THE FALL AND DOHENY CASE
Manly, Basil M.
The Fall and Doheny Case {(¦T-»ALL AND DOHENY were acquit-H ted because the jury felt that everybody that had a chance was robbing the government and there vra< no reason to single these two old...
...Something of the same attitude apparently followed the Civil War and has probably been the accompaniment of every war that has been fought since the beginning of history...
...We knew the trusts and the contractox-s and everybody else that had a chance during the war, robbed the government without being punished...
...When the government is loaded down with inefficient, loafing employes they form a burden on the back of every taxpayer...
...But everybody who has listened to the discussions of the Fall-Doheny case in cigar stores, on street corners, in banks and in the more exclusive clubs has heard this justification of graft and corruption on the ground that "everybody's doing it...
...For war destroys not only the lives but the souls of men...
...We cannot read men's minds...
...If they were worth $100,000,000 to Doheny...
...That is the colossal duty that now lies before those American cit-zens who cherish their country and are determined to make it a fit heritage for the generations that are to come...
...The Fall and Doheny Case {(¦T-»ALL AND DOHENY were acquit-H ted because the jury felt that everybody that had a chance was robbing the government and there vra< no reason to single these two old men out for punishment...
...So we didn't feel like we ought to send this feller to the pen, when he had waited till the war was over to get his share of the graft," There is no way of knowing whether this was the motive that finally led the Fall-Doheny jury to acquit...
...BASIL M. MANLY...
...There have been some hung juries but no convictions...
...Thus, one of the tasks of peace is always to rebuild the wrecked structure of social and political morality that war has left behind...
...Well,' he said, 'we figgered that if he hadn't got away with it, someone else would...
...they were worth $100,000,-000 to the American people...
...The same false reasoning that justifies every act of war, no matter how abhorrent, can and will be used to justify every crime and every form of corruption...
...This lawyer went on to expand his theme: "] have been on both sides oi :ases involving fraud igainst the government >r corruption in office...
...That is what one of the shrewdest and best informed lawyers in the District of Columbia told me on the day after the jury of twelve American citizens brought in their verdict...
...The basis for this attitude is the failure of the people to realize concretely that this is their government...
...Months after I asked one of the jurors how it happened...
...I do not believe that this attitude of complacency toward graft and official corruption is typical of the American people...
...I remember one case where the client that I was defending was unquestionably guilty of defrauding the government of several hundred thousand dollars in connection with the sale of government property at the end of the war...
...If it were, we might well despair of the future of the nation...
...We were amazed when they brought in a verdict of acquittal...
...I have acted as associate counsel in the prosecution of war frauds and I have defended men who were charged with robbing the government...
...The best we hoped for was a light sentence with one chance in a hundred for a hung jury...
...It is probably more prevalent in cynical, scandal-hardened Washington than in any other part of the country...
...But no well-informed observer will question that it is widespread and that it has been growing ever since we entered the world war...
...Could there be a more caustic comment on the existing state of public corruption and popular indifference...
...The young government prosecutor, who had put his heart in the case, was stunned...
...The govemment is regarded as legitimate prey for the political machine, the contractor and the individual exploiter...
...When Fall and Doheny defrauded the government of its naval oil lands, they took a dollar out of the pockets of every man, woman and child in the United States...
...Not one verdict of guilty has been brought in by the jury in any of these cases...
Vol. 19 • January 1927 • No. 1
