(2 of 2)
Willie prattled on. He told the Court how he worked a big Hollywood deal: "I told Nicholas Schenck [president of Loew's, Inc.] to get together with other producers and get a couple of millions together. Schenck threw up his hands in the air and raved. I told him if he didn't get the others together we would close every theater in the country." The major studios eventually settled for $50,000 a year, the minor studios for $25,000 for the privilege of doing business.
Extortion or Bribery? As Willie's yarns went on, blackening reputations indiscriminately, the defense began to switch the blame. Shrewd James D. C. Murray, chief counsel for "The Syndicate," said: "These defendants are no angels ... a man would be a jackass to say so. However, I intend to prove that the moviemen who made these deals with them are one step lower on the ladder. . . .
Nick Schenck kept his mouth shut for six years about this alleged extortion, cheating the Government and the stockholders by deliberately falsifying the record. . . . The film companies paid money to these men, yes. But it was bribery and not extortion."