Shushan to Trial

Nobody could put his finger on a dollar of it, but ever since the late Huey P. Long rose to power there has been persistent talk of the rich graft which his Louisiana political machine was supposed to be pocketing. Meantime the Federal Government has harried individual Longsters with one of the most spirited income tax investigations on record. Result was indictment last year of eight Long followers for income tax evasion. Last spring the Government warmed up with State Representative Joe Fisher, a petty henchman, put him in the penitentiary for 18 months. Last week it went to the mat with its first big-time Longster when Abraham Lazard Shushan was brought to trial in New Orleans on a charge of evading Federal taxes on $448,000 of a 1929-33 income of $607,000.

"Abe" Shushan, squat, swart dry goods wholesaler, has been well rewarded for the helping hand he gave Huey Long at the start. Grateful Governor Long made him an honorary colonel, showered his firm with fat, noncompetitive contracts to supply the State with such things as prison uniforms. His crowning reward was the presidency of the New Orleans Levee Board, with permission to build and name for himself a $4,000,000 airport having "Shushan" engraved 3,200 times on its metal, stone, tile and bronze. It was he who, as a bosom friend, stayed by Long's death bed. rushed out with the first news of his passing.

While he lived. Boss Long never ceased crying that the income tax investigation was a monstrous New Deal conspiracy to "get'' him. Last week there was no evidence that his removal had in any way cooled the Government's ardor. To supplant the local U. .S. District Attorney as prosecutor, it had taken onetime (1930-33) National Prohibition Director Amos Walter Wright Woodcock away from his duties as president of St. John's College, sworn him in as a Special Assistant Attorney General. From Augusta. Ga. went lean, firm-principled Federal District Judge William Hale Barrett to preside. The Government registered 150 witnesses. Chief defense counsel was a local attorney named Hugh M. Wilkinson, loud-voiced onetime law partner of Huey Long. According to intimates, he was Defendant Shushan's second choice, picked on Long's personal orders.

Prosecutor Woodcock opened his case before the jury of eleven white businessmen and a Negro dentist by charging that Defendant Shushan had exacted personal tribute of 2-c- per cubic yard from the contractors who dredged the fill for his airport and seawalls. When the quiet, incisive prosecutor twice referred to these payments as "graft," Counsel Wilkinson leaped up, demanded a mistrial. He was overruled. On the stand a string of dredging company officials supported and elaborated the Government's charge, pieced together a devious tale of threats and intimidation, of large cash sums passed quietly to Shushan or his go-betweens. Loudly Counsel Wilkinson protested that these "rebates" were simply campaign contributions which passed through Shushan's hands as a collector for the Long machine.

The defense admitted then, softly queried Prosecutor Woodcock, that Colonel Shushan had received the money?

"I am not called upon to disclose my plans for the defense," snapped Counsel Wilkinson.

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