(2 of 5)
But, also in 1930, ill luck overtook Dr. Doyle. U. S. District Attorney Charles Henry Tuttle, then a Republican gubernatorial aspirant, tried to smoke out Tammany corruption by charging the retired horse doctor with income tax evasion. Prime purpose of the charge, of course, was to find the person or persons who had made Dr. Doyle's special pleadings so invincible and with whom he may have split some $2,000,000 worth of fees. A Manhattan jury dismissed one of the two income tax charges against him. The other case hung fire. The Tuttle investigation into the Scandals of New York (TIME, Aug. 25) was superseded by those of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, of the Governor, of the Legislature.
Immunity, During preparations for the first public hearing of the legislative committee last month, to which Dr. Doyle was summoned, it became evident that Tammany very strongly desired the veterinarian not to be questioned. Immediate conclusion of Counsel Seabury was that Dr. Doyle—holed-in at his home in Deal, N. J. where Counsel Seabury could not reach him—was a shield held close over a vulnerable part of Tammany's anatomy.
Dragged back to New York by the Federal court which had him under bond and led before the committee, the recalcitrant horse doctor still refused to talk despite the committee's guarantee of immunity.
It was, Counsel Seabury knew, typical Tammany tactics: Say nothing, admit nothing, lie low. During the Seabury inquiry into the city's police and judiciary a long parade of vice squad men had refused to tell the source of their astonishingly large bank rolls on the ground of possible self-incrimination (TIME, Dec. 2Q, et seq.). Tammany district leaders, along with indignant Boss John Francis Curry, had refused en masse to waive their constitutional immunity for questioning. "They love to wave the Stars & Stripes," sang the Press, "but will not waive immunity."
Tammany on the Telephone-The legislative committee cited Dr. Doyle for contempt. A Supreme Court Justice sentenced him to 30 days in jail. Then Dr. Doyle's smart young lawyers began appealing to higher and higher courts, occasionally winking at the rules of strict legal ethics. Counsel Seabury thought he had a gentleman's agreement with Doyle's counsel whereby he would be given notice when the case was to be taken before an Appellate judge. He was mistaken. Late one evening, one of Doyle's lawyers raced to Lake Placid, got an uncontested stay from Justice Henry L. Sherman, oldtime Tammany worker.