Evening star., 1937-08-13
A|RMA|L INQUIRY
PUBL|C|zED BLACK
Supreme Court Nominee
Little Known Before Sen-
ate Investigation.
BY ], A. FOX.

Four years have made lot OF diff
ference in the life of Hugo Lafayette
Black, first choice of President Roose-
welt in the process of injecting new
blood" into the Supreme Court.
Until this administration came into
power, the 5l-year-old Alabaman, with
one term in the Senate behind him,
was little known nationally for other
than his advocacy of the short work
week to relieve unemployment. Then
suddenly he was catapulted into the
limelight. and under unfavorable cir
cumstances, by directing the airman
inquiry with is tragic accompaniment,
10 Army flyers being killed in an ef-
fort to move the mail after all con-
tracts let to private carriers in the
Hoover administration had been ab
ruptly Cancelled at the direction of the
President.
Hardly had the storm this created
been cleared away when Black again
felt the brunt of public displeasure,
telegram seizures in a lobby probe of
which he was chairman leading to
e"o NoulU dIllOIlS W Cul " lllS COfil-
mittee and evoking widespread con-
demnation
Court Action Fails to Materialize
The airmail case broke few months
after President Roosevelt took Office
when Blacks committee undertook a
study of both air and ocean mail sub
sidy policies under Hoover These
were administered principally through
the Post Office Department. and while
Black asserted the air inquiry dis
closures warranted both civil and
criminal action special investigation
later by the Department of Justice
found no cause for action.
The investigation brought Today
1all sentences for contempt of the
Senate to William P. McCracken, for
merce, and L. H. Brittin. president
OF Northwest Always, and was also
productive of new subsidy legislation
1t was with this background as an
investigator that Senator Black headed
the inconclusive lobby probe of 1856
which dealt principally with the ef-
fort to defeat the Wheeler Rayburn
act to regulate holding companies
When the committee seized tele-
grams in furtherance of its probe,
Sllas Strawn, prominent Republican
lawyer OF Chicago. obtained an in
junction in District Supreme Court
mere, restraining the Western Union
from making its files available to the
investigators. Justice Alfred Wheat,
who granted this, denied an iniunc-
ton to William Randolph Hearst, who
had directed his action against the
committee itself. the court holding it
was without power to interfere with
the Senate group.
Fire Swung Career.
1t was the combination of a grocery
store fire and the shifting tides of
political favor that started Black on
the path from obscurity.
The Alabaman was struggling
backwoods lawyer when the blaze
wiped out his office and turned his
thoughts toward larger fields The
decision Of the late Oscar w. Under
wood, outspoken foe of the then
powerful Ku Klux Klan, not to seek
reelection to the Senate in 1926. gave
Black his chance to go to the Senate.
Black is of humble origin. When
he decided upon law career he was
forced to work his way through the
University of Alabama to win his
hung out his shingle in 1905 was on
the second floor of grocery store in
Ashland. hamlet of less than 500
population in Clay County, where he
was born When the fire wiped out
his worldly effects, Black was left
with working capital of just s1.2O.
1t was then he turned toward
Birmingham and new start. Rec
ognition as lawyer came quickly.
and when, in 1910, the city decided
that action was necessary to clear out
the overcrowded Jail, he was named
recorder. 1t is related that his ini-
tial act was to free about 500 colored
men who had been jailed under the
Tee system for crap-shooting.
Elected Prosecutor.
In 1915, Black made the race for
county prosecutor in Birmingham
with the slogan 1T is as much the
duty OF prosecutor to see that the
innocent are acquitted as it is that
the guilty are convicted The voters
apparently liked that idea, for he
was elected.
Then the war came along, and Black
was commissioned captain OF Field
Artillery, but the armistice was signed
before his regiment got overseas.
Returning to Birmingham and pri-
vate practice, Black became widely
known through his State when he was
named special Federal prosecutor in
. liquor case in Mobile, and after Sen
ator Underwood announced in 1925
that he was through, Black entered
the race with four other aspirants.
The Klan was potent in those days.
and the State group threw it's support
behind Black, while the national Klan
organization Endorsed L. B. Musgrove.
Black won easily, his nearest rival
being John H. Bankhead, now Junior
Senator from Alabama, who was
elected in 1880 when Senator j.
Thomas Heflin was read out of the
Democratic party for his fight on the