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EZRA POUND 19
the hospital containing mostly senile patients who were harmless.
This was a belated response to the vigorous protests of some of
Pound's visitors, such as T. S. Eliot, who had been horrified by the
medieval surroundings in which the poet had been imprisoned.
Dorothy Pound had finally learned through the press that her
husband was imprisoned in Washington. When she arrived there,
her funds were nearly exhausted. Government officials promptly
declared her an "enemy alien", although she had been married to
an American citizen for forty-two years. As an enemy alien, she
was not allowed to draw upon her savings in England. Cummings
and Hemingway generously advanced money, which carried her
through those difficult days. She was allowed to visit her husband
for only fifteen minutes each afternoon, as she began a vigil that
was to last for more than twelve years. A guard was present during
these brief meetings. Dr. Overholser explained this extra precaution
by saying that Pound was under indictment for the most serious
offense in American jurisprudence.
On January 29, 1947, Ezra's attorney, Julian Cornell, appeared
before Judge Bolitha Laws in Washington and asked for bail, as
he had done several times before. He cited Dr. Overholser's statement
that Pound would never "improve" while being kept at St.
Elizabeths. Cornell argued that if Pound could be given bail, he
could be removed from St. Elizabeths and placed in a private
institution. The government attorney argued that this "merely
would place him (Pound) in a happier and more comfortable position",
thus indirectly admitting that almost any institution would
be more comfortable than St. Elizabeths. This was reported in the
New York Times of February 1, 1947.
This argument exposed the government's position in keeping
Pound at St. Elizabeths as a punishment, rather than as a patient
suffering from mental illness. Judge Laws denied the defense attorney's
motion for bail, and the order was signed by Assistant
Attorney General Theron Caudle, who was soon to win fame as
the hero of the "mink coat" scandal.
The use of the term "mental illness" as a weapon to dispose of
political opponents is by no means rare in American history. A
recent book, The Trial of Mary Todd Lincoln, by James A. Rhodes
and Dean Jauchius (Indianapolis, The Bobbs-Merrill Company,