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{ { ' ‘ Clipping From Norfolk Virginian Pilot Date___ 8-10-42 Needless and Fruitless——~ Many Americans must have hoped, before the/ trial of William Dudley Pelley, king of the Silver Shirts, passed into history, for a better axis 5 of; the strange episode of jppearance as & witness, on Pel- | as summoning, “to corroborate,” as ‘ Pelley said) “certain statements I have made.” When Lindbergh took the witness chair, he was asked the usual identify- ing questions and thereafter (so far as available accounts show) only four . questions which have any connection « whatever with the issues of the case. One question dealt with Lindbergh's activilies on the America First fom mittee. He admitted the activities. The other dealt with his opinion of the attl tude of Americans toward the war. He thought “the majority of the people of ; bis couniry were opposed t getting ‘into war—that fs, before we were @t- | tacked.” A third question about his opinion of the American attitude now brought the reply that he was too busy , to know. A fourth questfon as to what he advocated brought a protest snd | was not answered. . The defense counsel “aid not crose- examine him. Total time he was in the witness chair—15 minutes. (By one |: account, 14 minutes.) Since Pelley had plans to subpoena a list of celebrated names as long as one’s arm, most of whom did not show up, it is not surprising that he called for Lindbergh. But the result suggests, without any refiection on Lindbergh, that this grandiose campaign was in } reality a farce. It required Lindbergh, who is now a consultant in the Ford mber plant and presumably engaged important war work, to travel from it to Indianapolis for 15 minutes ter 14) of needless and fruitless testl- smnony. What the jusy aa with the charges against Pelley is now in the record. But ‘ this whole business of summoning Lind- bergh remains an extracrdinary futtle= not ‘Ry Wly—performance. Rik Radalld woe Seen eR