law it has so many ramifications that anybody who wants to can get around it.

Mr. CABLE. The main thing is to compel publicity of expenditures and contributions. When you try to go beyond that you get into deep water.

Mr. PHILLIPS. The difficulty is that the person who is inclined to be conscientious will limit himself to the requirements of the law, but the man who is not so inclined may spend pretty freely.

Mr. CABLE. There is this distinction, that the candidate is limited to a certain amount under State law and Federal law, but friends of the candidate, political committees, are not limited at all.

Mr. LOZIER. Mr. Page, what would you say has been the effect of the ruling in the Newberry case on the efficient administration of this act with reference to nominations?

Mr. PAGE. Well, there is a difference of opinion, Mr. LOZIER, about the effect of the Supreme Court's decision. I take it you are familiar with the opinion rendered by the Attorney General to the effect. that those portions of the Federal laws dealing with primaries were invalidated by the Supreme Court's decision. Now, notwithstanding that decision and that interpretation of it, gentlemen have continued in large numbers to file statements just as though the law had not been disturbed. They have been advised so to do. I think it is a well-known fact among many Members of the House, and therefore no secret, that the law committee of the Republican congressional committee, of which an able lawyer, Judge Ramseyer, of Iowa, was chairman, rendered a report to the congressional committee to the effect that after reviewing the Supreme Court's decision, and the views expressed by several of the justices who were not dissenting altogether but departing somewhat from the court's opinion, especially in the case of Justice McKenna, that it was a 50-50 proposition as to whether the primary features of the law were invalidated. Therefore, candidates of that party at least, and this would apply equally to candidates of any other party, were advised that they ought, as an anchor to the windward, to file their reports.

Mr. TYDINGS. I think this bill is a good one. In my own campaign a certain organization that was opposed to me sent $500 into my district to be used in the attempt to defeat me. I would never have known of it had it not been for this law. I was on my guard and in planning my campaign I was in position to do it more intelligently because I knew that money was coming from another section of the country. Now, if you do not have some law of this kind, it is possible from some extraneous source to defeat a candidate that would normally be elected. However, if you carry it too far, it is going to be so ridiculous that it will not be of any use.

Mr. PAGE. Let me relate an incident, gentlemen. Twenty-two years ago I ran for Congress in the district now represented by Mr. Tydings. On the Sunday before election there came to my notice the fact that money was coming into the district to be used against me in carload lots. I just mention that as a coincidence. Mr. TYDINGS. Was it just a rumor or did you know?

Mr. PAGE. Well, it was pretty well defined, and it came from your county. The information came to me from Havre de Grace. Now, these extraneous contributions, as Mr. Tydings expresses it, are just in point with respect to committees. I do not know whether the present law is sufficient in its distinction or not. I had occasion in the last Congress, at the request of the former chairman of this committee, Mr. Andrews, to draw a bill which he introduced, and I did not attempt any originality.

Mr. TYDINGS. May I interrupt you there just a minute? How would it do to put a provision in the law compelling each candidate for office to notify, say within a week before election or a day before election, his opponents of the amount of money he had received and from what sources?

Mr. CABLE. That is, notify his opponents?

! Mr. TYDINGS. Yes; when money comes in this way, from extraneous organizations. If they sent money to help my opponent he would have to write me a letter calling it to my attention.

Mr. PHILLIPS. I will go even further than that and say that any organization that sends out letters to their members should make them public.

Mr. TYDINGS. I know, but what I am trying to get at is the organized force that is working under cover. I did not look to see what this organization that I had referred to a moment ago had done, but I had a friend at Washington and he sent me notice that that was being done. Had he not written me that letter, I never would have known that $500 was being used there to defeat me, and I am entitled to have that information and to combat it.

Mr. LOZIER. Here is what is bothering me. With the purpose of this bill I am in full accord and sympathy. The enactment of this bill will doubtless have a salutary effect and a great many if not all the candidates would, I assume, observe its provisions. However, where there are organizations created for the purpose of violating the provisions and spirit of this law, they would, if Congress has no constitutional power to regulate the expenditures to secure nominations, ignore the provisions of the act and continue to make these expenditures, and to that extent the law would be ineffective, as it would have no teeth in it. Now, is it not the logical thing to do, by a constitutional amendment, to give Congress power to regulate expenditures for nominations and elections of Senators and Representatives; in other words, power to limit and regulate the amount of money that may be expended?

Mr. CABLE. That would require a constitutional amendment, but I get around it here by the language:

Said statements shall be filed on the 10th day of March, June, September, and December of each year, and in addition said statement shall be filed every five days for a period of 30 days next preceding an election at which an election of a candidate for Senator, Representative, or Delegate in Congress shall be held.

Mr. LOZIER. But if Congress has no power to legislate on that subject, no matter what your provisions are they are of no avail.

Mr. CABLE. This only applies to the election. It takes in the receipts and expenditures for the whole year and requires the publication every so often. This does not deal with the primaries and nominations but only with the elections.

Mr. TYDINGS. Why do you not put a clause in there, saying that a copy shall be sent to each of the men running for the respective offices?

Mr. LozIER. If you are dealing with a subject over which Congress has no power to legislate you can not unseat him for refusing to do something that you, under the law, had no right to require him to do. Mr. CABLE. We do not deal here with the primaries at all. This whole thing deals with and has application only to elections.