Intermission

So far as the Grand Jury was concerned, "The Hopkins Letter" was now "The Briggs Letter." Fat-faced little George N. Briggs, grammarian to Secretary Harold L. Ickes, was indicted for forgery, for using the mails to defraud and for obtaining money under false pretenses.

Briggs, the grand jury believed, had faked a letter from Harry Hopkins to Dr. Umphrey Lee, president of Southern Methodist University (who had never received it)--a letter that suggested that Hopkins wanted Willkie to get the Republican Presidential nomination. The literary hatchet-man who put it in a book thought it proved that Willkie was a New Deal stooge.

The rest of the dramatis personae of the capital's melodorous mystery thriller, the jury decided, had nothing to do with the case, excepting C. Nelson Sparks, the ex-Mayor of Akron. The role assigned to him was that of the victim: he-had innocently published the phony letter in his garbled assault on One Man--Wendell Willkie.

By the time the trial rolled around there might be other victims--victims of eager political rumor and diligent speculation. Briggs pleaded not guilty. The trial was weeks away. For how many men was Briggs the goat? How much smoke proves a fire? There was plenty of time. Republican Senator William Langer of North Dakota, who had made a 57-page speech when he introduced the full cast of the mystery to the Senate, announced that he planned to make another.

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