524
PARTISAN REVIEW
labor movement, and other spectators. The room was always full to
overflowing. Diego Rivera sketched Dewey's face-and then slept
through most of the hearings.
At
10
a.m. on April
10, 1937,
the hearings were opened by John
Dewey with these words:
This Commission, like many millions of workers of city and coun–
try, of hand and brain, believes that no man should be condemned
without a chance
to
defend himself. The simple fact that we are
here is evidence that conscience demands that Mr. Trotsky be not
condemned before he has had full opportunity
to
present whatever
evidence is in his possession in reply to the guilty verdict returned
in a court where he was neither present nor represented.
If
Leon
Trotsky is guilty of the acts with which he is charged, no condem–
nation can be too severe....
Dewey concluded his opening speech with words that the philoso–
pher John
J.
McDermott says are "worthy of the famous speech by
Socrates in the
Apology
of Plato." Dewey said:
Speaking, finally, not for the Commission but for myself, I had
hoped that a chairman might be found whose experience better fit–
ted him for the difficult and delicate task
to
be performed . But I
have given my life to the work of education which I have conceived
to be that of public enlightenment in the interests of society.
If
I
finally accepted the responsible post I now occupy, it was because
I realized that
to
act otherwise would be false
to
my life's work.
With that, the hearing opened, Trotsky made his preliminary
remarks: "Esteemed commissioners. The composition of the Commis–
sion and the high authority of its chairman exclude the possibility that
the investigation would be anything but objective....My duty is simply
to try to help it in its work. I will try to accomplish this duty faithfully
before the eyes of the world." He did not repeat his offer to return to
the USSR for trial should he not be exonerated by the commissioners.
Albert Goldman, appointed to undertake the legal aspects of Trot–
sky's defense (even though Trotsky needed little assistance), said in his
initial statement, "We are determined to convince the members of this
commission, and everyone who reads and thinks with an independent
mind,
beyond all doubt,
that Leon Trotsky and his son are guiltless of
the monstrous charges made against them."
