This Month
EXCERPT from transcript of proceedings before House Committee on Peculiar Activities, a few years hence:
Q.—Now I want you to tell this committee whether you are now or ever have been a member of the secret organization known as Rotary International.
A. — Positively not.
Q. — Were you ever a Realtor?
A. — I refuse to answer by advice of counsel.
Q. — Did you ever join a Kiwanis Club?
A. — No.
Q. — Are you sure?
A. — Absolutely.
Q. — It has been testified here that you were a member of the Woodmen of the World, the Optimists Club, and the Tall Cedars of Lebanon. Think carefully. Did you or did you not belong to any or all of these organizations?
A. — I did not.
Q. — Did you ever support, directly or indirectly, any of the organizations about which I have asked you?
A. — No.
Q. — I offer in evidence a news story from the Nirvana Evening Chronicle, dated Tuesday, August 7, 1934, as it appeared under your byline, and I read you the opening paragraph:—
Nirvana is not only the fastest growing town in Central Ohio, but by 1950 its population will have doubled to 44,000, Dr. J. Seabury Rataplan, famed humanologist, told a record turnout of Kiwanians here today. In an inspiring talk . . .
Now, sir, didn’t you write that story, those words which I have just read to the committee? Yes or no?
A. — I must have.
Q. —Assuming that you did write that account, just who was Dr. J. Seabury Rataplan?
A. — I have no idea.
Q. —Ah, you have no idea. You did not know, I dare say, for what he was famous?
A. — Not at all.
Q. —So that, when you referred to him as a “famed humanologist,” you were deliberately creating a false impression?
A. — Every Nirvana luncheon club speaker was “famed.'
Q. —What is a “humanologist”?
A. — I don’t know.
Q. But you did attend meetings of these organizations?
A. — Thousands of them.
Q. — Were not these meetings clandestine?
A. — No, they all wanted lots of publicity.
Q. —And you helped them get it?
A. — Only in the course of my duties —
Q. — Never mind that. By the way, just where were meetings of this kind held:
A. — Usually at the Nirvana Arms — Parlor A, I believe.
Q. — Let me put you this question: Did you ever wear a paper hat ?
A. — Once only.
Q. — You were not in the habit of wearing a paper hat on other occasions ?
A. — I was not.
Q. — Now I ask you whether other persons present in Parlor A on this occasion were also wearing paper hats. Were they?
A. — They were.
Q. — You were, and they were. But you still want the committee to believe that you were not a member of this organization — in this case the Optimists, wasn’t it? Never mind. I withdraw the question and ask you to admit that you did in fact contribute financially to the support of the Kiwanis Club.
A. — I did not.
Q. — Perhaps this will refresh your recollection. I shall read now an entry from Exhibit 734-A, Treasurer’s Account Book, Nirvana Kiwanis Club, page 36, under date of August 20, 1934, headed “Fines Collected.” Opposite your name is the notation: “Fifty cents.” I challenge you to explain why a nonmember of this organization should pay a “fine" to its treasury.
A. — That was for keeping my coat on.
Q. — For keeping your coat on?
A. — All the members lunched in their shirt sleeves at summer meetings. After I paid the fine I had to take my coat off too.
Q. — Oh, your story now is that you didn’t keep your coat on? And are we to believe that it was taken off by force? I think you said, “I had to take it off . . .”
A. — Correct.
Q. — Even though, as you insist, you were not a member? Well, what else occurred at this extraordinary luncheon? Was there roaring? Strike that out. Wasn’t there singing?
A. —In a sense, yes.
Q. — And what, may I ask, were some of the “songs”?
A. — “Smiles,” “Jingle Bells,” and “Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag.”
Q. — What was the purpose of this so-called “singing”?
A. — I have no idea.
Q. — You sang, with the others?
A. — Everybody sang. Everybody had to sing.
Q. — Indeed. Yet you were never told why?
A. — Never.
Q. — You were “fined” again on this occasion, were you not ?
A. — Twenty-five cents.
Q. — Can you tell us why?
A. — Well, there was a man at our table whom I didn’t know very well — a mortician by the name of George Schlemmerschnitte; so when I spoke to him I called him George — instead of using his nickname.
Q. — If, as you say, you didn’t know him very well, how did you know that he had a nickname?
A. — It was on his identification badge —
Q. — Oh, so they had “identification badges”? What was this mortician’s nickname?
A. — “Butch.”
Q, — Were the other members using assumed names or, as you see fit to describe them, nicknames?
A. — All of them.
Q. — I have only one more question: I assume from your version of what Dr. Rataplan told the Kiwanians that the population of Nirvana at the time was some 22,000. This was to become 44,000, according to your report. Now I ask you: What was, in fact, the population of Nirvana in the 1950 Census?
A. — 18,746.
Q. — You may step down.