Earle's Brawl

Governor George Howard Earle, who pictures himself as Pennsylvania's counterpart of Franklin Roosevelt, once hailed the latter's plan to New Dealize the U. S. Supreme Court as "the greatest advance for democracy in our lifetime." Last week Mr. Earle, embroiled in a fight to clear his name of grave charges (political corruption, blackmail, extortion, conspiracy to defraud the Commonwealth), turned on Pennsylvania's Supreme Court, said it was threatening a "judicial dictatorship" like the Inquisition, the Bloody Assizes, the Court of the Star Chamber. He urged a special session of the Pennsylvania General Assembly to investigate not only him but also the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, for "gross abuse" of its authority in "a shameless political conspiracy engineered by the Republican leadership ... a barrage of poison gas."

This astonishing brawl between Executive and Judiciary had its origins in a Democratic primary squabble last spring. The Governorship, from which rich, ambitious, amateurish Mr. Earle hopes to spring to the U. S. Senate, was coveted by Mr. Earle's Attorney General, Charles J. Margiotti who, like George Earle, was formerly a Republican. Mr. Margiotti charged Mr. Earle's colleagues--upon whose behavior he was presumably a behind-scenes expert--with horrid crimes. The Governor bade his" Attorney General substantiate the charges and prosecute. When Margiotti failed to do so, Earle fired him (TIME, May 9).

Mr. Earle & friends won the primaries.Mr. Margiotti & friends lost. Instead of making peace with GovernorEarle, like Senator Joe Guffey, Mr. Margiotti went to his Republican cronies in Dauphin County (Harrisburg) and got District Attorney Carl B. Shelley to start a Grand Jury investigation of the Earle regime. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, 6-to-1 Republican, refused to halt this move. Governor Earle then turned to the General Assembly, Democratic by 150-to-53 in the House, 34-to-16 in the Senate. A special session would cost Pennsylvania's taxpayers anywhere from $300,000 to $750,000 but Governor Earle called one, giving 23 reasons besides the chief one, which he said was: "To repel an unprecedented judicial invasion of the executive and legislative branches of our Government."

Amid a blizzard of protesting telegrams from anti-Earle Pennsylvanians, through House and Senate last week were quickly steamrollered four Earle bills: 1) reserving to the House prior right to investigate State officers for impeachable offenses; 2) enabling the Attorney General to supersede any local prosecutor in any such trial in the courts; 3) suspending the Dauphin County Grand Jury's investigation; 4) creating a House committee to investigate Mr. Earle & friends, with power to jail reluctant witnesses.

This week the legislative committee was scheduled to begin investigating. Probable result: vindication, deserved or whitewashed, of the Earle administration. Possible results: 1) the Supreme Court may declare one or more of the steamrollered Earle bills unconstitutional; 2) impeachment proceedings may be started against some members of the Supreme Court, who Senator Guffey last week said "debased themselves and their offices by accepting the equivalent of cash from the House of Morgan.*

* In the Pecora investigation of Wall Street in 1933, upon the House of Morgan's "preferred list" of friends for special treatment in the issuance of securities, appeared the names of Pennsylvania's Chief Justice John W. Kephart and Justice William I. Schaffer.

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