UNHAPPY HYPOCRITE

Not satisfied with having committed political suicide last month, Governor Hoffman is now busily tearing up whatever shreds of reputation were left to him. On Saturday evening, after Liebowitz had announced his unwillingness to interest himself further in Hauptmann's defense, Hoffman made a statement to the press which was both cowardly and inconsistent with his previous utterances. Although "more convinced than ever" that the case was still unsolved, Hoffman declared that he would not grant a second reprieve.

He could not have repudiated more strikingly the explanation which he gave for postponing the execution last month. Then in justifying his action he said, "I . . . share with hundreds of thousands of our people the doubt as to the value of the evidence that placed (Hauptmann) in the Lindbergh nursery on the night of the crime . . ." Although he has at the present time stronger doubts than ever, he does not intend to defer the execution again.

So far Hoffman has not missed an opportunity to discredit himself with the world at large. When he granted Hauptmann a reprieve barely a day before the appointed time of execution, and then failed to bring forward any new evidence, many people voiced the suspicion that he was making a particularly cheap bid for publicity. Now out of his own month he has given proof of his moral cowardice.