CORRUPTION: Trial

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1 "Two public officials confronted Merton, however. One was the defendant Miller, Alien Property Custodian, and the other was the defendant Daugherty, Attorney General of the United States.

"Colonel Miller had in his own files a letter from officials of the American Metal Company, dated 1919, which sought permission to negotiate with the German owners for the purchase of the 49% of interned assets; this to make the company 100% American-owned. The permission was granted, the negotiations progressed, a contract was signed, pending approval by both Governments, but the American Government finally withheld its sanction and sold the assets itself elsewhere."

Shifting to point one, Mr. Buck ner, vivid, pungent, continued : "You will frequently hear the name of Jesse Smith in this trial. He was a close friend of the Daugherty family, living just outside Washington Court House, 0. He was a small storekeeper, dealing in safety pins, thread, small wares of that kind, but you will find out how prominent he really was, how close to Attorney General Daugherty.

"Jesse Smith was never appointed to office in the Department of Justice but he had an office there a few doors away from that of Harry Daugherty. We will show he was never an employe of that department, but that he received $4 a day for his support and his expenses whenever he traveled, and this on the certification by Daugherty that he was 'an employe of the department. We will show you that when Jesse Smith spoke it was Harry Daugherty speaking, and Daugherty's telephone calls went through Jesse Smith."

During the address Mr. Daugherty sat forward on the edge of his chair, elbows askew on the counsel table, hand cupped on his ear so as not to miss a word. Colonel William Rand, chief counsel too Colonel Miller, took frantic, copious notes. The only apparently idle person at the table was Mr. Daugherty's lawyer, Max D. Steuer, who watched Mr. Buckner seemingly uninterested, rubbed his swart cheek languidly.

So, Mr. Buckner continued, one John T. King got Jesse Smith for Mr. Merton. Jesse Smith had "political pull," as Mr. Merton phrased it. It would be shown by evidence, added Mr. Buckner, that Jesse Smith got Mr. Merton in contact with Defendant Miller, who put through the return of the $7,000,000 in 72 hours: "They passed that claim in record time, at a speed that could not have been reached without a powerful hypodermic injection of graft."

Mr. Merton, ostensibly a Government witness, took the stand. Poised, suave, well-informed, he spoke with scarcely a trace of German* accent.

He had made several trips to this country. He had fortunately met "the proper people"—not lawyers — through Jesse Smith in Washington. "I didn't want, under any circumstances to be tied up to a lawyer who might handle the claim or not—I beg pardon if I am criticizing lawyers—I am sure they are high class lawyers. ..."