Gertrude Murphy of the Women's Overseas Service League's Santa Clara 
County Unit discusses a headline in the San Francisco Daily Journal 
which led to a libel suit against the paper 


Gertrude Murphy:	Women’s Overseas Service League and oral history by Gertrude Murphy of the Santa Clara County Unit.  Women’s Overseas Service League 1975 area conference in San Francisco.  Gertrude Murphy reminiscences. I don’t know why they got hold of this story but they got hold of it.  Anyway, the first thing [inaudible 00:30] across the headline [inaudible 00:35] union in [inaudible 00:39] [laughter] tremendous.  So the result was that the Musician’s Union filed suit against the, um, Journal and it went along and was approaching the day when, uh, the suit was to come to trial and I remember at that time I had a reasonably responsible job in San Francisco.  You had to go through three secretaries to get to me.  It wasn’t that our job was responsible.  They didn’t want people to know what I looked like back there [laughter] but anyway, uh, a man came went through the three secretaries and said that he was representing the Musician’s Union in this suit and he didn’t remember exactly what had taken place.  And he wondered if I could refresh his mind.  And I said well I’m sorry you don’t remember Mr. Jones but I remember perfectly.  And, uh, but I wasn’t about to tell him.  So he finally retired.  And at that time Alice [inaudible 01:46] husband was I believe the city attorney of Oakland which was a position that, uh, carried little clout.  And I don’t know whether any of that was the reason but the [inaudible 01:57] was that the Musician’s Union withdrew their suit but meanwhile this had been [inaudible 02:02] about the San Francisco papers and was all very terrific.  And we finally get a letter from the, um, um, grand master or whatever he is of the Musician’s Union down in Santa Barbara.  I remember saying, my dear ladies anytime, anywhere you would like the use of one of our bands, you have only to tell us.  But by that time of course it was all water under the bridge.  And as I remember I think we made about $2500 [inaudible 02:34] [laughter].  And then, in spite of, we actually paid the union their, their fee and it was 5, 6 hundred dollars their fee and the San Francisco Unit has been rich and prosperous ever since.  [Laughter]. 

Unknown Speaker:	[Inaudible 02:51]?  Did you use those bands?

Gertrude Murphy:	Oh, we used the army, navy bands.  We didn’t use the union band.  No. 

Unknown Speaker:	I wish we had had that letter when we tried to hire some music not so long ago.  [Laughter]

Gertrude Murphy:	Then, uh, it wasn’t too long after that that, another thing that we did that I remember in San Francisco, the fleet came in and we felt that shouldn’t [inaudible 03:16] and we had a terrific party.
Unfortunately, uh, I ran out of tape at this point and this is the end of the reminiscence and stories of Gertrude Murphy of the Santa Clara County Unit Women’s Overseas Service League.


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