Jail for Ten?

Contempt of Congress is a criminal offense, and is usually punished as such. In 1929 Oilman Harry F. Sinclair was sent to jail for three months* for refusing to answer a Congressional Committee's questions on his company's dealings. In 1935 William P. MacCracken Jr., secretary of the American Bar Association and a former Assistant Secretary of Commerce, was put behind bars for the destruction of subpoenaed papers.

Last week Screen Writers Dalton Trumbo and John Howard Lawson, who had been found guilty of contempt by District of Columbia juries, were each sentenced to one year in jail and a fine of $1,000. The other eight of Hollywood's "unfriendly ten"--who had also refused to answer when asked whether or not they were Communists--waived jury trials. They agreed to rest their fate on the outcome of appeals to higher courts by Trumbo and Lawson.

* While still in jail, Sinclair was sentenced to six additional months for contempt of court for hav ing jurors shadowed.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.