Evening star., 1944-06-26
Sedition Prosecution
Moves 10 Establish
Overt Act in D. T..
Four Witnesses Expected
To Tell of Efforts to Stir
Up Hate, Unrest on Coast
By CARTER BROOKE JONES.

up note, UnTeSt on NooSi
By CARTER BROOKE JONES.
The Government moved today al
the mass sedition trial in District
Court IN establish an overt act" In
the District of Columbia as an es-
sential element in the alleged Nazi-
inspired conspiracy of the % de-
PENDANTS to incite mutiny in the
armed forces.
Pvt. Sevellon Brown, 3d. stationed
here in the Office of Strategic Serv-
ices, identified propaganda which
he said he received through the
mail in July, 194l, when he was
Washington correspondent of the
Providence (R. - Journal. Mr.
Browns father is publisher of the
Journal. The documents came un-
solicited in single folder to his
Office nthe Hibbs Building, he said.
What did you do with them?"
asked Chief Prosecutor o. John
Rogge.
II read the documents" said the
witness. land I called a friend at
the Post Ofice Department"
Post Office Sends Documents.
Pvt. Brown said he then mailed
them to the chief inspector at the
Post Office Department.
The documents, offered in evil
dence by the Government, included
copies of clip sheets called Publicity
and the X-Ray.
Joseph H. Bilbrey, defense at
torney, asked if the Providence
Journal was owned at the time by
the British governmental Mr..
Brown knew
Il know it was not" the witness
replied.
WAS it owned by individuals who
were members of the British gov
ernment?"
1T was not" said Pvt. Brown.
Wasn't its foreign policy favor
able to Intervention in the WARP"
the attorney asked.
Supported Aid. to Britain.
"It favored aid to Great Britain"
the witness said.
The Government was expected to
call later in the day four witnesses
from California to tell of the mis-
sion which the German American
Bund led on the West Coast.
This mission, according to the
Government, was to build up an at
mosphere of hate and distrust
of existing American institutions
and thus to foment a revolution
aimed at setting up a Nazi state in
this country.
The 20 defendants, a few of them
members of the bund, most of them
not Germans, were alleged to have
joined such conspiracy, and they
are charged specifically with plot
ting to undermine the loyalty of
the armed forces.
Jury Gets Many Exhibits.
The jury had before it today
big stack of exhibits, admitted in
evidence Professionally by Chief JUS
tice Edward C. Eicher. These in
cluded minutes of a bund national
convention in which Fritz Kuhn,
then national leader, said: I'm the
feature let us maintain a less pro-
German but a more anti-English
policy" and he added: ut has also
been suggested to me that we trans
form the bund into a party. This
is completely out of the question
and would be our immediate end.
At present we cannot get our own
candidates from our ranks, and
furthermore the first election would
show our weakness. The word bluff
may very well be dropped in favor
of diplomacy, because each of us
desires at every opportunity to pre-
sent the bund in its best light"
One delegate was quoted as say
ing: mo matter what we do, we
are still Nazis."
The Government has promised to
prove by later evidence that nom
buTidists among the defendants
joined their alleged conspiracy
through various economic, political
and fraternal organiza tions and as
individuals.
The Governments second bund
witness, William Luedtke, former
national secretary, was to be ex-
cused temporarily today to make
way for the California witnesses,
who have been waiting weeks to
testify. Luedtke will return to the
stand later