Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-12-22 | Page 3 | Walsh Witness in Berger Trial

s WALSH WITNESS IN BERGER TRIAL Tells of Dispute in July, 1917, With Postmaster General Burleson. CHICAGO, Dec. 21. Frank P. Walsh, former head of the federal industrial relations re-lations commission and later joint chairman chair-man of the federal war labor board, " was the principal witness for the defense at ' today's session of the trial of Congress- ' man-elect Victor L. Berger of Milwaukee Milwau-kee and four other Socialist leaders, 1 charged with conspiracy to violate the espionage law. TJfi told of a controversy he had with Postmaster General Burleson in July, 1917, Ht a hearing in Washington, D. C, over a ropiest -that the second-class mailing privilege he restored to the American Socialist and other papers. Walsh said he afterward wrote a letter to the post- j . master general protesting against the of- ( flcial's action and the department's - methods of handling this class of cases j and threatening to appeaJ to President Wilson. Postmaster General Burleson in ' his reply characterized 'Mr. Walsh's letter as "impertinent and probably intended to be offensive." Mr. Walsh testified that later he laid the case before President Wilson and suggested a number of reforms in the manner of handling these cases. The witness raid that his purpose in protesting pro-testing to the Washington officials was to safeguard the constitutional rights of free speech and a free press. He said he had read several copies of the American Socialist and a number of the antiwar pamphlets circulated by the Socialist party, but had not been greatly impressed by them. On cross-examination he drew a dis- tinction between what he thought should be barred from the mails and what should be excluded under the espionage law. He expressed the view that much of the; Socialist So-cialist antiwar literature might bo mailed without doing any harm. He said he did not agree with the Socialists So-cialists that it was a capitalistic war and vouchsafed the opinion that many persons per-sons who expect to make great fortunes out of the war would be sorely disappointed disap-pointed when they got through paying war taxes.