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WASHINGTON DAILY LETTER By RODNEY DUTCHER No. 38163 and Convict No. 38155 were cellmates the Leavenworth penitentiary. They are still "cellmates"-in the office building of the house of representatives. Convict No. 38163 has become Congressman Francis H. Shoemaker of Minnesota. Convict No. 38155 is the man he chose his secretary after election-Owen M. Lamb, who used to be a bank president. They met two years ago on the train carrying them to after conviction for sending "scurrilous matter" through the mail, and Lamb for violation of the banking laws. Shoemaker is one of the four new farmerlabor congressmen elected in Minnesota last November. His case is still before an elections committee on the contention that his conviction took away his citizenship, but the house in March voted 230 to 75 to allow him to take his seat. A gray-eyed, medium height, brownhaired man he is, always anxious to fight for the farmers and wage earners. Lamb is a heavy-set, white-haired plainspoken man of 44. Like Shoemaker, doesn't mind admitting that he is an convict. But he does want it known that was sentenced only for a "technical" violation and that depositors in his bank have been paid off 75 percent, pretty rate for busted banks. "Ability," says Shoemaker when asked why he selected fellow-convict to handle his office in Washington. "There's a man. He is humanitarian. He spent seven months in France driving an ambulance at the front. He used to be chemist until his family left him bank. He's graduate of the University of North Dakota. "He is well-posted on economics and knows all about banking problems. He the confidence of the people of his community. They know he's honest and do Shoemaker, a radical editor and a moter of municipal power plants, fought the republican machine in Minnesota for years. He campaigned against Congressman ust H. Andresen, republican in 1930. About that time in his paper, "The Organized Farmer," he was waging campaign against bankers who held trusts and unloaded worthless stocks on beneficiaries. He especially attacked one banker who, after being pelled to make good in that sort of case, wrote him mean letter. Shoemaker wrote back, addressing the envelope to Robber of Widows and Orphans." A judge whom Shoemaker says he had referred to "a tool of the power trust," sentenced him. He had the choice of a year and a day Leavenworth or five years of probation. He chose the former. So Shoemaker and Lamb met on train. Shoemaker landed in the chaplain's office and Lamb became a clerk. Lamb took down the life histories of thousands prisoners. Shoemaker studied the cases recommended placements within the prison. Today Shoemaker has his prison number the tags "of his automobile. He went back to Minnesota, obtained the farmer-labor nomination against Andresent last year and was elected. Lamb has been president of the Dillworth state bank and director of the larger Moorehead National bank in a community nearby. There was run on the Moorehead bank in 1928 and Lamb closed it to protect depositors. Closing of the Moorehead bank caused the Dillworth bank to close and Lamb says he lost $70,000. But he was left holding the bag for about $4500 which had been left improperly covered by an inside deal involving the use of some school warrants. Lamb paid the $4500 at once and thought it was tled. but a few days before the statute limitations ran out he was arrested as a sult of what he calls "political spite work." After leaving Leavenworth he returned Minnesota and he helped Shoemaker in 1932 campaign. Shoemaker is an inflationist and favors calling in government bonds and paying them off with new currency, which he would eliminate an interest charge of about a billion dollars a year and force present holders of tax-exempt securities to pay billion year in taxes. He is amused by the house beer bill which barred ex-convicts from selling beer, "First they voted by a huge majority let me sit in congress," he says, "and then they passed law prohibiting me from tending bar or running a saloon."
