Publicity & Potatoes

National attention focused on the Governors of three States last month when pleas for executive clemency were urged in behalf of a political zealot, a convicted bomber and a 12-year-old murderer (TIME, Dec. 7). Of the three prisoners, only one continued last week to hope for mercy.

P: In Olympia, Wash., Governor Roland H. Hartley announced that so far as he was concerned, Herbert Franklin Niccolls. 12, who shot a peace officer from behind a grocery store's pickle barrel, would remain in the Walla Walla penitentiary for the rest of his life. Denied was the petition of Father Edward J. Flanagan that the boy be released in his custody, allowed to go to Father Flanagan's home for waifs and waywards near Omaha, Neb. In making his decision public, Governor Hartley did not conceal his irritation at Father Flanagan's intercession. The priest had journeyed from Omaha to Seattle. His plea was strongly backed by Washington's Press, Pulpit and American Legion. "Apparently," Governor Hartley wrote to Father Flanagan, "many persons do not realize that the moment Herbert stepped outside the boundaries of this State he would be free. . . . Legal authority over the boy could not be vested in you or any other agency outside of this State by executive action. . . . After Herbert's trial was concluded and the boy delivered to the penitentiary, you entered the case, seizing the opportunity to direct nation-wide attention to your boys' home, facilitated by the sensational publicity that attended the trial." Retorted Father Flanagan: "[Governor Hartley] stepped into the gutter of ward politics. ... To me it sounds like the political mutterings of a whipped political boss. Father Flanagan's Boys' Home doesn't need publicity."

P: Pausing from his potato-peeling in San Quentin prison, Thomas Mooney said that he was convinced that Governor James ("Sunny Jim") Rolph Jr. of California would not grant him the pardon for which Mayor James John ("Jimmy") Walker of New York went 3,000 mi. to beg last month. "Not a chance," said Prisoner Mooney, on the eve of his sixteenth Christmas behind bars since he and Warren K. Billings were convicted of bombing San Francisco's 1916 Preparedness Day parade. "Powers of business and politics will dictate Governor Rolph's decision. ... It looks as though I would go on for a long time peeling potatoes."*

P: In Philadelphia, Orlandi Spartaco, whose antiFascism impelled him to jump on the running board of visiting Foreign Minister Dino Grandi's car two months ago and shout insults, was released from jail on $1,000 bail. The Italian statesman had pleaded with Governor Gifford Pinchot to release Zealot Spartaco from a two-year prison sentence.

*Last week Prisoner Mooney accepted honorary chairmanship of an "international workers' counter-Olympic meet" to be held at Chicago this year. Sponsored by the International Labor Defense, the meet is calculated to boycott the Los Angeles Olympics because Los Angeles is in California and California holds Mooney prisoner.

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