L. T, - SUNOCO ..FRIDAY, NOVEMRF.R ig. 1936 GOOD EVENING EVERYBODY: I*m in Washington again, tonight. And on all sid©s today we have been hearing talk of the Supreme Court. There's a term often applied to the Supreme Court of the United States - the nine old men. And today the oldest of them celebrated his eightieth birthday, Mr. Justice Brandeis. Not so long ago he celebrated his twentieth year in the high tribunal. He was appointed to the court by Predident Wilson in Nineteen Sixteen. Then he was denounced in many quarters as a dangerous labor radical. In his Supreme Court career he soon became known as the great dissenter — against many a judgment handed down by the conservative majority. In recent years he has been rather less of a dissenter. Each of the nine justices has his own mannerism, while the court reads its decisions. Chief Justice Hughes rubs his nose. * jus - .tice Sutherland strokes his beard. And so on iroui one to the other. Justice Brandeis usually sits reading. He doesn't have to listen, he has already read everything connected with the case, and knows every word of the decisions in advance, having read them. So while the reading goes on, he is busy with a book, something about the sociology of ancient Home, or medieval economics, or modern labor problems I I I BPANDEIS - 2 Of German-Jewish extraction. Justice Brandeis is an ardent Zionist, and touay among a shower of congratulations came a tribute from the leaders of Jewry in Palestine. That same Palestine about which I am scheduled to speak before the Nat. Geographic Society tonight. CONSTITUTION What, no Constitution? No Declaration of Independence? The state of uhe nation must be in a bad way. The trmi trouble, however, is with a stately white building in Washington built like a Grecian temple — the most magnificent marble vaulted edifice in the national capital. Its bronze doors swung open to the public today. The shrine -beautiful and perfect in every way, except - no Constitution, no Declaration of Independence. The Grecian temple was begun by President Hoover in Nineteen Thirty-two, as a place for those two monumentous documents to be kept. The difficulty was, that nobody took the trouble to consult Congress. The Constitution and Declaration of Independence are in the Library of Congress, under congressional control* That *s where they are tonight, with Congress showing no intention of giving them up. An executive order by President Roosevelt could do the trick, but the President hasnft made any move either. So the shrine to the uonstitution and the Declciiatlon of Independence opened its doors today - something like Hamlet mWSTTTUTION - S without the Dane, cocktail sauce without the oysters, the annual auto show without any autos, Oscar without the Waldorf, a tail without a dog. CRIME Today in a New York police station - the truth was told. It was spoken in a situation of hysterical drama, and it*s as savage a word of truth as has ever come from human lips. The worthwhile part of it is - that this monstrous truth also spells doom. In that station house, prisoners were being questioned about the hold-up of a Brooklyn saloon, where the robbers had biased away with murderous guns, one man killed, another wounded. The prisoners were men and women, one woman a handsome young blonde. Detectives questioned them insistently - a long drawn out nerve-racking interrogation. It looked as though they would never get the truth out of Anthony Garlsus. He had nerves of iron. He denied everything, denied he had fired the deadly shot, denied he had been in the hold-up at all# 1^ looked as if he would never talk. The detectives questioned the handsome young blonde, and she was on nerves* edge. They lea her from one room in the 2-CRIME station house to another, and on the way she passed Garlaus. When she saw him she screamed: "Tony, why aonft you tell the t^uth?,, With that the man broke down* He was ready to tallc* The truth extracted from him in that hysterical, melodramatic way; he told it in full^truth for a fiend to tell. Twelve years ago, he said, he formulated one dominating motto- never give a sucker a break. Then he held up a grocery store in Jamaica, Long island, and the clerk behind the counter begged: "Please don’t shoot.’" "So I gave the sucker a break, " the clerk yelled the alarm. The robber was caught and sentenced to twenty years in Sing Sing# And. right1 there he said - "Never again." Never again would he give a sucker a break. After years in prison, he was released six months ago, and proceeded to put his maxim into effe,ct. He admits that in fifteen hold ups, he has shot four men - including the victim the gangster relates# And adds - that as he made his getaway who was killed in thaStBrooklyn saloon robbery wanton murd< dM, \ WtfW" , | He never gave a sucker a break, and the law won’t give him a break V GMERAL Kentucky was agog toaay over a murder case. And no wonder, wlien we look at the record of General Denhardt, prominent in war and politics. He is the man accused. He was a prosecuting attorney, a judge and an important newspaper publisher. During the World War he was a hero at St. Mihiel and the Argonne, was honored with citations for bravery and received promotion in rank. Denhardt has been Kentucky Commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, ana State Vice-Commander of the American Legion. He was made Brigadier General in the Kentucky National Guard. He commanded the 149th Kentucky Infantry, and the 150th West Virginia Infantry. A dozen years ago he was in Charge of the troops that suppressed a spectacular outbreak of rioting. He directed the attempts to rescue Floyd Collins in .that famous incident V of & man trapped m a cave.^In addition to all of this General Denhardt was Lieutenant-Governor of Kentucky, the pinnacle H i 4 of his career 2-GEN-iiRAL Tonight this distinguished personality is accused of the murder of his fiancee. She was found shot to death - his.45 automatic beside her. The 60-year old Oeneral^piate^ that he took his 40-year old fiancee for a drive. The car stalled. He went to get help* When he returned, with several men to aid him, they found the body. he refused to testify — saying that his lawyers had forbidden him to* He was willing, but they said ”110." So he maintained his silence — and then and there was arrested* ieral D r nh a -pri-h.25—thousand dollar bail* So itfs a murder charge against a General, former Lieutenant-Governor of Kentucky, He claims it was a case of suicide, jit the inquest, and of a long and distinguished career* 0 - IT-ALT however, 1^he ne^;s brings a^le |hat1 Tfcday, ;aly easy tA unaetstan^:-Tdeories of Politics e far| awa^r for|most|of u^. ^ut ^Tie ,w aboiit court rooms SoJ when we learn. ornorative Adeas hi Fascism have revo and today that admj^ii street ion law-y/we jiay expjct j^ome^hi^g ranker eajly tor grasp.. Mussolini decrees;- that, all courts be abolished! No more tnials, with judges presiding, juries rendering verdicts and lawyers making pleas. Law, as we'know it, is a sort of game - with issues decided partly by. the merits of the case and partly by the skill of the lawyers, their clever -ness in playing the game. But in Italy hereafter, legal disputes <ill be decided by committees, boards appointed by the State. And the lawyers will be State employees. They wonft get fees from clients, they1!! be paid salaries - like any other sort of official. The idea propounded is - the lawyers then won’t be so much interested in winning a case as in. bringing ouc the truth and facts clearly. No more smart ^7 ITALY legal moves at trials, no more passionate appeals to juries# All of this is revolutionary enough, but the Esssisem Fascist law reform goes still further. The committees that will decide disputes of law, won’t be just so many citizens. They’ll be selected according to the^corporative state ideal — Suppose there’s a law-suit concerning a txansaction in the automobile industry. The Committee will bp picked from members of the guild of automobile manufacturing - the Italians call S - corporation. If there’s a dispute about wheat, then the committee will be selected from the membership of the guild that includes grain farmers, wheat mills, the whole wheat industry. In that way cases in any.business will be decided by committees belonging to that -same business. Verdicts in labor cases will be given by labor committees. But what about criminal trials? Crime often has nothing to do with any industry. So justice in criminal ax fairs will be dispensed by committees appointed by the Minister ot the Int erior• ITALY - 5 The whole new legal system will be controlled by the idea that individuals are not the main thing. The interests of the State come first. That1s in harmony with the general tendency of Fascism. -— Communism too, for that matter. Another thing in today’s Italian edict is the abolition of the special court to try political crimes; against the lives of Mussolini and other high officials. The court that has pronounced death sentences on half a dozen conspirators during the ten years of its existence. Abolished now because there’s so little opposi­ tion in Italy to Mussolini and Fascism. No longer needed. SPilN In Spain today it takes something on the ground to explain the spectacular doings in the sky. The Left Wing government has established a new air base. That accounts for the air fight that flashed over Madrid today in the biggest cloud-land battle of theTcivil war. A Hitherto, the military airports of the capital have been way beyond the outskirts of the city. So the defense planes < sl . could go into action^a&ow^the city*props®, ^The Fascist sky squadrons were able to make a quick dash and drop their explosive cargoes before the defending planes arrived on the scene. Now, it’s different, claims Madrid. They say that a new air base has been established right in the city, just where, we aren’t told. That’s kept a military secret. The Left Wing authorities add that on that new flying field they have more than seventy fighting planes, pursuit ships to go after the Fascist bombers 2-SPAIN That’s the "background for todayfs spectacle of five Rebel bombers escorted by nine pursuit planes in a wild A fight with twelve Left Wing fighting ships, k million and a half people gazed skyward and watched the v\\ # They saw two planes shot down and fall crashing n.aj.i pe cs&vt into the city.^^he Socialists claim 1*1*3* they shot down six of the Fascist sky fights^ while two of their own were destroyed in the combat. So the Left Wingers are shouting air victory tonight. However, that was only sky episode Number One. Later in the day, another fleet of bombers flashed out of a bank of clouds and dropped bomb after bomb# Ihey blasted the Madrid line# of fortifications with devastating explosions. Oncemore the defending planes, presumably from that new secret airport, took off for the fight. But on this occasion they didn’t get there ■«n t-sme. The Fascist squadron, having done its deadly work, darted back into the convenient cloud bank, whence it had come. and got away. SPAIH - 3 As for ground fighting, the news tells of a Socialist counter-attack against the Rebel armies. The fighting is still going on. General Franco’s headquarte s is claiming that the Red artillery is firing gas shells. GHANDI The story of famous men and their sons is a long one_ and often a little disheartening. The latest comes from far A- -off India, it concerns a* celebrity^less than Mahatma Ghandi. That seer and saint practices an Oriental philosophy of patience, of passive long suffering. He had gone through many an ordeal, prison, humiliation, disappointment, but I donft suppose any one has ever given him a heavier burden to bear then his son Hiralal. We heard sometime ago how Hiralal, son of Ghandi had turned against his father and against the ^religion of Hinduism, of which Ghandi has been a fervent apostle. Hiralal became . "Co a Moslem. He joined the Mohammedans^ professed enemies of the Hindu religion. Now we hear how Hiralal in his Isl&matffcic lervor went still further. He made a speaking tour, publicly uenouncing the doctrines of his father. Further than that, the news becomes rather paradoxical. We are told that Hiralal took to drink. That1s odd, because Islam is strictly a prohibitionist religion. 2-CrHANDI all alconolic baverages^forbidcieii^ Howevci1 "tiie woi*d froia India is that Hiralal, after his conversion to Mohammedanism went on a Ions series of Hindustani benders. Hiralal seems to ^ qUite 3 wayward y°unS Moslem or Hindu or what. You can fancy the scatfSdal that all this made in India and what a heartbreaker it was for Mahatma Grhandi. ^But now it lw\. — —— seems to be at an end ^— thanks to Ghandifs wife. Hiralal’s /v J mother# She made a solemn public appeal to her wayward son. And it worked. Hiralal, xkx we are told has come back in sorrow and repentance, making peace with his father, making peace with Hinduism. 1 Today Ghandi and his son Hiralal are on proper paternal and filial terms once more. And tomorrow^is the day set for the ceremony in which Hiralal, renouncing Islam, will be if esfc taken back into the fold of H^aduism^— ■Mi l 1 “ l, * urtXJC -v-^- r----- p—-t . -- ,l] I,