The Law & Winchell

Newsreaders who wonder at all about Gossipmonger Walter Winchell, wonder why they never read of his being sued for libel. The prime reason is the unwritten law of U. S. journalism, which restrains newspapers from airing each other's libel troubles. Another and more astonishing reason is that only three suits, of which two have not yet reached court, have ever been pressed against Columnist Winchell. Last week, for the first time in his professional career, he found himself confronted by a jury verdict for damages. It was caused not by any peeping into the love lives of the rich or famed but by a trivial paragraph about an all-Jewish beach club which died aborning.

In November 1929 the Winchell column in the New York tabloid Daily Mirror read: "If I were king I would throttle the swift talker who got me to consent to serve on the board of governors for the planned Fleetwood Beach Club at Long Beach. N. Y., just because Eddie Cantor. George Jessel, Bugs Baer. Mark Hellinger and others were so gullible. The enterprise, it appears, is being worked along the lines of another 'racket,' to which I am opposed and I hope others won't invest in the damb thing because our names are being prostituted."

After the appearance of this squib, the club promotion collapsed, and the promoters sued Winchell and the Mirror for $250,000. The promoters charged that Winchell's outburst was the result of malice because they had been obliged to remove his name from the directors' list in order to persuade Eddie Cantor to remain. That, Winchell vehemently denied. He said he had resigned because he believed the scheme dishonest; that he printed his attack for the same reason. At the trial in a Manhattan court last fortnight. Funnyman Cantor testified for Winchell. Stormed Winchell on the stand: "I said it was a racket and I still say so!"

The jury believed the promoters, returned a verdict of $30,000 compensatory damages against Winchell and the Mirror jointly, $2,500 punitive damages against the columnist as punishment for malice. On a motion to set aside the verdict, the judge reserved decision.

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