At Le Mars

"Take off your hats and stop smoking in my court room."

Looking up from beneath his green eyeshade, Judge Charles Clark Bradley, 54, addressed his command to a rowdy crew of lowans who were shoving their way into his small court room at Le Mars (pop.: 4,788) one afternoon last week. Some were farmers in ragged overalls. Others looked like blackshirted hoodlums from nearby Sioux City. They kept their hats on, continued to smoke. Before the tall bachelor on the bench were cases involving a first test of the new state law to suspend farm mortgage foreclosures. One of the intruders arrogantly demanded to be heard. Judge Bradley silenced him. The crowd growled.

Next thing Judge Bradley knew he was being yanked off his bench and dragged out to the court house lawn. Dozens of rough hands were mauling him.

"Will you swear you won't sign no more mortgage foreclosures?" demanded a man with a blue bandana across his face.

"I can't promise any such thing," was Judge Bradley's quiet answer.

Someone struck him in the mouth, jeered: "Will you swear now?" The jurist toppled to his knees. His teeth felt loose but he managed to reply: "No, I won't swear."

A truck rattled up. Judge Bradley was thrown up into it. A dirty handkerchief was tied across his eyes. The truck drove a mile out of town, stopped at a lonely crossroad. Again the judge was asked to sign no more foreclosures. Again he refused. He was slapped and kicked, knocked to the ground, jerked back to his feet. A rope was tied about his neck. The other end was thrown over a roadside sign. The noose tightened. Judge Bradley wheezed, thought they were killing him.

"Now will you swear to sign no more foreclosure orders?" asked a voice.

"No," gasped the half-unconscious judge.

From the truck a greasy hubcap was unscrewed, clapped down on his head. "That's his crown!" crowed some youngster. Oily slime ran down the judge's face. His tormentors threw dirt at him which stuck to the grease.

"Get down on your knees and pray!" was the next command.

"I'll gladly do that," said Judge Bradley as he was led back to the middle of the road. Kneeling, he prayed: "Oh, Lord, I pray thee, do justice to all men." "Will you swear-- "No!" Off came Judge Bradley's trousers, to be smeared with grease and filled with dirt. After a final round of slaps and punches, the rural mobsters sped away. A minister's son, passing in a car, helped Judge Bradley clean his trousers and get back in them, drove him into Le Mars. He was not seriously hurt. That a State Judge should be thus outraged in Le Mars came as no great surprise to the rest of Iowa. Le Mars, a tough little fester of farm unrest, last summer generated the farm strike idea which enlisted widespread support among idle farmers looking for trouble. One disorder followed another as Sioux City toughs mixed violence with "striking." Le Mars was one of the first towns to thwart farm foreclosures by physical force. Its recent behavior has given it a bad name as a lawless community rough throughout Iowa and the Midwest. But what was hard for lowans to understand was why Judge Bradley was picked as victim of last week's outburst. A fair & square jurist, he had never done anything on the bench, where he had sat for 15 years, to antagonize local farmers. He was not a wealthy man; his $5,000 per year salary was about all he had. He liked to go fishing with his farmer friends. Back in Le Mars from the crossroad Judge Bradley refused to identify his assailants or to press prosecution. Clyde Herring, Iowa's dapper, white-haired Governor, flayed the Bradley attack as "a vicious and criminal conspiracy and assault, threatening a complete break-down of all law and order." He put Plymouth County under martial law, dispatched 250 guardsmen there to find the culprits and keep the peace. Said Gov- ernor Herring: "We'll stop this high-handed disregard of law if it takes every soldier in the U. S. to do it." He denounced the Plymouth County sheriff as a "weak sister who hasn't the nerve to enforce the law." Martial law was extended to idle counties when farmers had stopped foreclosure sales. Some 60 persons were arrested by guardsmen, shipped to Sioux City to await military trials.

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