Mr. RUBY. I am not sure. Because I made so many trips there. I was down
there about seven or eight times.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Was it before you went to Los Angeles to see Mike Shore?
Mr. RUBY. No; I think I made it on the way back. I went to Los Angeles
first, the first trip, and then on the way back I went to Dallas.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How much time did you spend with Jack on this first visit?
Mr. RUBY. Well, they only let you talk about 20 minutes or a half hour
at the most.
Mr. GRIFFIN. When is the last time you have seen him?
Mr. RUBY. The last time I saw him was—I was there at the verdict, you
know.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Have you seen him since the verdict?
Mr. RUBY. Yes, oh, yes; I stayed there for at least several days,
anyhow, and I saw him every day at least once.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Have you seen him since then?
Mr. RUBY. No, no; since I came back, since that trip, I haven’t been
back.
Mr. GRIFFIN. All right. Did you notice any change in your brother’s
mental and physical condition between the first time that you saw him
in Dallas and the last time that you saw him in Dallas?
Mr. RUBY. Oh, yes; definitely. Physically he lost about 30 pounds,
and you know, his face was drawn and his eyes sunken, and in addition
to that he was despondent, of course, and you couldn’t—he would have
to repeat questions or ask questions from him more than once to get a
reply. It just didn’t seem to register all the time.
Even Belli mentioned that he couldn’t get across to Jack all the time,
and Burleson mentioned to me several times that Jack is off his rocker.
This was, you know——
Mr. GRIFFIN. Was this after the verdict or before?
Mr. RUBY. No; before. He says, “Your brother is off his rocker. He
has got himself involved with all the Jews all over the world and he
doesn’t know what he is talking about,” but my brother did know what
he was talking about. It was Burleson who didn’t understand. Because
in order to understand—it is a Jewish problem—and most Jews would
understand it.
Burleson, not being familiar with this, it just went over his head. I
didn’t even think of it then but he kept telling me, “Your brother has
got himself all mixed up with all the Jews all over the world and he is
off his rocker.” That was the statement he made several times to me.
Mr. GRIFFIN. I would like to explore this with you at some length if
you don’t mind.
Mr. RUBY. That is why I brought this with me. I have all of this in
here.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Let me try to ask you some questions first and then we
will get into the papers that you have brought. You say there was a
disagreement, that you disagreed with Burleson’s appraisal of your
brother’s involvement with the Jewish question.
Mr. RUBY. He couldn’t explain it. So, really, I didn’t understand it
myself. I didn’t know what he was talking about at the time.
Mr. GRIFFIN. You subsequently did come to learn what he was talking
about, I take it?
Mr. RUBY. Yes; it wasn’t until somebody brought it to my attention,
really.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What was brought to your attention—what particular facts?
Mr. RUBY. Well, the fact it seemed that Jack in digging down into his
past, he had an obsession about the Jewish people, and he always went
out of his way to show people that Jews are not bad people, you know,
because you know they have been persecuted over the years, and that is
one of the reasons he brought the policemen at the station sandwiches
and went out of his way to bring them cheesecakes and he was in debt
to me for thousands of dollars, yet he never sent me any money but he
always had money to give more or less or lend to these other people,
almost all non-Jews to show them that a Jew would help them out.
A policeman became a father and was short on money, he would lend him a
couple of hundred, never got it back, never got anything back.
Another friend he ran into needed a car to get a job—lent him a few
hundred.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you know—can you give us the names of some of these
people?
Mr. RUBY. No; but my sister has them down there. I don’t have it. But
I know of these instances, and he read all these books on the Jewish
problem, the persecution of the Jews, going all the way back.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How do you know that?
Mr. RUBY. I know from my sister. He lived with my sister and she told
me, and he told me—both.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Is this Eva?
Mr. RUBY. Eva; yes.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Jack has told you that he read books on the Jewish
problems?
Mr. RUBY. Yes; he even went to lectures on it, the synagogue, they had
movies of the killings of the Jews in Germany. He went to all of these,
things of that sort.
Mr. GRIFFIN. I don’t know if Mr. Hubert has covered this or not, but do
you recall an episode or a period back before World War II when Jack
showed some concern about the Jewish problem, about the treatment of
the Jews?
Mr. RUBY. Before World War II?
Mr. GRIFFIN. Yes.
Mr. RUBY. You mean—well, he was in Chicago in the early thirties, they
had the Nazi Bund meetings and Jack was always one to go and see if he
could help break them up.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you go on any of these groups?
Mr. RUBY. No, no.