The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-12-06

how the former Prince Of < asked: Would you like to
 To which the Prince replied: "What's biddle?"
 Ever since the Biddle-Littel row broke the Justice Department wide open, a lot of people are asking the same question: What, who, and how is Francis Biddle?"
 If you talk to his old friends on the Philadelphia Main Line, they will tell you he is traitor to his class. If you talk to Nor man Littell, his former assistant attorney general, he will tell you Riddle is merely the stooge and puppet of Tommy Corcoran. If you talk to some of the newspa- per publishers against whom Bid- ale is bringing suit in the Asso- ciated Press case, their remarks are almost unprintable.
 But if you talk to the men who work with him day in and day out in the Justice Depart ment, 90 per cent will tell you he is 9 shy, hesitant person, who sometimes waits before making up his mind but, once he is sure he will fight harder for the right and for the underdOg than any other attorney general in recent years.
 FDR tells how, when Riddle was propose as head of the. Ma tional Labor Relations Board in 1884, he feared Riddle was too reactionary. In Philadelphia, Riddle had been attorney for the Pennsylvania Railroad, biggest railway property in the world. His slast law case before he entered the Government was to defend the Pennsylvania against Wendell Berge of the Justice Department in a rebate case.
 Riddle and the railroad won. To- day Berge is assistant attorney general under Riddle, and today they are both prosecuting one of the biggest antitrust cases in history against the railroads. ALMOST TOO LIBERAL
 Shortly after Riddle came to Washington in 1884, FDR had oc- caSion to wish his new man wasn't so liberal. The San Francisco Cal-Bulletin had fired a news paperman, Dean s. Jenning, in violation of the MIRA labor code. The President wasn't looking for a scrap with the newspapers at that early date in his Administra- tllon, but Riddle as chairman of the National Labor Relations Board, one of the most thankless jobs in the country. ordered Jen- ningS reinstated.
 Riddle probably gets his in- stinct of battling for the underdog partly from the late Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose secretary he was; partly from Mrs. Riddle. Riddle has written book on Holmes, soon to be filmed in Hollywood. Mrs. Riddle, we'll known poetess, writes under the name of Katherine Garrison Chapin, enc of her poems having been set to music for the Phila- oelphia Philharmonic orchestra.
 As Attorney General, Riddle
 has done a lot of things that
 made his bluebloOd friends in
 Philadelphia write in anguish prosecuting the insurance com
 panies, seizing Montgomery
 Ward, bringing more antitrust cases than any other Attorney
 General in history.
 But there is one thing about which not many of them know, With which they pjrobably would agree. Though little publicized. Biddle's greatest achievement has been in preserving civil liberties in wartime.
 In the last war, the Justice De- partment prosecuted 1856 cases for seditious utterances. Some newspapers were shut down. All sorts of people were thrown into jail. Tn the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln threw 100000 people into Jail without trial or hearing. But in this war. Riddle has prosecuted only IS cases for sedition. And no one has been held in jail without trial or hearing.
 A lot of people at the begin- ming of the war demanded that Riddle prosecute Father Cough lin. But Riddle refused, con. tending It would arouse religious prejudice and appear Co be per- secutlOn. Instead. he let the Church silence C0ughlln. Even Che White House at one time prodded Riddle because he did not crack down or the radio priest.
 The War and Navy Depart ments at ono time wanted con- gnes1 Co pasg ND0lN" or Do~ fauec ol lilo Realm Act similar t0 EnH|1ud't' s1ndnr whIch fNo mems tsIA 0I Parliament hata 1r1H