The Daily Alaska empire., 1949-09-14
THESE DAYS By GEORGE E. nADnL OUN
-SOKOLSKY-

l " HEN Alger Hiss was up TOT trial, fund was raised to pay. it's expenses. How large that fund is and who contributed to it, has not been made public. It must have been sizable for Lloyd Stryker, his ! florid counsel is not one for bar gain sales. The trial of the 12, in Judge Medina's court. which is now in it's thirty fifth week, must be costing a veritable fortune. And the money is available. Apparently, for such persons, money is always available
 In the case of Mrs. Hester Mo- | Cullough, the sitation is different. She is being sued for libel by Paul Draper, dancer, and Larry Adler, a harmonica player. because she objected to paying a fee to finance their performance in Greenwich, Connecticut.
 In Connecticut, when one is sued for libel, the law makes 1t pos sible for the plaintiff to tie up the funds of the defendant, so that it 1 is impossible for the defendant to defend himself except as pauper.
 Of course, it is not necessary for the plaintiff and his lawyer to deprive the defendant of the means 1 to test the truth in court of law, but in the Mccullough case, Larry Adler and Paul Draper are suing for $100,OO0 each, which is prohibitive in the first place and also ridiculous because no one could libel them to that extent.
 Yet, Mrs. Mccullough faces an att tachment in the amount of $200,000 which makes her pennilesS, as it would you or me. For while, she had to face this alone, but soon enough decent people, recognizing the injustice of her position, came to the rescue The weekly publi- cation, "Counterattack" first called attention to the facts. Then Igor Cassini, who writes under the name of Cholly Knickerbocker. Westbrook Pegler, and I took it up, to get $15,OOO to meet her court expenses. Thus far, little over a third of that amount has come in and too few checks are from those rich men and women who are always yapping about how terrible the l Communists are, but do nothing about it.
 I complained some time ago how Plain Talk" was let down and now, I am told that sufficient sub scriptions have come in to keep It going. That is something of vic- tory over capitalistic lethargy.
 In the matter of Mrs. Mccullough the fund should by now be over subscribed, even if it means a few caviare and vodka parties less for the Park Avenue smart-set and the industrialists who would do bet ter. if they accepted the advice of such roustabout as Pegler, Cassinl and myself than they are doing by listening to their lawyers and pub lie relations counsel who tell them not to get out on limb, where they have actually been for 20 years.
 
 The lawyer for Larry Adler and Paul Draper is Kenneth Bradley, a former Republican National Com mitteeman and formed law part ner of Raymond Baldwin, once Governor of Connecticut who re- signed his seat in the United States Senate to accept judgeship at the hands of the Democratic Governor, Chester Bowles. It is said that Kenneth Bradley wants to be the Republican candidate for governor. At any rate, while lawyer may defend any client, even a mur- derer, Republican politician and state leader puts himself in a dubious position when he exacts the letter of the law in making such an American woman as Hester Mc- Cullough defenseless in libel suit by two whom she accused of being pro- Communist.
 Mrs. Mccullough did what every American should do in cases of this sort. The gist of her activity is stated in this paragraph of her answer:
 | Having read heretofore in the press articles charging that the plaintiffs were pro-Commun- ist in sympathy and belieyeing that