Word: rfc
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Last week Reporter Jack Steele of the New York Herald Tribune (see PRESS) broke the news that Flo and Chuck were an influential twosome when it came to getting loans from the Reconstruction Finance Corp.* In May 1950, they called on three RFC directors on behalf of one Sam Fleisher, a Minneapolis contractor who wanted to build a ritzy waterfront hotel in Miami Beach. Fleisher's loan application had been turned down four times, but a few days after Flo and Chuck made their rounds, a loan for $1,100,000 went through RFC with no trouble. Reporter Steele...
...Steele also seined up the fact that Alben Barkley, in 1934, successfully led a fight against a bill prohibiting any attempts by Government officials, politicians or members of Congress to influence RFC loans. Said Barkley then: "It seems to me that [the bill] casts a suspicion on everybody in Congress who might be willing to aid a constituent or a friend...
...held was pointed straight at the reader. Steele grinned; Flo Bratten had reason to draw a bead on him. He had just broken the story of how Mrs. Bratten and Charles Shaver, counsel for the Senate small business committee, had lobbied for a $1,100,000 RFC loan to build a Miami hotel. After Steele's beat, Shaver quit his Senate job, and congressional investigators began to look into the latest RFC scandal (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS...
...Were accused of using influence to obtain RFC loans...
Private Smoosh. Every now & then, says the ex-chairman, there were around the RFC "meddlers wanting to muscle in for a little private smoosh." More often than not, the approach was made through the White House. One day in 1941, after a visit from Alfred E. Smith, President Roosevelt sent a memo to Jones. He thought the RFC ought to buy the Empire State Building of which Smith was president. "We all know that the [building] is a losing proposition," wrote the President, "but. . . it is ideally located for a central Federal Office Building." After an investigation, Jones reported that...