Then the great idea broke! If at one stroke they could rid baseball of Johnson and rid the bench of Landis, what a good job that would be.
Both these men were dangerous to Jews—not that they intended to be, not that they were consciously so—and it would be desirable to remove both from the spheres of their activity.
Then it was that the Jew lawyer, Austrian, came forth with the “Lasker Plan,” named for his Jewish friend Lasker, member of the American Jewish Committee, head of Lord & Thomas (Gentile names) and Chairman of the United States Shipping Board.
The “Lasker Plan” proposed that the National Commission with Ban Johnson be superseded by a one man government, that one man to be selected from outside both leagues.
The proposal was not an immediate success. Even the National League was in no hurry to obey this suggestion against Johnson. Indeed, there was so much hesitancy on the part of the Nationals in which the Jewish colleagues expected to find their best support, that the trump card was played.
What was that trump card? It is said to be the secret testimony of the grand jury before which Ban Johnson was glad to appear as a witness to tell the jury everything it would need for a proper prosecution of its inquiry, and before which Alfred S. Austrian also appeared to save some of his clients from the consequences of such testimony. The report is that