Martha Stewart Made a Mistake
But She is Far From the Worst

By Henry J. Stern
December 29, 2004

Yesterday's column on the earthquake and tsunami dealt with a subject so important and so sad that it would have been inappropriate to write about any other issues at that time.  To do so would have been like writing a letter of condolence at a major tragedy, and then discussing what to feed the cat.
 
Today we return to more prosaic subjects, mostly the vagaries of human behavior as they apply to law enforcement.
 
The next two paragraphs are a literary digression.

You may or may not have heard of a poem, which begins: "Every day is a fresh beginning, every morn is the world made new."  It was written by Susan Coolidge (1835-1905), which was the pen name of Sarah Chauncey Woolsey, who was related to Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts, the minister Jonathan Edwards and three presidents of Yale.  This talented woman moved from her home in Cleveland to New Haven, but never went to college.
 
Today we take coeducation for granted, but in the 1850's, it was very rare.  How much has society lost over the generations by not benefiting from the contributions these gifted women might have made had they been allowed to go to college?   And think of those parts of the world where, even today, education for women is restricted or forbidden as contrary what mullahs and some other men assert to be God's will. 
 
The two lines from Ms. Coolidge's poem were inscribed over the lobby of the New York Times building at 229 West 43rd Street.  I looked up at it every day when I worked as a file clerk in the Times' morgue during the summer of 1956 (writing this in 2004 makes the year seem as far away as 1856).  Some years later, the poem was removed.  Hopefully the Times' owners will suggest that Cesar Pelli, architect of their new headquarters on Eighth Avenue, find a place for those words, which relate so aptly to a daily newspaper.  (We do not link to the names of Coolidge and Pelli because you can find them so easily on Google, which should be part of the life of any curious person.  You can take the word 'curious' either way.)

The tragedy of nature took us away from writing about local sinners, which is an occasional preoccupation of columnists.  On the opinion page of today's Daily News, in a piece titled "Scoundrel Year: My inductees into the Hall of Shame," Michael Goodwin castigates six men and a woman who he feels deserve public opprobrium.   You should link to his column because it would be redundant for me to repeat what he writes so clearly.   I would add that I agree with the large majority of his judgments, and I think it is brave and appropriate for him to collect them at year's end, holiday spirit notwithstanding.  Of course, one writes here about the one case where we disagree.
 
When I saw the picture that illustrates the column, and perused its porcine caption, I had a cow.  Now, I have a beef.  The page is illustrated by a photograph of a disheveled Martha Stewart in front of a microphone, with the explanation: "Martha leads the parade of piggy-piggies".
 
It is hard to judge her case fully because we don't know why plea-bargaining didn't result in a fine and apology, rather than a decision to try the case before a jury, which convicted her because she did the specific act which she was accused of.  It is said that it was her own hubris that prevented her from confessing any error, even when the facts were obvious. If so, and it is more than likely that it is, she was the victim of her own pride.  She therefore ended up, under sentencing guidelines, with a 10-month prison term, half of which the sympathetic judge allowed her to serve at home.
 
If the underlying act she committed — selling the Imclone stock after the broker's young assistant phoned her in her plane to advise her of bad news — was not criminal, which is what the judge ruled, it is hard to see why she should go to jail for denying the act, particularly since she was not under oath.  She should have corrected the record, and owned up to what she did, but she had worked so many years to cultivate her public persona of perfection that she may have believed that the risk of minor martyrdom was less threatening to her than public confession of error, especially on an integrity issue.
 
It has been alleged that Martha Stewart, a strong, aggressive and sometimes bristling woman CEO who contributes to Democratic candidates (a Hillary in business) was subjected to a public show trial by the minions of General John Ashcroft, presumably at the direction of a Mr. R., in order to divert attention from the delay of several years in bringing to trial one Kenneth Lay of Dallas, Texas, a former CEO and substantial Republican contributor, whose equivalent to a park name is Kenny Boy, bestowed by a higher power than a former commissioner.  I do not believe in conspiracy theories, I simply circulate them so people can make their own judgments on these matters.  That was a Nixonian statement, to be taken cum grano salis.  Probably Rule 30-R applies here: "The truth is somewhere in between."
 
28 U.S.C. 1001 et seq. is a blunderbuss statute that criminalizes misstatements in conversations with federal officials of any kind.  It is a useful tool for prosecutors who may find it hard to prove underlying crimes, but its application in this case is heavy-handed at best.  In our adversarial system, if you take your case to the jury, and your lawyer is the losing gladiator, you are the one who goes to jail.  That is what happened here.

In shabby-genteel captivity in Alderson, West Virginia, in a prison camp pioneered by Eleanor Roosevelt, Ms. Stewart has tried to be a role model for women in difficult circumstances.  She has not embarrassed herself by legal manipulation to escape jail or reduce her sentence.  Her worst offense has been smuggling food from the kitchen so she can cook it properly.  Her choice to serve her term before her appeals were exhausted was both brave and sensible from a business point of view.  I hope she maintains her interest in prison reform and the plight of confined women after she is released in March.  You can link to her message from jail on  marthatalks.com.  Only in America.
 
Martha Stewart did not take bribes, betray a public trust, involve herself with gangsters, nor do an Enron.  She did not attack anyone or take or sell drugs.  She is a proud woman who is said to be both arrogant and demanding, which is what people who name companies for themselves are likely to be (excluding Sam Schwartz).  To be fair, her company's value does derive from her name and its commercial value, not from the location of the factory or a computer-generated combination of letters.  And remember that law firms are always named for their partners, dead or alive.
 
I met Ms. Stewart just once, years ago, when I was parks commissioner and she taped a segment of her TV program about trees.  She chose for herself the park name, "Copper Beech," which she told me was one of her favorite trees.  Although the segment took a while to film, she was unfailingly courteous to everyone.  Under Rule 1, "First impressions count a lot", she certainly passed the test.   We never met again but, of course, we travel in very different circles.
 
So the caption written so glibly is extreme and unjustified.  I hope the News will say or do something about that unfortunate sentence.  Even the guilty have the right to be criticized in proportion to their offense, and not be scapegoated just because they are rich and famous.  Whatever she may be, Martha Stewart is assuredly not a pig.  A critic could call her a porcupine, but her hardscrabble days as a Jersey girl may have led to her sharp defenses.  Maybe a peacock, or a peahen in her case, is more appropriate.  And if we compare her to man's, and woman's, best friend, she has the spirit of a bloodhound and the grace of a collie.  A stately canine, certainly not a wallowing swine.
 
Her imprisonment, semi-voluntary in both timing and pleading, has not fatally injured her underlying reputation.  She will have the opportunity, when free, to make a positive contribution to our culture beyond the fields in which she is already an authority.  Always optimistic, we hope she takes advantage of her experience to enable others to improve their own lives.
 
BACK TO THE COSMOS:  CNN advised us today that astronomers have recomputed orbits and now conclude that the major asteroid collision that was feared for April 2029 will not take place.  Now the only cloud on the horizon is Cumbre Vieja.  Not counting terrorists, of course.