Radio: Opinions

From the early days of the Fresh Air Taxicab Co. of America Incorpulated, through this winter's Harlem World's Fair, unfailing inventiveness has maintained radio's Amos (Freeman F. Gosden) 'n' Andy (Charles J. Correll) as the U. S.'s favorite blackface pair. For their April 3 broadcast, the day they moved over to CBS after eleven years with NBC, Amos 'n' Andy cooked up a superspecial episode. Andy, long a wary bachelor, let himself and an $800 bankroll be lured to a Harlem altar by a schemestress named Puddin' Face. But just as the preacher said the words "I now pronounce you . . ." two shots broke up the wedding. Next few episodes found Puddin' Face merrily charging gewgaws against Andy's $800, and loyal Amos plaintively wondering whether Puddin' Face really, truly and legally had Andy hooked.

Last week not only Amos 'n' Andy, their 8,000,000 followers and Sponsor Campbell Soup, but a great many U. S. legal lights were still wondering. Before the broadcast a reassuring number of preachers, lawyers, etc. had advised Gosden and Correll that unless the clinching words ". . . man and wife," were pronounced, the marriage would be unbinding. But after the broadcast the CBS publicity staff discovered that the New York marriage law does not require the last three words to clinch a marriage contract. By week's end informed opinion was about evenly divided. Sample comments:

> Samuel Leibowitz, famed Scottsboro case attorney: "In New York (and this includes Harlem) the ruling would be that the civil marriage had been completed—even though the religious ceremony had not."

> Iowa Attorney-General Fred D. Everett: "They would have been wed had the pastor declared them Mister and Missus."

> Theodore E. Apstein, legal adviser to The National Divorce Reform League: "The marriage . . . is valid on its face. . . . Andy has two ways out: 1) providing the bride has entered into a previous marriage which is in existence; 2) providing the marriage was performed by an unauthorized person."

> Lucille Pugh, noted Manhattan divorce attorney, in a learned four-page brief citing precedents from at home and abroad: "The only legal conclusion is that until the ceremony is over, either party has the right to change his mind. When Andy heard the shots, his mind certainly did change."

> Superior Court Judge Georgia Bullock of California: "I'm not sure whether they are married or not, but I hope for the best."