¹ These statistics appear in the Congressional Record, 81st Cong., 2nd sess., p. D1009 (daily ed.; Oct. 20, 1950).

² Reappointment of Leland Olds to Federal Power Commission, Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, U.S. Senate, 81st Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, 1949), p. 13Google Scholar. Hereafter cited as Hearings (1949).

³ Leland Olds' Reappointment to Federal Power Commission. Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Interstate Commerce, U.S. Senate, 78th Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, 1944)Google Scholar.

⁴ Hearings (1949), p. 187. Commenting editorially on the case on September 9th, while the nomination was still bottled up in the subcommittee, the Republican Kansas City Times put it this way: “This looks like a drive to get at the Power Commission one way or the other. If its control can't be weakened by a new law, then the next best thing (for the big companies) is to block the man who has been carrying out the intention of the present law …. The real issue is the Kerr bill, which would remove the authority of the Commission from the producing end of the pipe lines. We believe that the bill will be very expensive to gas users, but if the natural gas Senators can win in an open fight, that's that.”

⁵ It may be noted that the following year, after Olds' nomination was rejected, Congress passed the Kerr bill, only to have it vetoed by President Truman. The Senate debate on the Kerr-Thomas bill in 1950 afforded a striking, if not intentional, tribute to Olds. Although he had not been a member of the FPC during the preceding year, both sides referred to him repeatedly during the course of the debate, and the opponents of the bill, led by Senator Douglas, followed closely the case which he had earlier made for retention of federal regulation of natural gas prices. Senator Douglas declared that if Olds had gone along with the gas industry in its move to secure exemption from federal price regulation, no objection would have been made to his nomination; and that when he opposed the Kerr bill, he did so with the knowledge that “his old writings of over 20 years back would be dug out and used against him, and that he would be at once smeared and probably defeated for confirmation” (Congressional Record, 81st Cong. 2nd sess., Vol. 96, pt. 3, p. 3717 [March 21, 1950])Google Scholar. Senator Kerr also paid his respects to Mr. Olds, saying: “Mr. President, Leland Olds is gone. His dream of the socialization of a great industry died a-borning, but his memory lingers on in the efforts for unauthorized and unsound regulation. There are Senators who knowingly or unknowingly would resurrect his dream—his dream to confiscate through regulation, his dream to regulate without legislative authority” (ibid., p. 4021 [March 24, 1960]).

⁶ The term “independent,” it should be noted, refers to producers who do not own and operate interstate pipe lines; it has nothing to do with the size of the company or its affiliation with other companies. Some of the largest natural gas producers, with holdings worth hundreds of millions of dollars, are termed “independent” producers.

⁷ 331 U.S. 682 (1947).

⁸ Hearings (1949), p. 215. “It is very difficult,” said Miss Alpern, “to be a courageous public servant. The courageous ones are the ones who are decapitated; the ones who are amenable, the ones who go along, those are the ones who have no difficulty with their confirmations.”

⁹ Ibid., p. 30.

¹⁰ Ibid., p. 29.

¹¹ One article, which has appeared in the Daily Worker under Mr. Olds' name and to which Mr. Lyle drew particular attention, gave an account of communist classes which were starting, and urged comrades to enroll. In hia rebuttal testimony, Olds categorically denied that he had ever written the article and offered the explanation that it was a case of a misplaced byline.

¹² During his testimony Olds was asked by Senator Lyndon Johnson whether he had ever addressed the Trade Union and Educational League, sharing the platform with Earl Browder, to which he replied that he remembered once speaking before this organization, but could not recall where the meeting was held or who the other speakers were. Senator Johnson thereupon inserted in the record a copy of the Daily Worker of March 29, 1924, which he had at hand, giving an account of the meeting, at which Browder and Olds were the principal speakers. The appearance of Mr. Olds on the same platform, twenty-five years earlier, with Earl Browder was shocking to the Senators. Lowell Mellett pointed out, in his column on October 1, that the Senators might have been shocked even more had they examined Elizabeth Dilling's book, The Roosevelt Red Record, for on page 59 appears the smiling picture of Senator Taft with Earl Browder and two others just after they had addressed a National Youth Congress.

¹³ Congressional Record, 78th Cong., 2nd sess., Vol. 90, pt. 6, p. 7692 (Sept. 12, 1944)Google Scholar. The same charges of communistic associations and leanings were also made on the floor of the Senate on May 27, 1943, by Senator Bridges, with quotations from some of the writings later used by Representative Lyle. At that time Senator Aiken stated in defense of Mr. Olds: “I wish to say to the Members of the Senate today that of the Federal officials who have impressed me as being conscientious, honest, hard-working and sincere, one of the foremost of them all is Leland Olds, Chairman of the Federal Power Commission. He did have work to do in my state…. I think he did it well by forcing down some of the outrageous write-ups in utility values which existed in Vermont and in other States. I know of one single instance where property valued at $50,000 for the purposes of assessment was written on the books of the utility company at a million and a quarter dollars; and that was not an isolated instance …. I believe him to be one of the most honest, courageous and hard-working public servants we have today” (ibid., 78th Cong., 1st sess., Vol. 89, pt. 4, p. 4942 [May 27, 1943]).

¹⁴ The opposing witnesses who were not directly connected with the gas and oil industry included a representative of the East Texas Chamber of Commerce, an attorney representing the association of county commissioners of Texas, three representatives from colleges located in Texas and Arkansas, the chairman of the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission, and two members of Congress from the Southwest.

¹⁵ Hearings (1949), p. 262.

¹⁶ Ibid., p. 245. Mr. Guy I. Warren, President of the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association, summarized the opposition of the industry as follows: “Mr. Leland Olds now proposes to take from the States the authority to regulate the production of natural gas. He proposes to subject every producer of natural gas, who sells his gas to an interstate pipe line, to the status of a utility. He would reduce the income of every producer of natural gas to what he deems would be a reasonable return on the investment of the producing property. He would leave nothing for reinvestment and the hazardous business of continuing to exploit and drill wildcat wells …. Gentlemen of the committee, this kind of regulation amounts to complete Federal dictatorship of business operations. No producer of natural gas could survive and continue to develop new reserves which are necessary to the future progress of this country” (ibid., p. 255).

¹⁷ Ibid., p. 281. The most unbridled personal attack on Olds was voiced by an attorney from Houston, Texas, who asserted that Olds was “a traitor to our country, a crackpot and a jackass wholly unfit to make rules or regulations or to sit in judgment in any matter pertaining to privately owned property…” (ibid., pp. 259–261).

¹⁸ In the Senate debate on Mr. Olds' renomination in 1944 Senator Hill declared that these old writings were “immaterial, incompetent, and irrelevant” (Congressional Record, 78th Cong., 2nd sess., Vol. 90, pt. 6, p. 7693 [Sept. 12, 1944])Google Scholar.

¹⁹ Reprinted in Congressional Record, 81st Cong., 1st sess., Vol. 95, pt. 10, p. 13759 (Oct. 4, 1949)Google Scholar.

²⁰ Ibid., p. 13760.

²¹ An account of the President's press conference was given by Arthur Krock in the New York Times on October 6, and it was reprinted in the Congressional Record on the following day.

²² Congressional Record, 81st Cong., 1st sess., Vol. 95, pt. 11, pp. 14121–122 (Oct. 7, 1949)Google Scholar.

²³ Ibid., pp. 14212–226 (Oct. 11, 1949).

²⁴ Ibid., p. 14357 (Oct. 12, 1949).

²⁵ Ibid., p. 14360.

²⁶ Ibid., p. 14364. One of the most favorable testimonials for Olds which Senator Morse placed in the record was of more than usual interest, coming, as it did, from a prominent New York attorney, Mr. Roderick Stephens, who had represented interstate pipe line companies before the FPC (ibid., p. 14361).

²⁷ Ibid., p. 14368.

²⁸ Ibid., pp. 14370–375.

²⁹ Ibid., pp. 14379–380.

³⁰ Ibid., p. 14384.

³¹ During the debate in the Senate many testimonials of his fairness and ability as a commissioner were placed in the Congressional Record. A number of these were editorials of conservative newspapers, including the Kansas City Star and Times, the Milwaukee Journal, the Portland Oregonian, and the New York Times.

³² Congressional Record, Vol. 95, pt. 11, p. 14377 (Oct. 12, 1949)Google Scholar.