The Daily Worker

TAXI-FRAMEUP CASE WEAKENS

(Special to The DAILY WORKER.)

JERSEY CITY. Dec. 20.- Harold Meltzer, 18, on trial before Judge Kinkead charged with killing George Ewans, alias "Peanuts," a strike-breaker, during the taxi strike in West New York last April, took the stand in his own defense late this afternoon.

The youth denied having killed Ewans and stated that he never saw Henry Allan Dodge. Ewans' guard on the taxi he was driving when killed. until he was brot to the Hudson County jail to be picked from a line-up shortly after his arrest.

Covered With Blood

"I was put in line-up of 15 men," stated Meltzer. "At first Dodge said he could not identify me but those in charge urged him to continue. I was compelled to wear my hat which was covered with blood from the beating I received when arrested."

"Ewans passed me twice in the line-up and then stated: I think this is him.'"

The defendant stated that at the time of Ewans' murder he was home with his mother. sister and brothers due to his niece's illness. Meltzer also told of his arrest.

"When I asked why I was arrested," he said, "I was answered with a wallop on the head."

The defendant's mother preceded him on the stand and told of his being home on the night of the murder.

Many Workers Attend.

The trial has created a great deal of interest in this city and adjoining towns. The court is crowded with workers, many of them obviously taxi drivers who are dressed in their working clothes. Meltzer was still on the stand when court was adjourned until tomorrow morning.

JERSEY CITY, N. J.. Dec. 20.-

Ewans was killed while driving a taxi as a strikebreaker during the recent taxi-cab strike here. The prosecution is trying to prove that Meltzer and a woman companion rode in the cab, and then shot the driver after emerging. No eye-witness to the shooting has so far identified Meltzer as the shooter.

Bring In Sacco Case.

The prosecution's big gun this morning was Major Calvin Goodard, one of the firearms experts engaged by the state of Massachusetts to swear away the life of Sacco and Vanzetti. Goodard, in the Meltzer case as in the Sacco-Vanzetti case, stated that the bullets shown to him as those found in the dead man's body came from the gun of the suspect.

However, under cross examination, Goodard admitted he might be mistaken. Atty. Drewen for the defense

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Taxi Frame-up Case
Is Weakening in N. J.
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introduced into the evidence the fact that Goodard in the Sacco-Vanzetti case botched his testimony so badly that the Governor's commission, anx- ious to convict, was not able to use the evidence and ignored him alto- gether.

Moreover, the defense was able to show that Goodard had mangled an- other case in Cleveland, where he identified a suspect's gun as the one firing a mortal bullet. and proof was afterwards made that the gun was sold after the shooting took place.

Two More Fail State.

Mrs. Julia Brown was called on the stand to identify Meltzer as a man seen near the scene of the shooting, but refused to d so, John Kern, a taxi driver, was asked by the prose- cutor to identify Meltzer as a man who entered the Ewans taxicab. but he stated that he could not do it.

Defense Alibi Offered.

The defense opened with a state- ment by Attorney Geo. E. Cutley that Meltzer would prove an alibi. At the time of the shooting of the scab, said Cutley. Meltzer was at his home, 342 Pine St., Long Branch. He showed by the records that the police of Jersey City ran wild after the shooting, and arrested fifteen different people, charging them with the crime one after the other. and finally let four- teen of them go, holding only Meltzer.

Attacks Woman.

The first witness for the defense was Meltzer's sister, Lillian. who tes- tified that the boy lived with herself and her mother, and the witnesses' infant daughter. She is divorced. On the night of the murder both the wit- ness and Meltzer were awake nursing the child, which was ill, until two o'clock, and then fell asleep in the same room.

The district attorney raised the anger of spectators in the court room by making insinuations of bad char- acter against Meltzer's sister, accus- ing her of going to "resorts" and of posing as a Russian countess while in Florida (which state Lillian Meltzer left when ten years of age) and by inquiring into all details of her divorce from her husband.