Shortridge's Protege

Day after day last week Vice President Garner mounted his Senate rostrum, turtled his chin gravely down into his collar and ordered big-bodied Sergeant-at-arms Chesley W. Jurney to proclaim as follows:

"Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Hear Ye! All persons are commanded to keep silence on pain of imprisonment while the Senate of the United States is sitting for the trial of the articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives against Harold Louderback, judge of the district court of the northern district of California."

The Senate was performing its rarest and highest constitutional duty before half-empty galleries. Even Senators had to be rounded up each morning and herded into the chamber to make up an impeachment court quorum. Directly before the dais was a table at which witnesses stood to give their testimony. Because Senators could not hear the witnesses' awed whispers, a gilded loudspeaker system was installed in the chamber for the first time in history. At one side of the dais was set a second oblong table behind which clustered the House managers, headed by Judiciary Chairman Sumners. who were prosecuting the charges. At the other side was a third table where rigidly upright sat Defendant Louderback, flanked by Attorneys James M. Hanley and Walter H. Linforth. Judge Louderback's hands were folded over his paunch and his pale drawn face, with its puffy, unblinking eyes, was a mask of haughty indifference. Senators, exalted from their role of legislators to that of judges in a court from which there is no appeal, listened hour after hour to the flow of evidence, but could make no speeches. Now & then one of them would scribble a question on a bit of paper, send it up to the dais to be put to a witness. As presiding justice Vice President Garner monotonously ruled evidence in & out of the record. The atmosphere of the trial suggested that of a church on a summer Sunday.

Last February the House voted five articles of impeachment against Judge Louderback (TIME. March 6). Their gist was that he had abused his judicial power in receivership cases, had been guilty of "tyranny and oppression, favoritism and conspiracy which brought the administration of justice into disrepute.'' Original complainant against Judge Louderback, who was appointed in 1928 by President Coolidge on the say-so of then Senator Samuel Shortridge, was the San Francisco Bar Association. He was accused of appointing Lawyer Samuel Shortridge Jr. to at least one fat receivership, dismissing a receiver who refused to appoint as his attorney a lawyer of the judge's choosing, of granting excessive fees to his appointees, of picking incompetents to serve as receivers. It took the House managers four days to put before the Senate a mass of technical evidence in support of their charges. Vetoing his counsels' motion for dismissal, Judge Louderback insisted upon presenting a full defense in hope of complete exoneration. Receivers whom he had appointed appeared to deny they had split fees with him.

Unseen by the Senate judges last week was a grey-haired oldster of San Francisco whose testimony the House managers claimed was vital to the prosecution. His name was W. S. ("Sam") Leake. Before liquor sent him reeling into the gutter, he used to be managing editor of the old San Francisco Morning Call. Later he turned religious, stopped drinking, became a faith healer (his phrase: "metaphysical student"). His "treatments" consisted of instruction in "right thinking." His patients paid him as they chose. No fool, "Sam" Leake knew many an important San Franciscan, including Senator Shortridge whose son & wife he "treated." Through the Shortridges he met Harold Louderback. They became intimate friends. As a State judge, Louderback appointed Leake to at least two court positions. As a Federal Judge, Louderback used Leake's Fairmont Hotel room (No. 26) for years as a hideaway while he was having divorce difficulties with Mrs. Louderback in another county. Many of the Louderback receivers took Leake "treatments."

The House members charged that "Sam" Leake, for all his pious exterior, was the real brains behind Judge Louderback, that he arranged receivership appointments, split fees, paid the Judge's bills. Last week "Sam" Leake in San Francisco pleaded that he was too old and ill to attend the Senate trial as a summoned witness. The Senate issued a bench warrant, provided him with a nurse for the trip across the continent.

This week "Sam" Leake, clad in a dressing gown and wrapped in sheets, was wheeled on to the Senate floor to deny any part in a receivership conspiracy. He had, he said, recommended only one receiver to Judge Louderback. He had paid for the hotel room but his friend always repaid him.

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