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Rep. Sweeney Loses Libel Suit over Column Which Called Him Anti-semite

January 14, 1941
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Rep. Martin L. Sweeney of Ohio has lost his $250,000 libel suit against The Clarksburg Exponent, based on the paper’s publication of a “Washington Merry-Go-Round” column by Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen which accused Sweeney of anti-Semitism. Federal Judge Harry E. Watkins, in charging the jury, said the column “is furnishing not only interesting reading, but is rendering an important public service.”

The column reported in September, 1939, that Sweeney was the spokesman for Father Coughlin and that he had opposed the appointment of a foreign-born Jews, Emerich Freed, to the Federal bench in Cleveland. The jury held the column had told the truth.

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