The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-10-06
U. s. Court of Appeals De cisiOn in Standard Home
 Case Is Interesting
CRITICIZES WORDS
 OF THE ATTORNEYS
Only Appeal Now Left for the De- fendants Is to the Supreme Court of the United
 States

United States circuit court of appeals in affirming the decision of the local district court in the case of Lee A. and F. A. Whitehead, L. F. Harris and the Standard Home company reaches Bir- mingham the defendants will state their intention of asking for new trials, of talk ing appeals to the supreme court, or en- tering upon the service of their sentence
 The Whitehead brothers were sentenced to four years each in the federal prison MT. Harris and the Standard Home con- pany were fined 5000 each.
 Excerpts from the opinion of Justice Batts indicate that the justice was as highly critical of the language of at- the defendants and their firm.
 LANGUAGE OF COURT
 In this regard the opinion reads: "Em- belished with an erudition almost in- nocuous because almost obsolete, and ex- pressed with a clarity characteristic of the dialectical tergiversations of the medieval theological controversialists, some of the objections to the indictment, and the argument in their support, in- volve processes of mental ratiocination not easily within the capacity of persons accustomed to deal with the law in It's practical phases only.'
 Continuing, the opinion says regarding the arguments: There Is little in lit- erature beyond the reach of the hyper critical. The Lords Prayer and the Con- mandments have not escaped. One wno O l:- this case could probably suggest i'm provements in the Gettysburg speech We shall decline to give aid in the mainte- nance of rules so manifestly in con- flict with good sense and so potently subversiye of efficient administration of the law. The time of a court may be more profitably used than in the perpe.u- ation of absurdities.'
 The opinion then states that where the court had little sympathy with the effort to defeat the law by verbal gym nastics, there is every inclination to see that the defendants are not deprived o1 any substantial right by any technical rule.
 AS TO BUSINESS METHODS
 As to the business methods of the de-
 
 The scheme devised by the defendants had the appearance of legality. It was embelished with all the legal phraseology and Iormality so efficacious in concealing consequences and creating confidence. The language used was excellently con- ceived to mean one thing and create the impression that 1t meant something eIse. The contract used the standard device of referring to the application and making it a part of the contract-a part not with in the custody of the owner.
 Important provisions of the contract, expressed in obscure language were in- conspicuously printed in small pica on the back of the signed instrument. These are favorite devices for businesses whose prosperity depends upon overreaching, and are not less useful to those who pass the hazy border into criminal fraud The scheme primarily devised, improved by the suggestions of experience. was ap- parently well adapted to effecting an ex- change of valueless promises for money The indictment is not subject to the ob- jection that the scheme it describes is not apparently adapted to the accomplish ment of the crime intended to be com mitted
 Counsel for defendants make the prop osition that the scheme or device evil denced by the contract is not open to more criticism than some of the insur- ance contracts and other financial trans- actions in which the mails are used, in- dulged in from day to day all over the country. This proposition could perhaps be acquiesced in without absolving de- fendants of guilt. The statement may be less an exoneration of the defendants than an attack upon the officers charged with the enforcement of the law.
 Certainly, the contract of the Stand ard Home company is not the only con- tract in use in which excessive and in volved verbiage is used to conceal its character and to induce the careless or credulous to part with money upon the assumption that they are securing some thing which they do not get It is even conceived possible that defendants be- lieved that that which they were doing was not in violation of law. There is evidence to indicate that they had the law before them always, and it may be that they did not realize that they had crossed the ill defined boundary line that lies betwen nonpunishable, overreaching and criminal fraud Whoever approaches the line approaches it at his peril.
 FORM OF CONTRACT
 'The contract covers "A pages of the record. There is no probability that any person would have purchased the con tract as an investment. The minimum maturity value was possible only by giv- ing to same part of that which others lost The time of the payment was in- definite the security was inadequate and the amount payable contingent. Not withstanding all the money is furnished by the contract holders, they are entirely without voice in it's administrations and notwithstanding 20 pages of provi- sions. not one furnishes them any degree of protection.
 "The advertising of the company was not less misleading than the contract. Tn few instances only are there affirmative misstatements. The mendacity involved was more efficacious and less dangerous The part of it which went into the papers was substantially confined to an an nouncement that the company was lend ing money at per cent. This was un- true.
 "Another part of the advertising which preceded the sale of the contract was an appeal to the Homeless who desired homes. The appeal was peculiarly to those who could hope to own a little