Medina v. Young

-As the first Government witness in the year-long antitrust suit against 17 investment banking houses (TIME, Dec. 11, 1950), Railroad Magnate Robert R. Young was in a saucy mood. Taking the stand to argue that competitive bidding on railroad bonds should be compulsory, Young last week fixed a cross-examining defense counsel with a stare. Said Young icily: "You are one of the few men here who is wiser than I am." Federal Judge Harold R. Medina cuffed him right back. Young's campaign to get competitive bidding on the Cincinnati Union Terminal Association in 1939, said Medina, had been "absolutely erroneous and stated something that was not fact, and you put it in a way so there was no defense. You put on the heat ... It was entirely the wrong thing to do."

Later, when Young appealed for protection against defense insinuations about his credibility, Medina snapped that the witness has no right to "show indignation to a United States judge." Furthermore, Medina took a dim view of Young's boast that he was often successful in taking his case to the public through full-page newspaper ads. "This is a courtroom," warned Medina, "and there will be no appealing to the public over the head of the judge . . . You are only a witness."

After scrapping with Young for seven days, Medina decided that Young was more like a newspaper columnist who "colors things up," than a witness who could prove the Government's case. Anyway, said Medina, he would certainly take Young's "hell-raising propensities" into account when he evaluated his testimony.

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