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The Post engaged Writer W. E. Woodward, a heavy-witted, self-important person who has gained a kind of reputation by stating blunt facts about U. S. institutions like Big Business and George Washington. An able reporter, Mr. Woodward has climbed out of obscurity by calling himself a man who "debunks" things—gives them he-man treatment, looks them in the eye, gets brutal sooner than sentimental. The Post promised that Mr. Woodward would "debunk" the Snyder affair: "When a woman goes on trial for murdering her husband a false glamor is cast around her. The 'sob-sisters' weep glycerine tears. It ceases to be a case—it becomes a cause." Leave it to Mr. Woodward. He would be "refreshing."
Mr. Woodward went out to the Snyder cottage in Queens Village, L. I., before the trial began. He described the house: ". . . very feminine ... no tobacco jars or old pipes lying around; nor does one observe golf clubs or fishing tackle or he-books. . . .
"The Snyder library consists of about 20 volumes ranged in an imitation mahogany bookcase. The central feature of this intellectual exhibit is a resplendent edition of the Holy Bible in eight volumes. By the side of it stand the masterpieces of James Oliver Curwood and Elinor Glyn."
Mr. Woodward sneered refreshingly at the dead man, picturing him as an impotent dullard who had let himself be crowded out of the house by his wife. He snooped through the late Mr. Snyder's attic and cellar workshops and said: "Snyder appears to have been an unobtrusive, untalented man. . . ."
