Contempt at Chelsea

Last month Western Union was sued for $3,600,000 on the ground that under an obscure New Jersey statute of 1877 the company had participated in a lottery by transmitting chain telegrams. Last week in Chelsea, Mass. Western Union was cited for contempt of court because it accepted and transmitted two messages which protested the arrest of an obscure playactor and an allegedly suspicious character, thus offending the dignity of a district judge.

Last May one Richard Frey was arrested and charged with using profane language in a Chelsea performance of Clifford Odets' Waiting for Lefty (TIME, June 17). Short time later one Martin Halabian was clapped into jail as a suspicious character. Presently the clerk of the Chelsea court received a Western Union telegram from the New Theatre League of Manhattan. It read: "Our National Executive Committee, representing 300 theaters, vigorously protests action against Richard Frey and New Theater players and demands their immediate release." Not long afterward Judge Samuel R. Cutler of the same court received an unsigned Western Union telegram which read: "The 200 workers assembled at Workers' Center protest arrest of Halabian on trumped-up charges. Consider this arrest attempt to deny civil liberties to workers. Therefore demand his release at trial. . ."

Richard Frey was found not guilty and Martin Halabian got off with a $1 fine, but last week Judge Cutler, in high dudgeon, found Western Union guilty of contempt. Said he: "The company, in its desire to get revenue, has neglected to make rules governing messages of this nature to the courts. It is just as responsible to the libel laws as a newspaper." Deaf to Western Union's plea that as a common carrier it is obliged by law to send messages "without discrimination"* and that in any case it had not published the telegrams, he fined the company $500.

*Western Union reserves the right, however, to edit messages which it thinks are profane, obscene or unquestionably libelous.

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