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Deft Direction. Mrs. Dilling was defended by her ex-husband. Those without funds were represented by court-appointed lawyers. On behalf of their clients, who have shown little enthusiasm for democratic ways, the 22 lawyers energetically demanded every final democratic safeguard. All week long the legalists bobbed up & down, objecting, concurring, complaining. They protested because the court reporter worked for a firm with an allegedly Jewish executive. They applied for a writ of mandamus to have the whole thing dropped. They said there were too many policemen in court for a "relaxed" atmosphere—and FBI agents had been "persecuting" the accused. When Prosecutor 0. John Rogge inadvertently let slip that this was the third indictment for some of the defendants, the whole "prejudiced" jury panel had to be dismissed.
Most of the U.S. press, viewing the proceedings with mixed emotions, called for a fair trial, but no nonsense. Manhattan's hyperthyroid PM warned its readers that Hitler, too, was once a silly-looking seditionist who used his trial as a forum for spreading propaganda and winning new converts. The Chicago Tribune, favorite organ of most of the defendants, wrote indulgently of the "crackpots" who were the victims of a New Deal "smear campaign" against isolationist Congressmen.
Shades of the Past. In a nation which has never been calmer and less hysterical in time of war, the 30 people now on trial for sedition could take comfort from a more zealous, witch-hunting U.S. past:
¶ In 1798, a Mr. Thomas Callender, who called President Adams such names as "hoary-headed incendiary," was fined $200 and jailed for sedition. Dr. Thomas Cooper, a Pennsylvania editor, paid a $400 fine and spent six months in jail for even milder cracks at Adams.
¶ During the Civil War, the Government (without a Sedition law) suppressed newspapers, jailed editors, shushed those who said Mr. Lincoln was "violating" the Constitution, gagged speakers.
¶ In 1918, a girl and four men were sentenced to three to 20 years for distributing a pamphlet which attacked President Wilson's policy of intervention in Russia. A Mrs. Clark remarked: "I wish Wilson was in hell, and if I had the power, I would put him there." The court which tried her held that the President could not be in hell unless dead; Mrs. Clark had therefore threatened the President's life and was guilty of sedition.
* Sedition is defined as inciting resistance to lawful authority. It falls short of treason, which involves an overt act.