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Show THE THREE-RING CIRCUS 165 sentation, and Committee Chairman Byrne at once asked Murdock to call the first opposition spokesman. Now Arizona made a thinly veiled attempt to delay the Judiciary Committee hearings. Murdock arose to in- form Byrne that he had no authority to say who would speak for Arizona. A committee had been appointed from Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, said Murdock, and it was up to the committee, not up to him, to say who would testify.203 Shaw would not accept such tactics, and he informed Byrne that Arizona had previously announced that its spokesman would be J. H. Moeur. Moeur, Shaw de- clared, was then staying in Washington at the Hay- Adams Hotel. Murdock still demurred, saying only that he would try to get some word out of the opposition committee. Byrne, obviously angered, told him: "That's all right, congressman. It does not matter whether you do it or somebody else." 204 He ordered the clerk of the Judiciary Committee to get in touch with "the gentle- men of the opposition." Then he said sternly: "Delays here will not be interminable. We are not going to lallygag or delay just for the purpose of delay. The committee is very serious about this matter, and is anxious to have both sides heard; and we are not meeting here for the purpose of giving an opportunity for delay." Thereupon, he set the next hearing one week off, for Monday, April 4, 1949, and adjourned. But when Byrne called his committee to order on April 4, the Arizona witnesses were not present. Rep. Hinshaw registered a vigorous objection.205 "I can only say to your committee," he told Byrne, |
