Sedition on Trial
BELL, DANIEL
Sedition on Trial By Daniel Bell «-tr 7 ASHINCTON, D. C—The major impression of %^ the Washington sedition trial has been that the ? T oui trooSa la a eircua, peopled with characters Yfc,...
...in preparation, I had boned up on Hitler t Jfein JComp/ and Heiden'a Der Fntkrer...
...You could feel the tension break audibly when he replied Presbyterian...
...The derk was called to identify the photostat as an exact copy of the original—and was kept on the stand nearly a full day...
...It was quite a shock the first morning to go in for coffee in a small hashhousc near the court, along with Victor Riesel of the N. Y. Pa»t snd Ann Hicks of UP and find Joe McWilliams coming over snd amiably seeking to argue a point in Riesel's story: or to brush up against the other de...
...The American thirst for "color" mattruU is another factor which lends itself easily to the creation of legends about the trial...
...The courthouse is built on the nee-Greek temple form, with a series of steps leading to a series of Roman Corinthian columns and a veranda, while surrounding the courthouse on two sides is a small park forming a triangle where two Streets meet...
...Whether their motivation is professional zeal or newly-acquired ideology is hard to tell...
...And Ira Chase Kohene (the accent is on the second syllable), the lawyer for Lois de Lafayette Washburn and two other accused, has raised the religious angle...
...Other obatrvera haw* compared the court room to "a madhouse with a bunch of weeks running wild...
...some civil liberties case, to prove an objection in this case...
...HE mam actors in this undramatical trial are the lawyers...
...The only person who attempts to inject some "drama" into the proceedings is Lawrence Dennis, but his speeches are delivered with a Self-conscious smirk and repeated with a monotony ef theme...
...Hitler's speeches have a certain rolling cadence, an (¦vocation of sweeping historical pronouncements (a characteristic which is certainly net transmitted by the fat monotonous eackle which is "Hitler's" voice in the fare mount movie Tk» HitUr Gang...
...Thus with innumerable legal loopholes that can be opened, multiplied by 22 lawyers, you have a geometrical progression in the number of objections and exceptions...
...In this courtroom the main actors are the lawyers, the defendants sit hack in bored fashion gazing aimlessly at the ceiling, the posse and the jury...
...These exceptions seek to prove either prejudice on the pail of the judge, illegal admission of evidence, a wrong construction of the law, unfair influence on the jury, or a host of other points...
...One other lawyer named Gallagher lectured the court for twenty minutes on the rules of evidence, by reading from a number of legal textbooks...
...Without," said the witness...
...The defense first objected to the inclusion of the letter on the grounds that it had not examined the document...
...Then, with the Jury back, several witnesses were called merely to identify the document without stating the contents, for the Judge hadn't yet decided whether the letter was admissible as evidence...
...But this is only the first of several thousand documents...
...The two themselves symbolize t w i n aspects of fascism: Smythe, a ruddy, heavy-set hulking figure, the Umpen from the streets...
...At the same time its own strategy is to haggle and quibble over every step in the procedure...
...Klein finally finished when several other defense attorneys objected to his irrelevant questions...
...It seemed ludicrous to hear Lawrence Dennis quoting a minority decision by Justice Brsndeis, in...
...The row itself makes an interesting contrast...
...His face is moulded into a perpetually mournful cast, something like the Carpenter in Lewis Carroll's ditty...
...And a number of lawyers objected to the introduction of the letter on the ground that it was a photostat and that only original documents were admissible...
...Why weren't you here this morning T" he shouted...
...Within the spare of a courtroom, history is reversing Marx's observation by beginning as a farce, and turning into a grim jest...
...If they succeed in blocking the government's case and win acquittal, this will be the first major step to their success...
...The first impression is that cf the somnolence of the Courtroom and the drowsiness of the procedure...
...The major reason for the newspaper created impression of "a madhouse" is that there are 22 attorneys and each has a right to object to any particular question and each has the right of cross-examination...
...But the grinrness is apparent in some sudden flashes, such as the instance where a photographer seeking to take a picture, was tripped by McWilliams and Garland Alderman, another defendant rushed over shouting, "Let's start a fight...
...It is quite understandable how this isa |ii see if a arose...
...he thundered...
...At one end sits Edward James Smythe, who is held without bond because be failed to show up on the opening day, on the other William Dudley Pelly...
...Sedition on Trial By Daniel Bell «-tr 7 ASHINCTON, D. C—The major impression of %^ the Washington sedition trial has been that the ? T oui trooSa la a eircua, peopled with characters Yfc, self-eonsriouaiy strut around the ring...
...If he had said Jewish, a storm might have broken out in the courtroom...
...lite defense is not tied by any devotion to an histerical principle ;*Tls sole object, as is obvious from the proceedings, is to befuddle, becloud, delay, harass, annoy, and confuse the proceedings so ss to keep out of jail...
...Burns for the prosecution replied that the government had thousands of documents for exhibits and could not mimeograph each for the defense...
...And so the cnae is constantly bogged down in legal detail...
...The most tense moment in the courtroom while I was there came when Kohene asked a translator who was en the stand to identify a document, his religious affiliation...
...The result is that on every point there are a number of objections, with each attorney taking "exception" to the judge's ruling, to create a basis for an appeal to a higher court if his client is convicted...
...Only about twenty seats remain for spectators...
...The prosecution won its first victory when the judge ruled that the letter could be presented to the jury as evience...
...Most of the other questions were interminably dull...
...The two witnesses were a House clerk and a FBI translator...
...George, during a recess, that "we've got 'em on the run...
...The men and women on trial fancy themselves martyrs who someday, like a German figure of 21 years ago, also esricafured, will rise to power...
...There is j| teas'nm and grinmeae to the poesent trial—there IfsaaM be no mistake about that—but the atmosphere is one of drab legal squabbling and colorless, petty detail- For the defense is out to stall...
...Because Congressional rules forbid the release of any original document, a photostat had boon made and offered as the exhibit...
...The letter had been seized by the McCorniick-Dickstein Investigating Committe of 1934 and had been in the House files...
...The courtroom, on the ground floor, is a small rectangular room, painted a dull green with droopy green shutters covering the windows...
...This is surprising because a majority of the lawyers are court appcintees and receive no compensation...
...When the translator was called to tho stand, again a round of cross-examinations delayed the trial...
...One pontifical lawyer, Ethslbert Prey, asked a series of innocuous questions in the most orotund manner, cremting comic relief...
...After sitting in the courtroom for two days, I must jtport that this popular picture is completely and a^agerously erroneous...
...Over objections, the prosecution was permitted to read the document aloud to the court—the Jury woe excluded—so that the defense would know the nature of the contents...
...If I were a daily correspondent yfc, aad to report the "high spots" of the day—in other w<krds, a news!end which could make headlines and sell lasers—I would tend to dramatize some events which ire actually port of the "normal" procedure...
...Albert W. Dilling, who represents his divorced wife, has talked darkly about an "Administration plot...
...The defendants, with the exception of Lawrence Dennis and Ellis O. Jones who sre acting as their own counsel, sit back and say nothing...
...The effect of this is to stall and delay the trial and bring it down to a snail's pace...
...The jury is not supposed ?e know of their previous convictions because this might create prejudice, so these men are led in by marshals before the jury files in and they sit wothout manacles...
...But I was," the witness protested...
...In between sit- the Bund members...
...Nearly all of the 22 attorneys 'cross-examined him, and most of the questions were completely irrelevant...
...Most of the 22 lawyers have rapidly taken on the coloration of their clients and spout their political line...
...Dilling is perhaps the most deceptive individual in the court...
...Most of the seating space is taken up with the lawyers, the dafendaats, and the press...
...The result is not a madhouse, but a series of long, dull, exasperating sessions...
...Various lawyers objected to the procedure, arguing that they should have had a chance to examine the government's whole series of exhibits before the trial proceeded...
...All of this is perfectly legal and to be expected...
...This mood permeates the whole courtroom...
...One lawyer, Henry H. Klein, a Jew who is defening Colonel E. N. Sanctuary, one of the most rabid antiSemites, asked a series of 22 questions, each of which was overruled by the court...
...had entered the court expecting a great historical arama to unfold...
...Frey thrust back...
...The setting seemed unrest and the slow-moving events seemed to hang in space, heightening the sense of unreality...
...William Dudley Pelley's lawyer complained that he had not had a chance as yet to go through any part of Pelley's writings, including his major work, Revelalioui, which ran to 1,500 pages...
...The defendants joks among themselves during the twice daily recess and during the lunch hour en the courtroom steps snd mix quit* easily among the reporters...
...or the chortle of McWilliams' lawyer, Maximilian St...
...And then, as in the refrain from the Horst Wessel song: When Jewiih blood iquirli from the knife, Then all goei well again...
...here it took up nearly ten hours, half of this time the jury was out of "the room while a question on evidence was debated...
...George, however, was wrong, and later fell flat on his legal face...
...The two days I spent in court covered a routine matter which in ordinary trials would have consumed ten minutes...
...And even the regular summing up of a days' events, torn out of the minute-by minute «nt*»t, tends to distort the actual picture...
...Petty, small, thin, pointed face and combed gray hair, piercing glance, the Hollywood version of Mephistophelee...
...During the two days the prosecution sought to introduce in evidence a letter from Hans Straus, a Bund fuehrer, to Fritz Gissibl, a Chicago Bundist, containing instructions from Heinz Spanknoebel, another Bund leader who had gone to Germany after the victory of Hitler, on the reorganization of the Friends of New Germany here...
...The defense's chief tactic is to accuse the prosecution of seeking to run the case for more than a year...
...His remarks are among the most vicious throughout the trial...
...Did you come here with or without a subpoena...
...fendants while standing in line for some Juice...
...The court laughed...
...Thrs Stands out in immediate contrast to the a prion picture ef a restless, bulging courtroom with prosecution and defrail jousting in angry thrust and parry...
...Bright and early...
...The courtroom and its surroundings have the look oPl Sleepy Southern town...
...But there is no basis for comparison between the 1923 Maaich case and the 1944 Washington trial...
...The closeness of the courtroom, the seemingly futile procedure, and the amazing fraternization of defendants and press seems to give the trial a humorous and unreal air...
...The first row of defendants is made up of men who are serving jail sentences...
...The defense, he continued, would have a chance to examine documents before they are placed in evidence...
...beak-nosed Klapprott, chinbearded Kunze, small, restles sGeorge Sylveater Viereek...
...But, in the last analysis, these tactica seem to be designed to delay the proceedings and to block the admission of vital evidence on the nature of the conspiracy...
Vol. 27 • June 1944 • No. 23
