CRIME: After the Ball

In even hotter water than Amos ‘n Andy’s Kingfish of the Mystic Knights of the Sea was the Director General of the Loyal Order of Moose last week. Pennsylvania’s Senator James John (“Puddler Jim”) Davis, longtime (1921-30) Secretary of Labor, who took charge of the Moose in 1906 and boosted their membership from 247 to 600,000, was on trial in Manhattan’s Federal Court charged with conspiracy to conduct an interstate lottery. In the same boat with the Moose was the Fraternal Order of Eagles, two of whose officers were also indicted two months ago (TIME, Aug. 29). Purse-lipped Senator Davis, up for re-election this autumn, had asked to be tried first.

When the Court recessed last week after a fortnight of hearings, to permit Jewish jurors to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Government had concluded its case. It had tried to show that in 1930-31 several Moose charity balls were held throughout the land, the tickets to which entered purchasers in raffles for sizeable cash awards. During the two years $2,200,000 was taken in. Mooseheart (Ill.) orphanage, for whose benefit the balls were ostensibly staged, got $250,000. Of the remainder, some $400,000 went to promoters Bernard C. McGuire & Theodore G. Miller of the Moose “propagation Department,” $200,000 was refunded in prizes, $173,000 went to Moose Davis, the balance to local and national Moose organizations. Promoter Miller’s contract to arrange the brotherhood’s lottery-balls was signed, he testified, “with the approval and knowledge of the Supreme Council and Director General Davis.”

Learned counsel pleaded the defense: Charles Henry Tuttle, onetime U. S. Attorney (New York), and Joseph E. Davies, onetime Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission. President William Green of A. F. of L., Senator Copeland of New York and Washington, Merchant Julius Garfinckel came to praise the defendant’s character. So did Edward (“Just Call Me Eddie”) McCloskey, ex-prize-fighting Mayor of Johnstown, Pa., who offered B. E. F. mendicants a home and then had to run them out. Said Mayor McCloskey: “I didn’t think the Hoover Administration was so dumb as to put on anything like this before election, with the Senator being one of their big shots. You can see from this that I’m not a friend of the Administration, but I will say I’m a friend of Senator Davis. It’s tough for the Senator to have to defend himself for doing things for widows and orphans.”

Three members of the Supreme Council, including onetime Mayor William F. Broening of Baltimore, appeared to testify that neither the council nor Moose Davis had any cognizance of Promoter McGuire’s contract. Case for the defense was that although almost every other Moose in the country was aware of the lottery, Moose Davis was in total ignorance. True, he had attended a banquet and personally presented lottery profits to Mooseheart, but he did not necessarily know whence the money came. True, a consignment of lottery tickets had reached his Pittsburgh office, but Moose Davis was rarely there. Since 1930, when he sold the organization department to Moose Fred W. Jones (his financial agent) and Moose Joseph A. Jenkins (his secretary) for $600,000 (with no written agreement), Moose Davis had devoted all his energies to the U. S. Senate, had little inner knowledge of Moose machinations. It was claimed that the $173,000, part of which paid off a note of Mrs. Davis’, part of which found its way into Moose Davis’ bank account, was part payment for control of the organization department through which Moose Davis had for years collected the major portion of every Moose initiation fee.

Also present in the Moose financial snarl was an item of $125,000 which the Supreme Lodge had voted Moose Davis last year and which he had inexplicably turned over to the department which he had relinquished. The Court wanted to know why. “Your Honor,” replied Moose Jenkins, “that’s one of the extraordinary things he has done. He does things different from what you and I would do and that’s why he is an extraordinary man.”

Just before Senator Davis was to have taken the witness stand, an alarmed and voluble juror telephoned defense counsel, reported that an alternate juror was “poisoning the rest of the jury” against the Senator. When informed of this call the judge promptly declared a mistrial, cleared the alternate juror after his colleagues denied anything improper in his conduct. The talkative juror, who had been drinking, was held for possible contempt of court and Moose Davis asked to have his trial set over until after election.