BAR ASSOCIATION L.T. - SUNOCO Wed. T Aiqgust 26 % 1956 Shall tber be any more such public circuses such as the Hauptmann trial at Fleming ton? Shall the proceedings against man or woman on trial for their lives continue to be maoe a hippodrome, a show for the curious, the morbid and prurient? These questions have been occupying the attention of the American Bar Association at Boston. The lawyers in convention call upon everybody to help in putting a stop to such vaudeville expositions except the lawyers themselves. Nov; I happen to be a newspaper man and so am in a position to tell you that newspaper men deprecate and deplore these things just as much as anybody else. No sane man fails to realize that such proceedings are undignified. Any sane man considers it eisgustlng that the minute a suspect is arrested he should be, almost literally, tried at the bar of general public opinion before a properly selected jury has a chance to hear and weigh the evidence in the case. Reporters, editors and other people who convey the ners to you BAR ASSOCIATION -2 are dolrig a natural and inevitable thing. They plying a demand, a clamorous public demand^ Wbeneyer a celebrated ' case breaks it is the lawyers on both sides who break their necks and stumble over each others* fee$ to carry their eases to the newspapers months ahead of the tr&l. o«l®brated criminal defense lawyers* ^heir excuse Is: "We have to do it in self defense*" Then they explain: “What is the first thing a district attorney does? The minute he thinks he has a ease he gives it to the newspapers, pours out columns upon columns of propaganda infinitely damaging to the rights ef the defendant*" And so, say the criminal defense attorneys, we have to retaliate* We supply the public with information to create an atmosphere of sympathy for the defendant* The prosecutors on the other hand say: "We are public officials, and the public demands information. We give out only legitimate information. It is the professional criminal defenders who are at fault. The minute a man or woman is arreate* in a celebrated oaee they scramble all oyer BAB ASSOCIATION -3 each other to offer their servies. Then they fill the channels of public information with masses of immaterial, irrelevant stuff; the criminal's aged jnother, his poor little wife, how good he is to his little sister* They even defame the memory of the murdered man to create the sentiment that he should have been murdered*anyway* There you have both sides ef the case* The Bar Association In convention at Boston declares:- "We must not have two trials, one in court, and one outside*" And further:- "There is grave danger in *the dramatization of crime and the exploitation of the criminal*" The Bar Association seems to have been considering specifically the trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, The report of its special committee on publicity and criminal trials hands a whack on the knuckles to Governor Hoffman of New Jersey. The committee*s report says: "The spectacle of a member of the Board of Pardons going about searching for evidence which many impugn the verdict is repun^ent to our sense of propriety and is in our opinion unwarranted." BAR ASSOCIATION -4 So much for criticism* The Bar Association committee has sixteen oonstruotlTe ideas:- "No earners? in the courtroom* no use of subpoenas by state or defense to provide friends with seats in the courtroom* no bulletins by either defendant or prosecutor*, no comment by defense counsel of the day*8 proceedings in the courtroom*" And here's a slap at the Hauptmann jurors:* "No vaudeville appearances by jurors after a trial** POLITICS ! The political situation, though it's peculiar, is not unqiue. There Is a two-fold interest in thtj« campaign. As the primary returns roll in, we ask first: "What do the voters think# about the New Deal?" But secondly and almost as timidly, we ask: "What have they done to the Townsendites?" Actually, there’s nothing new in that. Exactly years ago, there was a parallel situation:- In the Gay Nineties, X m I thei^suve decade^ were trembling in their shoes over the menace of the Populist Party, To be, sure, fefary wm-pn'-tfc proposing \ A any such novelty as the Two Hundred, a Month Pension for everybody over sixty, with a four per cent general sales tax to finance it. But thef^ had several planks similar to those we hear advocated by*5k Coughlin, Share-the-Wealth Smith, and Dr. Pension- Everybody Townsend. Free coiuage^of_^gi 1 v ev> clamored the Populists; abolition of the national banks; currency inflation; 1 1 money to be loaned by the government at two per cent on agricultural crops; government ownership of all railroads, canals, telegraphs. m telephones. So today a bulletin from California is particularly POLITICS - 2 interesting. California is the birthplace of tin O.A.R.P. A ni ^oagt^acinnaAn, of tho Golden fiHafcgat lFl,"ggllii!iiLtH^c were endpy3ed-rby c -imterg^ ^n^l'Here* s consolation for those who donft look kindly upon this amazing plan. The whole strength of the Townsend organization had been thrown to a Mr. Sheridan Downey , Dr. Townsend's lawyer. Mr, Downey was px spectacularly defeated. On the other hand* poet John Stephen McCroarty, author of the San Gabriel Mission play, author of the original Townsend legislation in Congress, was renominated. Elsewhere in the primaries the'New Deal standard bearers romped home with an easy lead. In Mississippi, Senator Pat Harrison, whose real name is Byron Tattum Harrison, heat his opponent more than two to one. The Mississippi story is one of those Pat and Mihe yarns. Senator Pat-s opponent was Ex-Sovernor Mike Conner. The climax of the anecdote is that Pat put Mike under the counter, And in South Carolina, New Dealer James F. Byrnes „„^^n,i>ia*-lon to the Senate by a landslide of Charleston got his renomination oo r e POLITICS - 3 over the opposition of two anti-Roosevelters. Though he comes from Charleston, Senator Byrnes is not one of the^ Charleston nobility, fie is njust folks0. It was he who put over the Baby Bond Bonus Bill for veterans that went through in the last term of Congress, In Washington, D.C., and In the State of Utah, there is concern about the condition of a man popularly known as "Dear Old George.’1 Officially, he is the Honorable George Henry Bern, Secretary of War of the United States. After a hard fought but obviously successful career, "Dear Old George" is facing the hardest fight of nis life. He is gravely ill. Bearing the patronymic of "Derrt", it vms inevitable that "Dear Old George” should have been in Tils earliest days rechristened "Gosh" Dern. At the age ‘of sixteen Gosh Bern worked in a freight and lumber yard to pay his way through ©liege. He found time to become a crack footbal-1 player. He was the star tackle of the University of Nebraska team in Eighteen Ninety-Four. xjLKiuLafHUL. became shift boss,' foreman, superintendent. Not one of those ri jht*_hook“'to—the—Jaw foremen and superintendents, he did it with humor, with a wise-crack. Then he became general manager of the gold mining company. Finally - politics. Then governor. Gosh Dern managed to get on the right side of Mormons and Gentiles aliiie. At a conference of state governors Franklin Delano hoosevelt met "Dear Old Geroge" Gosh Dern. F.D.h., who is no mean hand at DaM -2- siuiling himself, "Wc.s 3.111*8.016(1 "by ths broad.^ truriiorous grin on the face of George lbrn» Made him ssewaffcwg Secretary of War* Tr-rzXgt though tb h would seem to be a job with a frown. Countless friends A are watching the reports from the hospital where George Dern lies fighting for his life. BULLITT amha gstidop %m will 'W ~thrr' H a nmt afri'g.Wi ll ±zm CA l £W» t^ew "^o To newspaper men ^ Is known as just plain "Bill BullltV" . for he used to be one of them. Though hefs Philadelphia millionaire’ he was no dilettant newspaper man. He was a regular run-oui>~and— chase-the-festive—item reporter. He was a* reporter who had something on the ball. •*'While he was still a newspaper man* George Creel introduced him to President Woodrow Wilson. Superficially, one would have said that /there was little in common between the Presbyterian, former .president of Princeton, and this combination of Germantown social—register-plus-item^ chaser. Strange to relate, Wilson liked fefasfe smooth, round-faced boy with the bland countenance.ton# a lot of canny ideas behind it. A ur*4 The War President sent him to Germany- to find out what*» what. A Later on. Bill Bullitt was one of the press gang on that serio­ comic Ford Peace Ship, the ship that went over to Europe in Nineteen Fifteen with the avowed purpose of "getting the boys out of the trenches by Christmas." Nobody held that against him. He chose that period to BULLITT - S if get married. His honeymoon he spent behind the German lines as a guest of* some of* the big shot excellencies and grand potentates of the Kaiser* s Fatherland. A—frllir-rj ha nrrtrrtrrri n hmto nf iina^e^drmni-Ma iiammil I .... 1 1 1 i i 1 I mi Um*l When Uncle Sam Jumped into the War, the State Department grabbed Bullitt as an expert. In nineteen Mneteenj the Department sent him on a secret mission to Soviet Russia, the late Lincoln Stef fins being one of his colleagues. Bullitt agreed with Stef fins that the doctored reports sent by other emissaries were inaeurate. The other chaps were telling their home governments what they wanted to hear, that the Soviet ftoxirnmen* was a flop, couldn't succeed, couldn't survive. Steffins. and Bullitt saw behind the scenes, saw the truth. Bullitt drew up the report, recommending to President Wilson that the government of Lenin and Trotsky be recognised for practical reasons, since it was a de facto government and unshakeahle. Woodrow Wilson, who abhored the reign of terror by which the Bolsheviks held themselves in power, and was shocked hy this frank, realistic report,fucked it into the waste-basket. Bullitt resigned, said "Good-bye pleas*; I'm going BULLITT - 3 to the Rivera, lie In the sun and watch the world go to hell.w But he didn't stay there long. The Versailles Treaty came up for consideration by the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate. Senator Borah and Senator Lodge had heard that Bill Bullitt had a keener insight into the innermost workings of European diplomatic faneagLings thjjin anybody else. They summoned him from exile* Then he told that Committee what he had observed and learned. That got him into the headlines and also into the bad graces of a lot of pewawfiii people. Bill Bullitt msssxBimxis retired once more and took a fling in movies, and amused himself generally in a desultory way. e Roosevelt readme, and n Tf^ Whe^Hs* Roosevelt decided, after a great lapse of years and A* many international complications to recognize the Soviet, Bill Bullitt was a natural for the post of ambassador to Moscow. So now he becomes Uncle Sam's Envoy Plenipotentiary at the Quai d'Orsay. It is a curious transition, an interesting M BULLITT - 4 event. Personally, £23e% Bullitt is a smooth-shaven fellow of medium height, almost as bald as a billiard ball. But^evon a good-looking chap^ -the good looks of intelligence and breeding. Despite his position in the 0oymatt^ow> social register, he is anything but snooty. If he ever had inclinations that way, his newspaper experience would have knocked that out of him. ^ youngish fellow, still in his forties. Somehow one gets the idea that smooth, hairless young man is going places. \ RUSSIA •> j>' Only two evenings ago, I had occasion to comment on explosive news from the Far East — the execution of nine agents of the Soviet Government by the Japanese authorities in Manchukuo and the imprisonment of eighteen others. Today’s story from Moscow seemed almost like a direct answer to that challenge, that reported statement by Josef Stalin, the Red dictator. The story that came by way of London. That message of nwarn, Coming. Be ready for it. The London evening news said it had picked this terror fraught warning out of the air. That the man who today exercises in Russia more power than was ev r wielded by Czar Peter the Great or Ivan the Terrible had broadcast the challenge in a radip appeal to the comrades of the Red forces: "We are on the eve of war," Stalin is supposed to have said. "Any moment now you may be called upon to lay down your lives in defense of the proletarian Fatherland." By way of warning to the rest of the world, he was supposed to have added the information that the Red army, represents the last word in modern efficiency. His own words were even RUSSIA - 2 quoted as follows: — ^Everything money could buy, everything the genious of man could invent, everything the loving labor" Oi workers could make, has been given into your hands for the defense and glory of the Soviet." The Red dictator*s threat might have seemed an answer to the growing rumors of a secret treaty betv:een Hitler and the war lords of Japan, that is in case either Japan or Germany comes to grips with Russia, theother will get into the fight. But the latest is, the Stalin war scare denied — denied absolutely, by the Soviet Government, Meanwhile the cable from Norway was carrying something true and factual: -^Trotsky ordered out. From his exile in the land of the Vikings, the former sharer of the Bolshevik throne has been fulminating against the trial ant- execution of Zinovieff, Kameneff and their confederates. He’s been vowing vengeance. To which the Norwegian government, which has been generous and hospitable to the Bolshevik e.vile, replies. "Rouse mit >im." In other words, here's your hat, what’s your , hurry? RUSSIA - S Come again sometime when you can't stay so long. In more formal, official terms, governmenl announces that Comrade Trotsky has abused to hospitality given to him* violated the conditions under which he was given asylum. Meanwhile, the Ogpu, the Soviet secret police. were making their answer in characteristic fashion to Trotzky*s d£/nAA^jC^^^9 hpretj5sg3Qa£toc* ^ They arrested his former secretary, the journalist Karl Radek,^j more popularly known as the nPuck of the Soviet revolution*^ ftaO a small, wizened, bald-headed chap, with short— cropped gray whiskers on his chin. Ini he stares at you through thick double lens glasses. But behind those glasses has been one of the most keen wit ted, iron! car brains In revolutionary circles. Throughout the exile of his forme? chiefTWhas been allowed to remain in Moscow. People supposed that he had turned his coat, that he was in the good graces of the Stalin regime. But now it looks as though the Ogpu is about to pluck the wings of the ct ^ - -f- u - i~— s/n, "Puck of the revolution.M S,T^ III 1 1 111 II ii