Evening star., 1944-05-28
Conflict Brews
In Defense at
Sedition Trial
Dissension Grows
/. More Marked as
Session Proceeds
BY CARTER BROOKE JONES.

District Court developing the ex-
pected hostility between Govern
ment and defense, but there is grow
ing dissension among some of the
20 defendants and between certain
OF their attorneys.
The trial, whose participants are
enjoying prolonged Memorial Day
recess from last Thursday to We'd
nesday, has brought:
A demand from two defendants
with a single attorney that their
defense be separated, not because
they disapprove of their lawyer, but
because they can't get along and
disagree violently on their line of
defense.
An incipient fist fight in the
courthouse bull pen' between two
defendants in custody, which a
guard prevented
A bitter exchange between two of
defense counsel in open court over
the asserted habit which some at
orneys have formed of referring
constantly to defendants of Ger
man birth and extraction
Objections by other defense coun-
sci to a line of cross-examination
to which defense lawyer was sub
jecting a Government witness. cThe
court sustained the objections)
Disagreement Is Cited.
1t would be an exaggeration to
say it's every defendant for him
self, and imply there is not strong
central theme permeating the de-
fense, but certainly there's been dis
agreement over some of the meth
DDS to be pursued in the common
attempt to prove the conspiracy in
dictment is without merit.
Some of the accused persons have
not been able to get along with their
attorneys.
Early in the trial, Lawrence Den
MS, dismissed his attorney, Floyd
Lanham. and, with the permission
of Chief Justice Edward C. Eicher,
undertook his own defense. MIR.
Dennis explained that Mr.. Lanham
did not seem to grasp the real issue
of the case-freedom of speech.
Since then the Harvard educated
Dennis, formerly of the diplomatic
service, an officer in the last war,
an author and speaker in demand
on lecture platforms catering to the
cultured, has been as vocal as any
lawyer at the defense tables, by
turns suave and devastating.
Chief Prosecutor O. John Rogge,
in his opening statement to the jury,
called Mr.. Dennis the Alfred Rosen-
berg of the Nazi movement in
America, referring to Hitler's Idea
man." Mr.. Dennis, in his opening
statement, reported that Mr.. Rogge
was the Vishinski of this trial,
speaking of the prosecutor at the
mass purge in Moscow some years
back.
Don't Want Lawyers.
Several other defendants have
made futile efforts to divest them
selves of counsel and act as their
own attorneys. They were, par
ticularly, Robert Noble and Edward
James Smythe. They wanted to de-
fend themselves or have separate
counsel, advising the court they
couldn't agree. Smythe objected
especially to being linked with a
man twice convicted of violating
sedition laws. James j. Laughlin
is attorney for both and he joined
in the request, suggesting that he be
relieved of one or both assignments
Justice Eicher refused. He held
that neither Smythe nor Noble had
shown themselves capable of waiv-
ing their constitutional right to
counsel
The two men are quite different
by education and temperament.
Noble usually is soft-spoken, though
he has lost his temper in court a
couple of times, particularly when
he was nettled at the Governments S
opening statement and remarked
that Mr.. Rogge had uttered "a
damn lie." Noble is a skilled public
speaker and once ran for governor
of California and got a good many
votes. Smythe is a husky. leather
lunged orator of the old school. He
has interrupted the trial frequently
with shouted epigrams.
One defendant, Ernest F. Elm
hurst, went SO far as to sue his
attorney, Ira Chase Koehne, for
100000, naming as codefendants
the two prosecutors, Mr.. Rogge and
Joseph w. Burns, alleging the three
had conspired to sink" his de-
fense. Elmhurst was relieved, at
his request, of his attorney, and as
signed another already in the case,
NJ Edward Buckley Mr.. Koehne,
however. still has three other clients
on trial-Howard V. Broenstrupp,
Lois deLaFayette Washburn and
Frank W. Clark.
Nothing in Common"
"All these antics" privately con-
flded one of the most literate of the
defendants, simply proves that the
defendants never conspired to do
anything, that they have nothing
in common except perhaps hatred
of Communism.
But the Government is not
charging that the 29 gathered in
some basement room to brew the
alleged Nazi-inspired plot to incite
nutiny in the armed forces and
replace democracy with national
socialism in America. They are
accused Of joining such conspiracy
through carrying out a common
purpose in various organizations
and with written and spoken propa-
ganda.
The only accused person in addi-
tion TO Dennis who is being allowed
to defend himself is Ellis O. Jones
a Yale graduate, literary man OF
long experience who once edited a
humorous weekly of a past genera
ton, the old Life magazine. Jones
now little past 80, has written
many songs and still writes them
One. America First ne and three
other defendants who have formed
a barber shop quartet, often sing
As they are taken between the
courthouse and the District jail.