"Mitchell is the ideal modern bank executive."—Carlton A. Shively, Financial Editor of the New York Sun, May 1929.* "Mitchell more than any 50 men is responsible for this stock crash."—U. S. Senator Carter Glass, November 1929.
Last week, Charles Edwin Mitchell (hair whiter but neck, biceps and calves as toughly muscular as ever) was brought to trial. He could not see his judges—they were that inchoate multitude, the U. S. people. Verdict (uttered in a vast mumble of expletives as evening headlines followed morning): that Charles Edwin Mitchell, as chairman of the largest bank in the U. S.,† had been a thoroughly wicked banker.
The trial was not the kind which is explained in any handbook of civics. It took place in the headlines and in Room 304 in the U. S. Senate office building where sits the Senate Committee on Banking & Currency. Defendant Mitchell had been charged with no crime. But had he failed to appear, he would have been clapped promptly into jail ("contempt of the Senate"). There was no attorney for the defense. There was, however, a prosecution. It consisted of 1) six to a dozen Senators and 2) a man quite as remarkable as any of the Senators, Ferdinand Pecora.
One of the Senators was Smith Wildman Brookhart than whom no banker-hater ever roared louder. But Iowa had not re-elected him to the Senate. This was his last chance.
Another was burly Peter Norbeck, the Committee's chairman, who still insists that his occupation is water-well digging in his dry South Dakota.
Another was Virginia's patrician little Carter Glass, but, bored by Senatorial exhibitionism, he never attended.
Happiest to attend was rich-radical James Couzens. Like his old partner, Henry Ford, he has no use for banks & bankers or much of anything else in the present social system. Famed for his ability to step on every protruding toe, he got into politics as a rambunctious Mayor of Detroit. He had almost feared that the Committee would not get around to his hobby before its inquisitorial commission expired March 4. But time had not been wasted. It never is by Ferdinand Pecora whom the Senators had employed with funds enough to keep 12 accountants busy 12 nights and 12 days stalking through the ledgers of National City.
Ferdinand Pecora, most brilliant lawyer of Italian extraction in the U. S., finished public schools at 12. At 18, after loping through his brother's law books, he was managing clerk of a law firm. Even on the most complex cases (which he, tireless, likes best) he never needs notes, never forgets a word of testimony once it is on the record. One of his most famed convictions was that of former New York State Superintendent of Banks Frank H. Warder for his part in the failure of Manhattan's City Trust Co. in 1929. At 47, his black eyes flash, his black hair bristles.
Last week, sitting always at Chairman Norbeck's right, Mr. Pecora put on the show. His the right to question; Mr. Mitchell's the duty to answer no more no less than suited Mr. Pecora—and Senator Brookhart darkly hinted that a jail cell was ready if the banker balked. Banker Mitchell proceeded to say enough to damn himself to the satisfaction of the Committee, Mr. Pecora and a large part of the U. S. people by the following admissions :