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Show A 4 1 HEWF01GIH -GENTLE BIOS WHEN LAWYER OPENS CASE Counsel Tells Jury Newberry Ran Only at Wishes of Many Michigan Voters SENATOR'S PATRIOTIC STAND IS PRAISED, Not One Dollar of Defendant's! Money Handled by Anybody, j Attorney Asserts" GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., Feb. 3. Truman H. Newberry entered the 101S senatorial campaign in Michigan at. the solicitation of others and not in I furtherance of a scheme to get a seatj in the senate, said James O. MurfinJ of Detroit, in outlining to the jury in , United States district court the atli-l tudo the defense will assume toward j the charges of conspiracy and fraud for which 123 men are on trial. .Judge Murfin explained the do-! fenso's view of the specific details of the offenses charged in six counts of! the indictment, emphasizing that con-j spiracy-is the essence of the charges. ! " v ir -wapbinfeir out' "t'h'aV '6iTtIfek"fii'st" four counts "the gist of the charge is , not fraud in the election corruption in tho election, but that these respondent'? respond-ent'? are charged with conspiring to aid, abet, assist and encourage Truman Tru-man H. Newberry to commit an offense, of-fense, to-wit: 'The offense of expending expend-ing more of his money than the law allows.' " It was further argued that "under the Michigan law, as long as expenses come within the eleven enumerated j classes in the statute, there is no limit to the amount of money a committee of a candidate's friends can spend in his behalf." Red Hot Campaign. "It is my purpose." Judge Murfin told the jurors, "to point out to you in exact Retail everything that wasj done by anybody connected with this campaign. The campaign was unusually un-usually hot, and in analyzing and considering con-sidering what these respondents did, the atmosphere under which they did 1 it should be considered. j '"Our country was at war and the situation was critical in the extreme.; The fate of the civilized world was hanging in the balance. 1 "While there had been rumors inj Michigan that Henry Ford would be a, candidate for the senate, his candidacy candi-dacy was actually announced on June 11, 191S. "Rightly or wrongly there was a very general feeling that Mr. Ford did ! not represent the type of American I who at that critical juncture should represent his state in the United States senate, "Rightly or wrongly many people remembered his campaign against military mil-itary nrenaredness. Bitter Against Ford. "Rightly or wrongly many people remembered re-membered his well-meaning misguided efforts to bring about what now appears ap-pears would have been a German peace. Many people were bitter over tho fact that he was not active in the war and that none of his family had become active In the war. "On tho other hand Commander Newberry had had an honorablo record rec-ord in the Spanish-American war when in the navy. He had been secretary of the navy in the cabinet of that militant mili-tant American. Theodore Roosevelt. "Within 48 hours after our country threatened to enter the world Avar he volunteered and, in the spring of 1917 was commissioned a lieutenant-commander and made aide to the commandant com-mandant of the third naval district at New York. His brothers and his two: sons were also In military service. Combination of 'Circumstances. "This combination of circumstances aroused many a man in Michigan to the belief that it was his patilotic duty to do all in his power to assure the selection of Commander Newberry and we expect to show conclusively that they were prompted not by pay, but by patriotism that they wero actuated ac-tuated not by avarice, but by Americanism. Ameri-canism. "Getting into this campaign was not of tho choosing of Commander Newberry New-berry and ho entered with the utmost reluctance and only after repeated urging. As early as August, 1917, a group of representative citizens had a conference on the senatorial situation. situa-tion. In addition to the governor of the state, there attended a publisher, a banker, a lawyer, a soldier and business busi-ness man. "After canvassing the qualifications of other distinguished Republicans, it ,was their composite judgment that they should organiso a movement to elect Truman II. Newberry. Their desires de-sires were communicated to the commander com-mander (who by the way, never left his post of duty from the spring of 1917 until the war was over). Mr. Newberry New-berry expressed doubts as to the propriety pro-priety of his being a candidate and refused re-fused to consider the proposal. In December De-cember and January this movement continued to gather force until finally final-ly the commander seriously set out to determine whether it was his duty and would bo desirable for him to run. "It was not until this had all happened hap-pened that he consented to the use of his name. He stipulated that he could not leave bis duties; that he could not be active and that he could not contribute one dollar to this movement. move-ment. This determination not to bo active nor to contribute one cent was religiously adhered to by him from the beginning to tho end and the proof will positively show that not one dollar dol-lar of his money was ever handled by anyone. |