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Lawyer Neylan has never lost a jury trial (he refuses criminal and divorce cases), has lost only one case of great importance. That was a $10,000,000 suit by H. Hackfeld & Co., German sugar growers in Hawaii, whose property had been seized and reorganized by the Alien Property Custodian.
Lawyer & Liberalism. Friends of his "Windy Jack" days do not know quite what to make of Lawyer John Francis Neylan who lives in luxury among San Francisco's millionaires but who retains the simple bluntness of the Arizona teamster; who likes to haggle with dealers over fine books; who plays golf every Wednesday afternoon at Menlo Country Club or at Burlingame; who lunches at the Palace Hotel's "cabinet table" with local bigwigs; who is a regent of the University of California; who helped Hiram Johnson drive the Southern Pacific Railroad out of power 25 years ago but who now appears to be an archConservative, an apostle of property rights, counsel for bankers and Red-hater extraordinary.
Liberals point most angrily to Neylan's behavior in last year's San Francisco strike. Called back from a Honolulu holiday by jittery publishers, Neylan whipped them into a "law-&-order" coalition with himself as supreme dictator. Taking their orders from him, Hearstpapers and rivals alike followed a uniform editorial policy of attacking the strikers as "revolutionists." During the fight General Hugh Johnson arrived on the scene, began loudly to lecture the publishers on the rights of Labor. When the ex-cavalryman had reached the height of his oratory, the ex-teamster roared between glittering teeth: "I do the shouting in this part of the country, General! You may outargue me but you can't outshout me in my own hills!" General Johnson subsided, departed muttering: "This is the first time I ever ran up against a newspaper oligarchy."
When he broke the back of the strike, Jack Neylan all but crippled NIRA's Section 7a in the West. But he sees no inconsistency between that and his oldtime sponsorship of California's Workmen's Compensation Act. To him, in the days of Hiram Johnson, good government meant Progressivism and social reform. But the definition of Progressivism did not include economic reform, and Neylan's Liberalism crystallized then & there. In 1919 he defended Charlotte Anita Whitney, at his own expense, against a charge of criminal syndicalism; but Radicals were not yet important in 1919. He honestly regarded the San Francisco strikers as "revolutionists." refused the congratulations of shipowners and bankers with the statement that he was not fighting for them. When he said, "My heart bleeds for the Newspaper Guild," he really meant that he would like to see newspaper reporters get a better deal. But as Hearst's lawyer in the Call-Bulletin case, he considered the Guild a menace, fought it to a standstill, drove it Leftward toward trade unionism (TIME. Dec. 24). Twitted for defending bankers thrice in two years he explains: "The underdog needs friends. The bankers are so friendless now, even the politicians have courage to attack them."