Opinion ID: 1474108
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: The War Debt Committees.

Text: One of the employees of the Make Europe Pay War Debts Committee testified that defendant told her that he and three others had organized that Committee. This employee further testified that she had reminded the defendant that two prominent columnists had said that he was giving candy to office girls on Capitol Hill. She further reminded him that she had seen him two or three times in the Committee's office. In reply, she testified, defendant said to her, I should have brought you some candy, and then you would not have seen me over there. The evidence showed that one of the chief jobs of the Committee was to send out speeches of isolationist Congressmen. At times the Committee had seven or eight employees addressing franked envelopes to carry the speeches. Isolationist speeches by Congressmen are definitely political material unless the subject matter of politics has been greatly changed recently. We have defendant's admission that he was one of the organizers of the Committee. There was much evidence from which it could be inferred that he was a director of the Committee after its organization. The forming and running of a committee of this kind is a business pursuit of some sort. Under the law defendant was called upon to make a disclosure, and even if he only designated the broad nature of this part of his business he should have said something to the effect that he was an organizer and a director of committees to disseminate political material, and named them. The name of the Committee was later changed to Islands for War Debts Committee. It was suggested by the record, although we believe that there is no direct testimony, that the name was later changed again to War Debts Defense Committee.