Duck Soup

One night last March in San Francisco's St. Francis Hotel, a whiskey bottle cracked the red head of a beauty named Helen De Vine, whose mother runs a duck hatchery. Miss De Vine told police that her bland, baby-faced boyfriend, Mark Lee Megladdery, and one Samuel J. Hume were tippling with her when Hume swung at Megladdery and Miss De Vine forgot to duck.

This otherwise passing incident was duck soup for California's Republican Attorney General Earl Warren, who was after Mark Megladdery on charges more serious than nocturnal brawling. Mark Megladdery was secretary to Governor Frank Finley Merriam until that aging (73) Republican was deposed last year by Democrat Culbert Levy Olson. Just before Frank Merriam stepped down, he appointed his 33-year-old lawyer-secretary to the Superior Court of Alameda County. Judge Megladdery was assigned no cases by his fellow judges because at that point to Attorney General Warren went Banker Joseph H. Stephens, a member of the State Board of Prison Terms and Paroles, with a story that Mark Megladdery had taken a $1,250 bribe to wangle a pardon for a murderous San Jose ex-butcher named Clarence Leddy. Judge Megladdery resigned two weeks after his elevation.

Earl Warren was delighted about all this, for if disgruntled old U. S. Senator Hiram Johnson decides not to run in 1940, and Earl Warren goes out for the job, he may have to beat out Frank Finley Merriam. Handed the makings of a useful Merriam-Megladdery scandal, ambitious Earl Warren set a grand jury after Mark Megladdery, revealing that in 1936-37 he deposited $6,000 more than his salary, that his propensity for passing rubber checks had extended to State bureaus and even to Miss De Vine.

Last week Mark Megladdery was brought to trial in the courtroom where he had vainly waited for, cases during his days on the bench. A San Francisco barkeeper named Clarence Bent testified that he was the go-between in Mark Megladdery's bribe-taking. Frank Merriam bumbled that he had heard rumors about his secretary, had not believed them. He also confirmed the report that he once told Mark Megladdery to use State funds to pay $150 in back taxes for Sister Ann Merriam, who runs a private school in Los Angeles. (According to testimony, Secretary Megladdery thought it "would not look good," paid instead with a rubber check, and Miss Merriam eventually ponied up for herself.) Mark Megladdery already had admitted to taking $500 from Barman Bent, insisted it was a campaign contribution.

At week's end the jury found Mark Megladdery guilty of soliciting and receiving a bribe, let him in for a maximum 19 years in prison. This week he goes to trial for passing bad checks, attempted grand theft. Frank Finley Merriam's chances to be the next Republican Senator from California were quoted at worse than 1 in 100.

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