CORRUPTION: Blossoms in Court

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On the political grave of the Ohio gang, the little flowers of indictment still grow every spring, scenting the air with the perfume of scandal and the breath of alleged corruption (TIME, May 17). Already the unsuspecting blossoms of Messrs. Doheny and Fall, Daugherty and Miller have poked their heads above the ground into the dew of publicity. Wary investigators plucked them, hurried them into stuffy courtrooms.

Last week, big blossom Harry Micajah Daugherty ("the original Harding man"), onetime (1921-24) Attorney General, and lesser blossom Thomas W. Miller, former Alien Property Custodian, were to go on trial in the Federal Court in Manhattan for conspiracy to defraud the Government of their "unprejudiced services" by accepting a bribe of $391,000 in the American Metal Co. case. The charges which they will have to explain are:

1) That the Alien Property Custodian (Mr. Miller) seized certain stock of the American Metal Co. during the War as German property, sold it for $7,000,000.

2) That in 1921 a Swiss corporation, really a blind for the original German owners, recovered the money from the U. S. Government with the connivance of Messrs. Daugherty, Miller, and other politicos.*

3) That the German owners presented Messrs. Daugherty and Miller with $391,000 in Liberty bonds as a little token of appreciation.

4) That $40,000 of the supposed bribe in Liberty bonds was traced to Mr. Daugherty's account in his brother's bank at Washington Court House, Ohio. Now into the drama of the courtroom, where Truth is supposed to be unveiled, where Justice dangles her scales, have entered a bevy of lawyers. Among them:

Max D. Steuer, defense attorney for Mr. Daugherty, is the most dramatic courtroom lawyer in Manhattan. Like a skilled actor in a play, he allows each trial to shape his emotions; then he turns about, leads the jurors to his viewpoint as deftly as a Hampden or a Barrymore leads his audience. Mr. Steuer† once advised young lawyers:

"Don't bring your papers into court in an expensive brief case; bring them in an ordinary paper wrapping. . . . Try to get a seat at a table near the jury and let the jury see what you are doing. . . . Lean on the table and look the jury in the eye. . . . Use the same language that the juryman would use in telling your story to his wife and children."