Aviator Says New York Attorney Is Leftist Agent

Aviator Says New York Attorney Is Leftist Agent

Several Indictments Are Planned in Enlistment of Fliers for Spain.

New York, January 15, 1937 (Associated Press) Back from a month of dropping bombs on behalf of the Spanish loyalist government, Eddie Schneider, Jersey City, New Jersey, aviator, said today he was signed up by a New York lawyer to serve in the Spanish war at $1,500 a month. Schneider was questioned by Assistant United States Attorney John F. Dailey, Jr. who announced he would seek indictments from the Federal grand jury next week against several New Yorkers in connection with their enlistment of American aviators for Spanish service. Interviewed as entered Dailey's office, Schneider said the lawyer negotiated with him for his services and handed him his steamship ticket for transportation to Spain. The flier said he quit the war to comply with President Roosevelt's neutrality policy, and that the Spanish Embassy in Paris advanced him his fare home pending payment of his salary. Schneider said he participated in daily bombing raids in Spain for three weeks, flying remodeled sports planes and dropping bombs through a hole in the cockpit floor. He has a record of more than 2,000 air hours since 1928, and has set several transcontinental flying records, he said. He left here six weeks ago with Major Fred Lord, who is still in Spain. Dailey said it was unlikely the grand jury would hear testimony from Bert Acosta and Major Gordon Berry, free-lance fliers who returned yesterday from Spain and, whom Dailey questioned, but that agencies hiring Americans for Spanish service would be prosecuted "to the limit." The district attorney said Federal agents were investigating the stories told by Acosta and Berry.

Source: The Washington Post; January 16, 1937; page 7