The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-06-25

There is hardly a case of sup pressed civil liberties anywhere in the country that he has not cham pioned, yet he also represents some of the biggest firms on Wall Street. He has ammassed considerable fortune, yet he dips into his own pocket to finance most of the hu- man rights cases which he cham pfons.
 Finally, he is branded a Con- munist by Mayor Hague, but is so bitterly opposed by more radical elements within the CIO that he was dismissed as attorney for the Newspaper Guild (which he helped to found) because he was too con- servative for left-Wing leaders.
 Ernst is one of the most ver- satile lawyers in New York city. He is attorney for the "New Yorker, the Nation" and the Survey" magazines; for Edna Ferber, Charles G. Norris, Hey wood Broun, the Authors League and the Dramatists Guild; for Doubleday, Doran, Simon and Schuster, the Vanguard Press; for Maurice Evans, Margalo Gill; more and June Walker. At the same time he is attorney for the Morsenthau family, for giant Kuhn, Loeb and company, is member of the New York State Banking Commission, and put across a billion dollar reOrgan- ization of the mortgage banks for the New York Insurance De- partment.
 Despite all these interests he makes a solemn VOW every sum- mer-and keeps tito spend three months at Nantucket, where he sails boat, makes furniture and writes fiction.
 Hague vs. Ernst
 Inside story of the Ernst-Mayor Hague legal battle is that Lee Pressman, general counsel for the CIO, long has been opposed to Ernst drafted him to do a job on Hague because he thought Ernst would use plenty of fireworks.
 At first, however, Ernst did just the opposite. He sat down with Mayor Hague's lawyers and tried to work out a compromise to end the entire dispute without court fight. In these private discussions Hague's attorneys agreed to yield on picketing, the right of unions to organize, and the right to hire halls for meetings. The only CIO demands not agreed to were open air meetings and the use of pla- cards in picketing.
 Before the negotiations got any further, however, the Mayor got sore at the trek of congressman invading his domain and called off the entire compromise.
 So Ernst brought up his heavy artillery. But before he did so, Morris had long talk with tine President, told him in some de- tail how he was planning to put vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee on the spot. The President made no Objec- ton.
 Later, however, he did. After Ernst had taunted Hague with the question of whether or not Sena- tor Barkley of Kentucky should accept support from the United Mine Workers, CIO organiza- ton, he got a phone call from Jimmy Roosevelt.
 The Ernest barrage was great up to that point, Jimmy intimated, but in the future leave out Bark ley and other Democratic leaders. Jewish Refugee
 Probably Ernst inherited his crusading instinct from his father, a Jewish refugee who fled from Pilsen, stria-Hungary (now Czechoclovakia) during the trou- bles of 1848. Morris Ernst was born in Uniontown, Alabama, just 50 years ago. His father ran a shirt factory, and for two years Morris worked in it after gradu- ating from Williams.
 Ldler ne ran lurHlIure IHdllu- featuring shop for four years, and never has been quite able to give it up. Every summer he turns out exquisite beds and tables, and his wife complains that in New York he will sometimes spend half a day searching through hardware stores for some particular kind of saw.
 Meanwhile Ernst studied law at night, and 1t was not until he was nearly 30 that he finally began law practice.
 Ernst's public service dates back to 1914, when he organized the first public employment bureau in the United States for Governor Glynn of New York. But it was not until the Hoover