And Justice For All. Stephen Ellmann

And Justice For All - Stephen Ellmann


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phone calls to set up interview appointments for Arthur. He recalled, not for the first time in his interview with Friedman, that his mother was a dominant figure; it was nothing to her to call people up to have them do something.19

      Arthur was initially articled to the attorney Claude Michael Reitz, son of Deneys Reitz (the firm’s founder). Michael Reitz, however, was a pilot and died in an aerobatic display in 1952. After that Arthur went to work with Charlie Johnson. Johnson deeply impressed Arthur, who called him ‘exceptionally brilliant’, and the feeling evidently was mutual. Arthur would later describe Johnson as one of the smartest lawyers he had ever known, and remember with admiration Johnson’s ability to encounter a legal matter and immediately dictate a concise memo, or a draft contract, to resolve it. Once, Arthur recalled, Johnson asked him for his views on one of these new matters; Arthur ventured a response based on its ‘look[ing] to me like something I had seen in mercantile law contracts for the benefit of third parties – some insurance thing – and I said I thought it might be that’. Johnson at once embodied Arthur’s point in ‘A note to Mr Jacobson [another partner] from Mr Chaskalson’. Arthur said, ‘I was actually quite shattered by that.’20 Johnson – besides teaching Arthur incisive, quick judgement – must have been impressed by what Arthur had offered. Later, Johnson invited Arthur to join the firm as a full-fledged attorney, but Arthur’s heart was set on coming to the Bar as an advocate. Along the way, however, Arthur had learned enough insurance law that he would be invited to write the annual chapter on developments in this field in the Annual Survey of South African Law when he was still a young advocate – and the Deneys Reitz firm would send cases (‘briefs’) to him, contributing to the rapid growth of his practice at the Bar.

      A moment in Adrian Friedman’s discussion with Arthur about Charlie Johnson is perhaps more revealing about Arthur himself than about Johnson. Friedman thoughtfully asked Arthur why Johnson, whose capacity for fast and authoritative legal reasoning seemed to embody at least part of what advocates in South Africa pride themselves on, had not become an advocate. Arthur, who had already said that Johnson was ‘a very shy man’, first responded that ‘I don’t think he had the personality for that’. Adrian followed up by asking if Johnson was ‘too shy’, and then Arthur became unsure: ‘I don’t think – you know – I can’t tell you.’ Arthur’s first answer was clearly his intuitive judgement; why did he become so hesitant when asked to explain his view? One answer may be that Arthur was always more comfortable describing the work that was being done – he spoke at length about Johnson’s work style – than in analysing emotions. Another possibility is that he abhorred making negative judgements about others. Both of these may be part of the shyness and the politeness that Arthur showed over many years. But it’s clear Arthur was also fond of Johnson.

      Two other moments from this period shed some light on Arthur’s developing political awareness. One comes directly from his articles. As he told Adrian Friedman, ‘there was an attempt to form an articled clerks’ association and there was a meeting. I went to the meeting and came back – it was obviously going to fail – articled clerks can’t really have an association because the turnover is too quick. You know, within a short time you are a boss.’ He had no wish to pursue a vain course of action. But it is interesting that he told Charlie Johnson about this meeting, and Johnson in turn indiscreetly told Jacobson, the senior partner. Jacobson ‘got very upset and sent for me. He says, I hear you are not satisfied with your position, and he went on at great length about articled clerks and about when he was young you had to pay to become a clerk and went on and on and then suddenly he said, well if you people say you don’t get enough work, come and look at this.’ Then he handed Arthur a 60-page debenture trust deed and said, ‘Go and look at that and see what you think of it!’ Arthur recalls: ‘I was, really I was, fairly taken aback by the whole incident, and Johnson was in the room at the time and was a little bit upset at what had happened and apologised to me because he had made a joke.’ Perhaps learning a lesson in discretion in the process, Arthur dealt with this problem by analysing the document ‘clause by clause’, and reflected that ‘In fact I had wonderful articles – really I wasn’t the messenger boy, I did terrific things.’21 The articled clerks’ life was not all work: Rusty Rostowsky recalls that the clerks used to get together every Thursday for lunch at Delmonico’s in downtown Johannesburg.22

      The other political moment was decidedly extracurricular. Arthur’s older brother Sydney recalls that he (Sydney) had become active in the Torch Commando, an organisation built around World War II veterans, which made it its mission to protect political meetings of the United Party, the opposition party of its day, against physical disruption by National Party toughs. Though Sydney had not been in the war, he had received military training to assist in Israel’s war of independence, which ended before he could go. This military involvement, Sydney felt, ‘qualified’ him to become part of the Torch Commando, and he went on to become one of its leaders.23 Sydney invited Arthur to join him at Torch Commando events, three in all, probably in early 1952. Sydney recalled the details of the Vrededorp and Edenvale events in an email to Adrian Friedman:

       I remember asking Arthur to join me and many others on a march from the City Hall to Vrededorp, to support Marais Steyn the U.P. Member speaking there.

       I remember also our mother saying ‘Arthur can go, but you must look after him’.

       My friend Harry Bowman couldn’t come but sent his young brother Alan, enjoining me to ‘look after Alan’.

       Marching there we were pelted with stones from the nearby Brixton Cemetery.

       This continued when we arrived at Vrededorp, and a contingent of police fixed bayonets and faced us so as that we could not get at the stone-throwers.

       Marching back the hail of stones increased in size and ferocity, next to me, Alan Bowman was hit by a stone and broke his pelvis. I bent down to attend to him, and the next thing I saw was Arthur taking off, jumping the low cemetery wall and returning fire to the stone-throwers – so much for my chaperon duties.

       On another occasion I asked Arthur to bring some friends to a march to Edenvale – he brought young Reitz. Arthur was articled to Deneys Reitz, Jacobson and Effune.

       Young Reitz was hit on the head by a stone, badly hurt.

       Afterwards I stopped asking Arthur for help.24

      With the exception of Arthur’s brother Sydney, no one whom I’ve asked about these events (including Arthur’s widow) has ever heard of Arthur’s role in them. But several striking details of what Sydney recounts are confirmed by contemporary news coverage. The Rand Daily Mail of 18 June 1952 carries an article called ‘Torchmen Angry over Scenes at Vrededorp’, accompanied by pictures of those injured, including Alan Bowman, whose broken pelvis is mentioned.25 An article two days later on these events (one of many) is headlined ‘Nat. Gangs Started Stonethrowing before Meeting’.26 The description Sydney gives of the events at Vrededorp is partially confirmed by Louis Kane-Berman, then national chairman of the Torch Commando. He writes:

       Another meeting which was memorable was an open air meeting held at Vrededorp, a nationalist stronghold. About 3000 torchmen marched to the meeting place. The speakers stood on a hastily erected platform behind which was a derelict wall. Suddenly a hail of half bricks and stones were thrown from behind the wall which fortunately caused only a number of minor injuries, with the result that the meeting broke up. The assailants, of whom there were a great number, were roughly manhandled whereafter the men marched in good order back to the assembly area.27

      Arthur would have been 20 at the time of these events. He was, in other words, a young man. No doubt he was impulsive. No doubt he was well aware of his own athletic ability and strength. And, if Sydney’s recollection is correct, he was under physical attack. Moreover, he was brave. But it is still startling to see him engaged in ‘returning fire to the stone-throwers’. He was not, at this moment, non-violent. Nor was he, at this moment, precisely bound by the law; whatever the exact dimensions of self-defence in this setting, Arthur’s response seems to have been guided by anger rather than close calculation.

      But Sydney’s reading was that Arthur was very


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