When a Feller Needs a Foe

Pennsylvania's Congressman William J. Green Jr., Philadelphia's Democratic Party chairman, is a powerful politician with lots of friends. He is also in hot water, is scheduled to go on trial shortly in Scranton (with six other men) for conspiring to defraud the U.S. Government with some monkey business involving the construction of an Army Signal Corps Depot in Tobyhanna, Pa. A smart politico, Bill Green knows that a man sometimes has less to fear from his enemies than from his friends. For that reason, Green filed a petition asking that the trial judge, his old friend and onetime fellow Congressman District Judge John W. Murphy, disqualify himself on the ground of a sort of reverse prejudice.

Said Green in the brief: "I believe Judge Murphy is personally prejudiced against me by reason of our long and close political and social relationship and that by reason of his desire to prove his integrity and lack of favoritism, he will not afford me a fair and impartial trial." The prejudice, added Green, arises out of the "many favors I have done for him and the obligations he owes me," e.g., on Judge Murphy's request, Green arranged with the Army to have Murphy's G.I. son transferred from Germany to Paris, plus the fact that, as Green heavily pointed out, both he and Judge Murphy are Irish Roman Catholics.

Thus it is clear, summed up Green, leaning on the comments of a handy Philadelphia psychiatrist, that "gratitude for past help" leads both to "hostility toward the helper, because it arouses a sense of dependency on the helper which is resented," and also to a "desire to reciprocate." At week's end. Congressman Green still had hopes of forcing Old Friend Murphy off the case. If he succeeded, there would be one other problem : What if the next judge is an Old Foe?