Contempt of Court

A long, two-fisted, crusading record has the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Back in 1883, four years after the late, great Joseph Pulitzer created it, Managing Editor John A. Cockerill shot and killed a man who called the Post-Dispatch a gang of blackmailers. Under famed Managing Editor Oliver Kirby ("O. K.") Bovard, who retired two years ago, the Post-Dispatch tore into municipal corruption whenever it could be found, in 1937 won a Pulitzer Prize for exposing election frauds. Last week the Post-Dispatch was again in the fray.

Bovard's successor is a 6 ft. 4 in., 235-Ib. Missourian named Benjamin Harrison Reese. Editor Reese has just one aim in life: to see that the Post-Dispatch lives up to its reputation his predecessors gave it. In that ambition he is backed by two fighting Irish henchmen: ruddy Editorial Editor Ralph Coghlan, sandy-haired Cartoonist Daniel Robert Fitzpatrick.

Ralph Coghlan last year wrote a rousing editorial that began: "St. Louis is confronted with a reeking, stinking scandal, and Circuit Judge Eugene L. Padberg is sitting right in the middle of it. ..." Fitzpatrick upheld his end with a cartoon series showing politicians and racketeers together in an ugly, symbolical St. Louis sidestreet called "Rat Alley."

The Post-Dispatch first dug up evidence purporting to prove that Big John Nick, head of the Motion Picture Operators' Union, had taken $16,500 from exhibitors to call off demands by his union for higher wages. With State Representative Edward M. ("Putty Nose") Brady, who was accused of acting as go-between, Big John was indicted.

One day last fortnight marble-eyed, pudgy Circuit Judge Thomas J. Rowe handed down a decision dismissing extortion charges against Putty Nose Brady. (Big John had already been acquitted on one charge, has another hanging over him.) The Post-Dispatch editorialized scornfully: "Those hardy spectators, who gathered in the hope that drama . . . would unfold, saw what fell little short of a burlesque on justice."

Next morning, in another courtroom, Circuit Judge Ernest F. Oakley gave out a separate decision in a civil action, held that Big John Nick had received the money, ordered him to pay the union $10,000. Editor Coghlan's temper boiled over. Into the Post-Dispatch he hurled an angry editorial:

". . . THESE MEN ARE GUILTY!

"One day law and order are made a laughing stock. The next day, in another courtroom, the force of the law strikes with lightninglike retribution. ... A case? Yes and no. No, if you are in criminal division before Judge Rowe. If you are in civil division before Judge Oakley, yes--emphatically yes!" With Editor Coghlan's blast ran a biting cartoon by Daniel Fitzpatrick.

Last week the law's majesty cracked down--not on Rat Alley, but on the Post-Dispatch. Sharp, cantankerous Circuit Attorney Franklin Miller (whose prosecution of the case against Putty Nose was called by the Post-Dispatch "one more in his 11-year record of dismal flops") filed an information for contempt of court against the Post-Dispatch, its Editors Reese and Coghlan. its Cartoonist Fitzpatrick. Judge Rowe decided there was cause for action, ordered all three to appear in court this week.

Facing the Post-Dispatch triumvirate are terms in prison, fines at the court's discretion if they should actually be found guilty of contempt. The St. Louis Newspaper Guild moved to take a hand, the Civil Liberties Union threatened to intervene in defense of press freedom. Said Joseph Pulitzer II, who inherited the Post-Dispatch from his father: "Of course we mean to fight it all the way." In reply to the contempt action the Post-Dispatch reprinted editorials and cartoon on its front page.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.