National Affairs: RPA v. RCA

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Oswald Francis Schuette (pronounced Shooty), active head of RPA. Born in Chicago 59 years ago, Mr. Schuette for years was a reporter on the Chicago Daily News. He was its Berlin correspondent during the War, followed the German armies at the front. Afterwards about Washington he liked to wear the field green jacket of a German officer. When he helped organize independent radio manufacturers into RPA, his friends told him that he, neither lawyer nor radio expert, was crazy to try to buck the well-heeled legal and technical staffs of RCA. But he kept pounding away before Congressional Committees and in the Press about RCA's "patent racketeering." His foes called him and his independents "barnacles" and "pirates." Lacking funds at first for a court fight (a radio patent suit costs $100,000 or more), Mr. Schuette concentrated in what he called the "court of public opinion." Tall, thin-haired, deep voiced, he complains in his small disorderly Washington office: "The biggest thing I hold against RCA is that they keep me away from my wife and four children in Illinois."

Last week Anti-Monopolist Schuette was in his glory before the Radio Com mission. He sobbed of "the army of broken, bankrupt business men, dealers, manufacturers and engineers who have been crushed by this trust." He quoted Herbert Hoover as Secretary of Com merce: "It is inconceivable that the American people will ever permit a particular group to obtain a monopoly in the new means of communication." He argued for a maximum penalty for RCA.

Others urging the Commission to anni hilate RCA included the American Federation of Labor and the Milwaukee Journal. Declared Representative Reid: "RCA's arguments are the same as those advanced by Mr. Al Capone. . . . He also contends that his operations bring happiness to the farm and fireside and comfort to ships at sea but the Federal Government has not conceded that this gives him permission to violate the law."

The hearings over, the Commission took the case under consideration. Generally expected was that it would deny RCA at least one important license renewal to furnish a test case for the entire issue to be reviewed by the Supreme Court.