Dec 30, 2021
Podcast #27 is short, covering the testimony of Mrs. Priscilla
Hiss and the “character witnesses.” Mrs. Hiss corroborates
her husband down the line. However, she is notably nervous on
the witness stand, and admits to changing her story in a few ways,
all favorable to her husband, since The Grand Jury. Favorable
testimony by family members is risky. It’s a “dog bites man”
story, no surprise. You don’t expect them to incriminate
their loved ones, especially the family breadwinner back when women
couldn’t get good jobs. On the other hand, any slip up is a
“man bites dog” story, and that can hurt the
defendant. The “character witnesses” were almost two
dozen eminent personages who testified to Hiss’s good or excellent
reputation for loyalty and truthfulness. Some of them,
however, slipped up a bit. On the whole, they probably helped
Hiss.
FURTHER RESEARCH:
I noted in Podcast #2 that Mrs. Hiss was something of a scold,
disliked by Hiss’s mother and many of his male friends. She
was ‘an uppity woman’ by the standards of her time. She
graduated from college and took some grad school courses, and was
the co-author of a book “Research in Fine Arts in the Colleges and
Universities of the United States.” (I found a copy on
Amazon!). William Marbury, a childhood friend of Hiss and one of
his major attorneys, wrote that “[t]here was a great deal of the
knight-errant in [Alger’s] make-up, and the girls to whom he
attached himself . . . were almost always in some sort of
difficulty.” (Marbury at 76.). Marbury thought that Priscilla
was “a rather self-assertive woman, who had no intention of letting
Alger ‘steal the show.’ It almost seemed as if she resented
the attention which his friends paid to him. Like Anthony
Trollope’s Mrs. Proudie, she would interrupt him when he was asked
for his opinion and would answer for him.” (Marbury at 77.).
When Marbury was talking with both Alger and Priscilla in
preparation of Alger’s libel suit, Marbury wrote “I found my
interview with Priscilla somewhat mistifying. . . .I got the
impression that she felt that in some way she was responsible for
the troubles that had come to Alger.” (Marbury at
88.)
Concerning the character witnesses for Hiss, I pass on one
‘inside’ observation. When I was a lawyer, I worked in the
same place as an attorney who, long before, had clerked for Stanley
Reed, one of the Supreme Court Justices who testified to Hiss’s
reputation. I emailed this lawyer once, noting my interest in
the Case. I also reminded him that both Reed and Felix
Frankfurter had testified for Hiss, and asked if he had any
memories that he wished to share with me. He replied that
Frankfurter had testified voluntarily, that Reed had insisted on
being subpoenaed, and that Reed thought that Frankfurter should
have insisted on being subpoenaed, too.
Questions: Do you think Mrs. Hiss’s testimony helped or
hurt the Defense on the whole? Did her corroboration of her
husband add any weight to his testimony, perhaps by adding a few
facts and details that added life and credibility to her husband’s
larger story? Did her nervous manner and her slips hurt his
case more than her corroboration helped it? If she had not
testified, on the other hand, would her absence have been
conspicuous enough to hurt her husband? Does it help to get
five Judges (including two from The Supreme Court!), Ambassadors,
and past and future candidates for President say that everyone
thought the world of you? What sort of reputation does a good
spy have? Or is that a cheap shot against so many esteemed
personages? If you were a lower middle class member of the
jury with a high school education, would all this Establishment
firepower bowl you over? Or might you be offended by all the
Harvard grads telling you what to think?