The Milwaukee Leader

Borah Asks New Probe of Lobbying for Merchant Marine

FIGURES GIVEN IN NAVAL QUIZ MAY BE BASIS Activities Disclosed as Bardo Remarks About Fund.

WASHINGTON - Senator William E. Borah, Republican, Idaho, chairman of the senate foreign relations committee and sponsor of the resolution for the senate inquiry into the alleged activities of William B. Shearer, self-styled naval expert, in connection with the Geneva disarmament conference in 1927, announced last night that he is ready to sponsor a second resolution for an investigation of lobbying activities centering around congress, including the lobby conducted in 1928 in connection with the passage of the Jones-White merchant marine act.

Expense Report Basis.

The announcement was the result of the disclosures during the first two days' inquiry by a subcommittee of the senate naval affairs committee into the Shearer case that the shipbuilding companies and allied interests had contributed to a fund of $143,000 for the conduct of the merchant marine act lobby.

A statement of these expenses submitted to the committee by Clinton L. Bardo, president of the New York Shipbuilding Co., may prove to be the foundation of the inquiry.

Wants Matters Clear.

Senator Borah's announcement was made on the eve of the resumption of the senate inquiry into the alleged lobby in connection with the Geneva conferences and reports that Mr. Shearer, the shipbuilding companies' representative at Geneva, had laid claim to having wrecked the international conference.

"I do not wish the two matters to be confused," Senator Borah said. "I am anxious that nothing will be developed that will cloud the main issue, which is an investigation whether there were attempts at Geneva by representatives of private interests in the United States to interfere with that international conference and destroy its purpose."