The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1935-01-19
Kidnap Trial
.EVadeS Real Issues
Continued from Page ~

LANCER was only a worker. Scores
of them are murdered every year.
One more or less didn't perturb
the Attorney General of the State
Of New Jersey.
A Publicized Trial
The alleged murderer of the mil
lionaire's baby is on trial here to-
day. Hundreds of representatives
of the capitalist press have focused
the eyes of the world on this small
county seat, with its 1000 inhabi-
tants, as the defendant, an adher-
ant of the murderous Hitler, lis
tens to the verbal pillow-tossing of
opposing lawyers.
The Nazi's lawyer is Edward J.
Reilly, a lieutenant commander in
the U. S. Navy, a former Secret
Service agent Of the United States
government, who numbers among
his clients the fascist Art Smith,
Khaki Shirt leader, and Little
Augie Pisano, accomplished mur-
derer and all-around gangster of
Brooklyn. Reilly has defended
more than 1000 murderers, none
of them poor.
The Nails prosecutor is Attorney
General Arthur Wilentz, a lackey
of Frank Hague, one of the most
notorious of the American political
hi-jackers, who differ from the Al
Capones only because they commit
their thieveries with the open aid
of the police instead of with their
secret connivance.
Why the Publicity
In the minds of both the defense
and prosecution attorneys the fate
of the Nazi defendant is unimpor-
tant to the main purposes of the
trial, which are: to use the proceed
ings as a distraction to the millions
Of Americans who are desperately
fighting starvation; to shield the
name of the popular Super-sales-
man of imperialism from the
scandal that is deeply imbedded in
the murder of his child; to keep
hidden the evidence which proves
that the Nazis have gathered their
forces to free their colleague; and
to provide the capitalist newspapers
with a relatively inexpensive meth
cd Of increasing their circulation.
The proceedings of any of the
court sessions here are relatively
insignificant to these primary OBJ
jectiveS. No one doubts any longer
that the NaI was connected with
the kidnapping-one only wonders
who is guilty with him. One can
learn nothing at the trial except
that both defense and prosecution
are trying to hide the defendants
accomplices. Not day passes
without some revelation that the
opposing attorneys are indulging in
staged-wrestling match in which
the only loser will be the workers
who will not be able to get an in
sight into the events behind the
scenes.
Today's disclosure had to do with
the establishment of the corpus
deficit. 1t was necessary for
Wilentz to prove that the body
found in a shallow grave near the
Lindbergh home was really the
body of the aviator's child and not
the body of some other child that
had been placed there to hide the
whereabouts of the child who was
alleged to have been murdered. If
Wilentz couldn't prove the body
found in the grave was the body of
the Lindbergh baby his legal case
against Hauptmann would COL
lapse.
The Question of the Body
But Reilly isn't permitting
Wilentz to be overcome by the diff
culties of proving that the body is
the body of the Lindbergh baby,
although only last week he threw
a f1guratiye bomb into the prose-
cution's camp by proving that
the body found in the grave was
two inches longer than that of the
Lindbergh child. When Reillys as
sistants begin to press the States
witnesses by limiting broadly that
the body found in the grave is &C
! tually the body of a child that had
been incarcerated in nearby
, orphan asylum, Reilly instructs
them to drop the point. He is
content, he says, that the States
witnesses are truthful. Blu his chief
assistant, C. Lloyd Fisher, is not
content. When Reilly makes his
log-rolling move, Fisher, in a white
rage, grasps his oyercoat, almost
runs out of the courtroom and
: doesn't return until the Nazi de-
PENDANT. losing control of himself
for a moment, calls State witness
liar and then pleads to be COM
forted by his hot-headed junior at
torney.
And what about the hole in the
baby's skull which the County
physician said looked as if it had
been made by a bullet when he saw
it the day the body was found?
He never said it was a bullet hole,
he protested "It merely looked
like bullet hole"
This trial merely looks insane.
Actually 1t is typical trial in
capitalist court with the principals
only slightly exaggerated for pur-
poses of emphasis.