Our Gang (15 page)

in his native Poland.

We also owed moneys amounting to
$2.90
to a

wonderful Irish plumber, a wonderful Japanese-

American handyman and a wonderful couple from

the deep South who happened to be of

TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 101

the same race as we were, and whose children

played with ours in perfect harmony, despite the

fact that they were from another region.

I am proud to say that every last dime that we

owed to these wonderful people, I paid back

through long hard hours of work in my law office.

And the point I wish to make to you tonight, my

fellow Americans, is that because of those long,

hard hours of work, I believe myself qualified today

to understand in all its cunning and clever intricacies

the legal action that this fugitive has brought against

the sport made famous by Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig,

Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Roger Hornsby, Honus

Wagner, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson and

Ted Williams-Hall of Famers all, and men that

America can well be proud of.

And let me tell you this: having studied this case

in all its ramifications, I find I can only concur in

the wise opinion of the Commissioner of Baseball

when he says that a victory for this fugitive would

inevitably lead to the death of the great game that

has probably done more to make American boys

into strong, decent
*
and law-abiding men than any

single institution in the land. Frankly, I do not know

of a better way for our enemies to undermine the

youth of this country, than to destroy this game of

baseball and all it represents.

Now there is another question you may want

to ask, and it is this: "Mr. President, if Curt Flood is

out to undermine the youth of this country by

destroying baseball, where could he possibly find a

lawyer who would be willing to take his case to

court?"

Now I am going to be as forthright as I know how

in answering that question.

Scrupulous and honest and dedicated to the

principles of justice as ninety-nine and ninetenths of

the lawyers in this country are, there is in my

profession, as in any other, I'm afraid, that tiny

percentage who will do and say anything if the

stakes are high enough or the price is right. In law

school our professors used to call them

"ambulance-chasers" and "shysters." Unfortunately,

these men cling not only to the bottom rungs of the

profession, which would be bad enough, but on rare

occasions manage to climb to the very top-yes, even

to positions of great responsibility and power.

Now I needn't remind you of the scandal that

took place here in Washington during the tenure of

the last administration. You all remember that a

lawyer appointed by my predecessor to the Supreme

Court of the United States, the highest court in the

entire land, had to resign as a justice of that court

because of financial wrongdoing. Horrifying as that

incident was to every decent American, there seems

to me nothing to be

TRICKY ADDRESSES THE NATION 103

gained now by reawakening the sense of moral

outrage that swept the nation at that time.

As some of you will be quick to point out, there

were actually two men who found it necessary to

resign from the Supreme Court, after they had been

appointed justices of that court by my predecessor.

But whether there was one, two, three, four or five,

I simply do not believe it is in the interests of

national unity to harp upon the errors, grievous

though they were, of an administration that you

voters, in your wisdom, repudiated three years ago.

What is past is past; no one knows that better

than I do. If I recall to you now the names of these

two men who found it necessary to tender

unprecedented resignations to the highest court in

the land, it is only to answer, as forthrightly as I

know how, your question, "What kind of lawyer

would represent Curt Flood?"

The two men who resigned from the Supreme

Court were Mr. Abe Fortas and Mr. Arthur

Goldberg. My fellow Americans, the name of the

lawyer representing Charles Curtis Flood is Arthur

Goldberg. G-o-l-d-b-a-r-g.

Now, before I am accused of trying to shock or

alarm the Ameriean public, let me say that I myself

am not the least bit shocked or alarmed by this turn

of events. Having served on the highest court of the

land, Mr. Goldberg undoubtedly now knows the ins

and the outs of the

104 OUR GANG

law as well as the most devious lawyer in the

country. Moreover, none of us should be surprised

to discover a man who has fallen from the pinnacle

of his profession, willing to try just about anything

to get back into the public eye. Before the Flood

case is concluded, I would not be surprised to find

Mr. Abe Fortas joining forces with Mr. Arthur

Goldberg in defense of Charles Curtis Flood.

Now you may say to me, "But surely, Mr.

President, any man who wishes to destroy the game

of baseball, and enlists such attorneys as these in his

attempt to accomplish that end, is not even entitled

to a hearing in court. Not only is he making a

mockery of our entire judicial system, but in order

for him to go `up against the system' we, the

American taxpayers, have to pay for the upkeep of

the very system he is working to annihilate. If we

allow that, then we might as well allow selfconfessed

Communists to teach our children in the

classrooms. We might as well throw down our arms

right now in the battle for freedom, and hand over

our schools and our courtrooms without a fight to

the avowed enemies of democracy."

Well, let me assure you that I couldn't agree

more. In fact, we are right now studying ways of

restoring the dignity and majesty and, sanctity of

old to the courtrooms of the land. As
,
you know,

one experiment that we have tried with some

TRICKY ADDRESSES TIM NATION 105

success here in Washington is the "Justice in the

Streets Program." This is a program whereby

sentencing and punishment, for capital crimes as

well as felonies and misdemeanors, is delivered on

the spot at the very moment the crime is

committed, or even appears to have been committed.

Through J.I.T.S.P. and related methods of

expediting the judicial process, we hope to be able

not only to unclog the court calendars but to wind

down the whole trial system by Election Day 1972.

Now, winding down the trial system will of

course be a great boon to the dignity of our judges,

who will no longer be forced to demean themselves

by dealing with the most undesirable elements in the

population. Our judges, so terribly overworked as

they are today, hopefully will not have to deal with

any
elements of the population once the trial system

is completely phased out. This will leave them free

for the reflection and reading that is so essential to

maintaining a high level of judicial wisdom.

The second benefit to be derived from replacing

the archaic and slow-moving trial system by more

modern judicial methods is this: the courtrooms of

this land will once again be a wonderfully inspiring

place for the schoolchildren of America to visit. I

see a day, in fact, when parents will be able to send

their children off to visit a courtroom without fear

that they will

have to witness anything inappropriate or unsettling

to the eyes or ears of a growing youngster. I

see a day in which not only schoolchildren, but

mothers holding their babies, will be able to walk

through the halls of justice to observe the judges

in their wonderful black robes, relieved of the

time-consuming burdens of the courtroom,

gathering the wisdom of the ages from their

thinking and their lawbooks. I see a day when

schoolchildren and mothers holding their babies

will be able to sit in the jury boxes, just as though

a real trial were underway, and in this way

experience at firsthand the age-old grandeur of a

legal tradition that has come down to us in all its

glory from Anglo-Saxon times.

But of course we cannot undo overnight the

judicial mess that we have inherited from the

previous administration, and the thirty-five administrations

before his. As a result, even as we

are winding down the trial system that has

caused this country so much expense and

confusion, we have still to deal in the

courtroom with the likes of Charles Curtis

Flood and his team of attorneys.

Now fortunately two different courts have already

found against Charles Curtis Flood in his

attempt to destroy the game of baseball. These

decisions made during the tenure in office of

this administration, have gone a long way, I am

sure, to restoring the confidence of a public

only recently so disappointed by the verdict

reached in Mayor John Lancelot's New York, to

free thirteen members of the Black Panther

Party.

Of course I have no more right to tell the

Mayor of New York how to run his city than he

has to tell me how- to run the country or the

world. But I must, in all honesty, say that I was

as startled as the great majority of Americans,

first by that verdict, and second, by Mayor

Lancelot's decision, following the verdict, to allow

these thirteen Black Panthers to resume their

political activities in his city. All I can say as

President is that I trust this will not become the

model for the treatment of the acquitted in other

cities around the country.

Now I have no doubt that if the Mayor of

New York were in my place he would not hesi-

tate to declare a hands-off policy where Charles

Curtis Flood is concerned. If self-confessed

Black Panthers are to be left free to stalk the

streets that are no longer safe for our wives and

daughters, why bother to bring to justice a man

who has not confessed to being a Black Panther?

So, I am afraid, the. logic would run, if another

man were in my shoes.

But so long as he is not, so long as I am the

duly elected President of the United States, I can

assure you that there will be no mollycoddling of

any fugitive who, after twice being prevented by

the courts from destroying baseball and un-

108 OUR GANG

dermining the youth of this country, decided that