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To most observers, the list of groups and persons whose telegrams had been subpoenaed seemed self-explanatory. It was chiefly composed of utility companies and their lawyers, including the Manhattan firm of John W. Davis. But it also included the American Liberty League, the Crusaders, the Sentinels of the Republic, the National Economy League, the Women's National Republican Club—all more or less openly devoted to turning the New Deal out of office Nov. 3.
Says the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated. . . . Last week Old Guardsman James W. Wadsworth of New York leaped up in the House to charge the Black Committee with flagrant violation of that safeguard. This
Representative, who was once a Senator, further declared that the Federal Communications Commission, though empowered to examine telegraph companies' records for its own purposes, had no power whatever to seize private correspondence transmitted by these common carriers. That "pillage," cried the New Yorker, was an act of "terrorism" which led straight to political blackmail.
Over the radio Liberty League President Jouett Shouse called for "a mammoth petition of protest against this monstrous invasion of our fundamental rights."
Cracked Scripps-Howard's Washington Columnist Raymond Clapper: "Why doesn't the Black Committee seize the telegrams of prominent Democrats who have been selling their influence with the Administration for fat legal fees? If we are going in for Nazi methods, there is no use being squeamish about it."
Judicially stretching his indignation over the whole subject of legislative investigations, Pundit Walter Lippmann pointed out that investigating committees act as both prosecutor and judge; put men on trial with no advance knowledge of the charges against them, no right to be represented by counsel, to call their own wit nesses or to cross-examine their accusers; operate with no procedure, no rules of evidence, no court of appeal, no jury ex cept the newspaper-reading public. "What should be proposed," boomed he, "is that Legislatures cease to regard themselves above the law, above the rules of equity and justice, and that in making laws they respect the spirit of the law."
Above courts of law was exactly where Senator Black promptly declared himself to be. Securing postponement until this week of a hearing on making the Strawn injunction permanent, he arranged for a legal representative of his Committee to appear beside Western Union as "a friend of the court." On the Senate floor he cried: "In my judgment, if any judge ever issued an injunction to prevent the delivery of papers summoned by this body, the Congress should immediately enact legislation taking away that jurisdiction from the courts, for Congress creates the jurisdiction of those courts. If I had any idea that any judge would issue an injunction against this body getting certain evidence, I would long ago have introduced a bill taking away the power to do so."