Susanna At Albany

STATES & CITIES

"Attaboy, Jimmy! . . . You show'em! Jimmy! . . . Good luck, Jimmy! . . . Get in there and fight, Jimmy!" The friendly farewells of some 5,000 raucous New Yorkers echoed in the Grand Central Station last week as their saucy little Mayor. James John Walker, entrained for Albany. A few hostile boos were silenced by cheers and police fists. With the Mayor, as usual when he is in a tight place politically, was his plump little wife, Janet Allen Walker, carrying her white poodle Togo. "My place," she said, "is beside my husband. If the worst comes, we can go to my Iowa farm." Three hours later when the Mayor left his private car at Albany, the Brothers O'Connell, local Democratic bosses, on hand with 5,000 hollering henchmen gave him hugs of welcome. A 30-piece band blared "He's a Jolly Good Fellow." A salute of 21 aerial bombs banged out. Against the sunset sky banners marked "Walker for Governor" fluttered before the Mayor, who acknowledged the demonstration by shaking his own hands over his head like a pugilist entering the ring. When he returned to Manhattan two days later, Tammany Hall was ready for him. Two bus loads of ward heelers were dispatched to Grand Central as the core of a crowd which swelled to thousands. A band marched up playing "Hail, Hail the Gang's All Here." All in white, Peter P. Cappel, head of New York Jewelers Exchange Inc. and a generous Democrat, brought to the station three pretty girls with baskets of roses which they sprinkled under the Mayor's trim little feet. From the hooraying throng an elderly woman wriggled through the police lines and planted a loud kiss on the Walker cheek. "Attaboy, Jimmy! You showed 'em Jimmy! We're with you, Jimmy!" was again the welcoming cry. But inside the Executive Chamber at Albany where the Mayor of New York was on trial for his official life, there had been no cheers, no applause, no bands, no roses, no hippodroming. Under the sharp eye of a dozen State troopers the great cherry-paneled room with its portraits of former Governors was solemnly hushed. Governor Roosevelt, as judge & jury, sat behind a huge flat-topped desk, flanked by legal aides. Before him, looking small and subdued was "Jimmy" Walker, the first Mayor of New York ever to be summoned to the Capital to answer ouster charges.* To one side sat elderly Samuel Seabury, a faint smile on his wide, calm face. This executive hearing was a climax to his 14 months work as counsel for the legislative committee investigating graft and corruption in Tammany's city. When told that the Mayor got a boisterous public welcome on his arrival, Counsel Seabury remarked: "So did Tweed." Not ten minutes after the hearing began Governor Roosevelt, who perhaps had even more at stake politically than the Mayor, demonstrated his complete command of the situation. Mayor Walker had brought along as his counsel blue-eyed, white-haired John J. Curtin, Brooklyn attorney, close friend of Alfred Emanuel Smith. "Let's throw away the law books. Let's forget there ever was a written law. Let's tackle this from a human fair-minded standpoint," exclaimed Counsel Curtin, and proceeded immediately to try to tangle the Walker defense in a mass of legal technicalities. What Counsel Curtin was vainly driving at was the right to cross-examine the Mayor's accusers face to face rather than rely upon the printed word from the committee's testimony. Said he: "The earliest recorded instance of the value of cross-examination is contained in the Bible itself. You may recall the story of Susanna and the elders. . . * As an illustration we need go no further." Governor Roosevelt: It is a very apt case. You are in the position of the Prophet Daniel. I will not say Mayor Walker is in the position of Susanna. Mayor Walker: I certainly feel like it. Observers at the hearing suspected that Counsel Curtin was building up a case, in the event of the Mayor's removal, with which to go into the Federal courts under the "due process of law" clause of the Constitution. This suspicion was heightened when Mayor Walker spoke of a "vested interest" (salary) in his job which he might lose without a chance to question his accusers. Sweeping objections aside Governor Roosevelt proceeded to examine Mayor Walker on the Seabury charges. Few new facts were added to those which had already been developed by the legislative committee's public sessions. Governor Roosevelt confined himself mostly to the Mayor's own testimony, poking him on weak spots in his explanations. The Mayor wriggled painfully when, for example, the Governor took up the $26,000 in bonds the Mayor had received from J. A. Sisto & Co., brokers, as profits from a speculative pool in Cosden Oil Stock: Governor Roosevelt: Practically what happened was they said to you, "We'll put you into the Cosden pool. It won't cost you anything. . . ." Now how many shares did you think you were getting? Mayor Walker (flustered): I don't know that--er-er--If I did know--but I --my understanding was--in view--there were no questions asked. If I'd never heard of it again, it would have been all right--I mean there was--er-er--no definite agreement. "We are in it," was one of those things amongst gentlemen. . . . Another matter that caused Mayor Walker embarrassment was the $10,000 letter of credit he and his friends got for a European junket in 1927. Governor Roosevelt: You had an overdraft in Paris for $3,000 drawn by you on the Equitable Trust Co.? Mayor Walker: It was really a draft by Senator Downing [Walker friend] in my name. Governor: In effect it was a promise to pay $3,000 on your part? Mayor: Well, technically yes. Governor: You had no account there? Mayor: I had no account there. Governor: In other words this is a check on a bank in which you didn't have an account. Mayor: Isn't it a form, after all? It is irregular but. . . . Another Seabury charge had to do with 300 shares of a new bank stock which had been set aside for the Mayor and which was apparently paid for by cash from City Hall. When Mayor Walker testified that the stock was "practically four or five times oversubscribed," Governor Roosevelt tried to hammer out of him an admission that he had been given a profitable privilege. The Mayor wriggled: "Now I won't argue finances with your Excellency, especially Wall Street financing, but I don't know that that necessarily follows, because people fall over themselves to buy something. That has been done with gold bricks for time out of mind." The Governor plowed into the intricacies of the bus franchise granted to a company in which State Senator Hastings, Mayor Walker's intimate friend, had an interest but added nothing new to the record. Mayor Walker stuck doggedly to his claim that he did not know Hastings was a promoter behind the franchise bid. When questioned before the legislative committee in Manhattan about the $246,000 he took out of a joint stock account with Publisher Paul Block into which he had not put a cent, the Mayor referred to his friend's "beneficence." Last week at Albany the following occurred:

Mayor: When I used the word a "beneficence"* I didn't think I'd be on trial for my selection of English. . . . Evidently the word has been subjected by a very keen mind, coupled again with inference and innuendo. . . . By beneficence I meant good nature in managing this account. Governor: It appears you got money [$102,500] out of it before there was that amount of profit in the account. Mayor: If the broker paid out more than was earned, that was a matter between the broker. Block didn't get the benefit of that. Governor: True--but you were getting something that had not yet accrued to you, even under the theory of a joint account. . . . From time to time you received checks? Mayor: Oh, there were times. I received money in cash. Mr. Block even paid all the tax on it. Governor: You didn't put it into your income tax report? Mayor: I did not--exactly. Governor: You didn't make a return on it? Mayor: That is a fact. Governor Roosevelt turned next to Mayor Walker's relations with Russell T. Sherwood whom Counsel Seabury characterized as the Mayor's "financial agent." Sherwood, after banking $1,000,000, fled the country at the beginning of the legislative probe. At Albany the Mayor insisted he knew little or nothing about Sherwood's doings, doggedly denied that he was his financial representative. In the midst of the hearing an "independent" Democrat from The Bronx named George Donnelly finally managed to get the Walker case into court in such a way as possibly to complicate the Governor's decision. Secretary of The Bronx Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Donnelly obtained a Supreme Court Order requiring Governor Roosevelt to show cause Aug. 19 why he should not be prohibited from removing Mayor Walker. The New York City charter empowers a Governor to remove a Mayor. The Donnelly petition was granted on the claim that a subsequent "home rule" amendment to the State Constitution revoked this charter provision. Most lawyers thought the Bronxman's plea was on shaky legal ground, did not expect to see it prevail. Nevertheless as a matter of judicial courtesy Governor Roosevelt announced he would withhold his verdict until Aug. 19 after which he would feel free to act, regardless of the courts. A footnote to the Albany hearing occurred in Brooklyn last week when Boss John McCooey's Democrats met to designate party candidates. Only New York City Democrat to vote for a continuance of the Tammany investigation by the Legislature was State Senator William L. Love. After ten years service at Albany, Senator Love was denounced as a party traitor, denied renomination by his district leaders on Boss McCooey's orders.

*Last February Governor Roosevelt under similar procedure removed Sheriff Tom Farley of New York County. Thirty-two years ago another Governor Roosevelt--Republican Theodoreremoved Asa Bird Gardinez as the District Attorney of New York

*The apocryphal Bible story of Susanna appears in the Douay (Catholic) version, not in the King James (Protestant). Daniel XIII: "Now there was a man that dwelt in Babylon, and his name was Joakim: And he took a wife whose name was Susanna ... a very beautiful woman. . . . And there were two of the ancients of the people appointed judges that year. . . . And when the people departed Susanna went in and walked in her husband's orchard. And the old men saw her . . . and they were inflamed with lust towards her. . . . She went in on a time . . . and was desirous to wash herself. . . . So she said to her maids: Bring me oil and washing balls, and shut the doors of the orchard. . . . When the maids were gone forth the two elders arose, and ran to her, and said: . . . Nobody seeth us and we are in love with thee: wherefore consent to us, and lie with us. But if thou wilt not, we will bear witness against thee, that a young man was with thee. . . . Susanna said: ... It is better for me to fall into your hands without doing it, than to sin in the sight of the Lord. . . . And the elders cried out against her. . . . The multitudes believed them . . . and condemned her to death. . . . Daniel said: Are ye so foolish . . . that without examination or knowledge of the truth, you have condemned a daughter of Israel? . . . Separate these two [elders] and I will examine them. So ... he called one of them and said: . . . Tell under what tree thou sawest them. . . . He said: Under a mastic tree. . . . He commanded that the other should come and said: . . . Under what tree didst thou take them? And he answered: Under a holm tree. . . . With that all the assembly cried out . . . and rose up against the two elders (for Daniel had convicted them of false witness by their own mouth). . . . And put them to death, and innocent blood was saved in that day." In Susanna at the Bath, artists of the Renaissance found a favorite religious subject for their revival of the classical study of nudes.

*Mr. Block called it his "biggest single charity."

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