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Katherine Schaub was first up.

“I ascended the steps to the witness stand one by one,” she wrote. “I felt quite strange to be on the stand, more strange than I had anticipated. But I took the oath.”1

As Berry had done with her friends, he eased her into her testimony. She cast her mind back to February 1, 1917, to a cold winter’s day when she had excitedly made her way to work for her first day. “The young lady instructed me,” she recalled, “told me to put the brush in my mouth.”2

Berry took her through her suffering; she revealed she had grown “very nervous.”3 The USRC lawyers undoubtedly saw her mental-health issues as a weakness—and that probably explains why they gave Katherine hell.

She had just said that she lip-pointed “sometimes four or five times [per dial], perhaps more than that,” when Markley stood to begin his cross-examination.

“Sometimes more,” he began.

“Yes, sir.”

“Sometimes less.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sometimes you wouldn’t put the brush in your mouth at all, would you?” he exclaimed, spinning round to deliver the line. She must have hesitated. “You don’t know?” he said incredulously.

“I am trying to remember,” replied Katherine nervously.

“Depend on your brush too, wouldn’t it? […] The brushes were supplied there, weren’t they?”

“They were supplied, yes, sir.”

“You could get all the brushes you wanted.”

“No.”

“You would go to [the forewoman] when you wanted a brush, wouldn’t you?” he asked, closing in.

“Yes, sir,” Katherine replied, “but you were not supposed to waste them.”

“Of course you weren’t supposed to waste them, but you were supplied amply with them, weren’t you?”

The questions came thick and fast. Markley didn’t miss a beat and would have his next line of attack prepared even as Katherine stuttered out her answer.

As they had done with Grace, the company lawyers questioned Katherine extensively about her initial dental treatment and whether any connection had been made in the early 1920s between her illness and her job. Perhaps inevitably, under such heated cross-examination the nervous Katherine slipped up. Thinking back to the meeting she and some of the other girls had had in Dr. Barry’s office, when the condition was considered to be phosphorus poisoning, she revealed, “There had been some talk about industrial disease…”

Markley seized on it. “What do you mean, ‘There had been some talk’?”

Katherine realized her error. “I had never connected myself with it in any way,” she said hurriedly, but he wasn’t going to let it go that easily. He brought up her cousin Irene, who had died in 1923. “You know Dr. Barry told her he thought it might be industrial disease, don’t you?”

“Well, he had a slight suspicion that something was wrong,” Katherine conceded weakly.

“He told you he had a slight suspicion?” Markley asked.

“He never told me that directly… I only know what my folks told me.”

“When was it that they told you that?” Markley jumped in, probably hoping for an answer that would kill the case dead.

“Well, I don’t know,” retorted Katherine, back on track. “My cousin was ill so long and I don’t remember.”

It seemed never to end. She felt worn down by it—so much so that Backes, keeping an eye on his vulnerable witness in his court, interjected at one point to ask, “Are you tired?”

But Katherine replied firmly. “No,” she said, “I try to sit up as straight as I possibly can, because my spine is a little weak.”

She would have been gratified to note that the gathered reporters scribbled down that detail of her suffering as they followed her account.

As at the January hearing, the courtroom was packed with journalists—even more than before, for the women’s story was now beginning to reach international shores. The reporters would later write moving descriptions of their testimony, as Katherine, Albina, and Quinta all gave evidence. The press called them a “sadly smiling sorority”4 and said they “maintained an attitude of almost cheerful resignation.”5

Their composure was in direct contrast to those observing the trial. “The [women] listened,” a newspaper reported, “with pensive stoicism, while ordinarily hard-boiled spectators had constant recourse to handkerchiefs to check tears of which they seemed unashamed.”6

How could anyone not cry, as Berry took Quinta McDonald through the fate of her friends?

“Were you ever acquainted with Irene Rudolph?” he asked her.7

“Yes, sir, while I worked in the radium plant.”8

“Hazel Kuser?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sarah Maillefer?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Marguerite Carlough?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Eleanor Eckert?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are all these people dead?”

“Yes, sir.”

It seems Grace may have indicated to Berry that she wanted to be recalled, for she now retook the stand. She had been staring across the courtroom at the gathered USRC executives, and her sharp memory had snagged on one of their faces in particular.

“Miss Fryer,” Berry began, after a quick consultation with Grace, “you were examined in the summer of 1926 by Dr. Frederick Flinn and there was another doctor who you did not know who was present at the examination. Have you seen that assisting doctor since that time?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is he here in the court today?”

Grace looked across at the executives. “Yes, sir.”

Berry pointed at the man she had specified. “Is that the gentleman, Mr. Barker?”

“Yes, sir,” said Grace assuredly.

“Do you know he is the vice president of the United States Radium Corporation?”

“I didn’t know it then,” she said pointedly.

Barker had been there on the day that Grace had been told by Flinn she was in better health than he was. He had stood by as Flinn had issued the diagnosis there was nothing wrong with her. Barker’s presence showed just how involved the company was with Flinn’s activities: its own vice president had attended the girls’ medical tests.

Elizabeth Hughes, the breath-test specialist Berry had employed, was on the stand next; she testified that it was well known “that all operatives and all workers should be protected from the radium rays” as “almost everyone in the field has hand burns.” The newspapers noted of Mrs. Hughes, “She exhibited a thorough knowledge of the subject and convinced Vice Chancellor Backes, at least, that she knew what she was talking about.”9

That, of course, was anathema to the company lawyers. They quickly tried to discredit Mrs. Hughes, despite her great experience.

“What is your occupation now?”10 Markley asked her, well knowing the answer.

“Housewife,”11 she said, for she was currently caring for her young children at home.

And then Markley was off, with question after question to suggest she knew nothing about radium at all. He rather hounded her, undermining not only her qualifications but her skill in handling the breath tests, until he had backed her into a corner and forced her to admit that she “couldn’t define an appreciable amount” of radium.

“All right,” said Markley triumphantly, “I am perfectly satisfied if you say you do not know.”

But at this Backes, once more, stepped in. “I want to know what the witness knows,” he exclaimed, “not merely have you satisfied that she says she doesn’t know. I think she said a little more than what your characterization would purport.”

When the lunch recess fell midway through Elizabeth’s testimony, it seemed to come as a relief to both her and Berry. After lunch, Markley returned, still in a pugnacious mood. The doctor who had conducted Mollie Maggia’s autopsy was on the stand, giving his testimony that radium had killed her, and Markley tried to get all evidence regarding Mollie struck out—though he was unsuccessful: “I will hear it,” said Backes.

“I want to call to Your Honor’s attention,” Markley growled, piqued at this decision, “the fact that this girl was buried on a death certificate for syphilis.”

Markley had good reason to fight this hard for the firm. Having shut down the headache of the Orange plant, USRC was now back on track financially; just one single order the firm had recently received, only a few days before, was for $500,000 (almost $7 million). They did not want to lose this case.

The final witness on the stand on April 25 was Dr. Humphries, the girls’ long-time physician. He was authoritative in describing their unusual conditions. He testified that “in all these patients” the same condition arose; and not just in them, but in other women he had seen—including Jennie Stocker. Finally Humphries had solved the puzzle of her peculiar knee condition. He now declared, “I think she died of radium poisoning.”

His testimony was long and something of an endurance test for the five women. For Humphries recounted each of their cases in detail—how they had first come to him with these puzzling pains; how he had “guessed” at how to treat them; and how now, today, his patients were all crippled. They were not the women he had first seen; though they tried to keep their spirits buoyant, their bodies betrayed them. “I thought it would never end,” recalled Katherine of his account, “this excruciating, horrible testimony.”12 Yet she was brave about it. “It had to be done,” she went on, “had to be told, or else how would we be able to fight for the justice that was due us?”13

And so the women listened. They listened as, in the public courtroom, Humphries admitted, “I do not think that anything will cure it.”14

The eyes of the many reporters flickered to the women, even as their own filled with tears. Yet the radium girls stoically accepted his pronouncement of certain death.

Like the journalists, however, Backes couldn’t seem to bear it. “You hope to find something every minute?”15 he said urgently.

“We hope to find something,” Humphries concurred.

“Every minute,” pressed the judge again.

“Yes, sir,” said Humphries simply, but all the judge’s urging couldn’t magic up a cure. The girls were destined to die.

The only question was whether they would be given justice before they did.

The following day, the trial continued with more expert evidence. Distinguished doctors testified that it had been common knowledge since at least 1912 that radium could do harm. Berry admitted into the court record a host of literature—including articles published by USRC itself—to support the doctors’ words.

Though Markley tried to weaken the impact of these documents by citing the curative powers of radium—such as were promoted by USRC client William Bailey in his Radithor tonic—it was apparent there were holes in his arguments. When he quoted a little-known study in an obscure journal and one of the testifying doctors conceded he had never heard of the author, the expert witness added, “Who is he? What is he connected with?” Markley could reply only defensively: “I am not here to be questioned.”

The day was going well for Raymond Berry; the doctors were not rattled by their cross-examination in the slightest. One described those using radium as “fools” and said he thought that radium curatives “should be abolished.”

“[Aren’t they] approved by the Council of Pharmacy?” asked USRC’s lawyers indignantly.

“I suppose so,” retorted the esteemed doctor airily, “but they accept so many things it means nothing to me, sir.”

Andrew McBride and John Roach from the Department of Labor gave evidence regarding their part in proceedings; USRC presidents Clarence B. Lee and Arthur Roeder also took the stand. Roeder confirmed he had been in the dial-painting studio on “numerous occasions” yet testified: “I don’t recall any instance of an operator putting a brush in her mouth.” He also denied von Sochocky had ever told him the paint was harmful; he said the first he knew of any possible hazard was “after we heard of some of these early complaints and cases.”

“What was the first case that you heard of?” asked Berry.

“I don’t remember the name,” replied Roeder coldly. The dial-painters weren’t important enough for him to recall such insignificant details.

And then Berry called on someone very special to testify for the girls: Harrison Martland took the stand—the brilliant doctor who had devised the tests that proved the existence of radium poisoning; who had provided a diagnosis to the women where all other doctors had failed. Berry had managed to persuade him to testify. And the Chief Medical Examiner was a superstar; no other word for it. “His forthright, uncompromising testimony stood out conspicuously,”16 raved the newspapers; they called him the “star witness.”17

He began by explaining in detail his autopsies of the Carlough sisters, which had confirmed the fact of radium poisoning. It was very difficult testimony for the five women to hear; Quinta, in particular, found it “excruciating.”18 “As she listened to Martland,” one newspaper observed, “she approached the verge of collapse. Then, by sheer grit, she seemed to regain her composure and sat through the balance of the hearing with only slight traces of emotion.”19

Martland was unstoppable. When the company lawyers tried to suggest radium poisoning couldn’t exist because “out of two hundred or more girls, these girls [suing] are the only ones that had this trouble,” Martland replied frankly: “There [are] about thirteen or fourteen other girls that are dead and buried now who, if you will dig them up, will probably show the same things.”20

“I ask that be stricken out as an assumption on the part of the doctor without foundation,” said the USRC lawyer hurriedly.21

“Let it stand,” replied Backes promptly.

The company tried to say that “there are no other reported cases” beyond Orange.

“Yes, there are other reported cases,” retorted Martland.

“There is only a stray case, one or two…” Markley said, wafting a hand dismissively.

But Martland said firmly that the Waterbury cases did exist. His testimony was powerful; Backes even referred to the USRC paint itself as “radium poisoning,” something Markley pounced on indignantly: “This paint is anything but a radium poisoning!” he exclaimed.

As the day drew toward a close, Berry stood up to redirect Martland. When Markley, predictably, objected, the judge once again overruled him. “You attempted to weaken [Martland’s] opinion,” he told Markley. “Counsel [Berry] is now trying—if you succeeded—to restore it.”

He turned to Berry. “Proceed.”

Berry could not be happier with how the case was going—and tomorrow he would hammer home the final nail in the company’s coffin. Dr. von Sochocky was going to take the stand, and Berry couldn’t wait to question him on the warning he had given the corporation about the paint being dangerous. That would seal the verdict once and for all—and surely in the girls’ favor.

The next morning, toward the end of von Sochocky’s testimony, Berry posed the killer question.

“Isn’t it true,” he said, his eyes bright as he turned to face the doctor, “that you said [you hadn’t stopped lip-pointing] because the matter was not in your jurisdiction but Mr. Roeder’s?”

“I object to this, Your Honor,” interrupted Markley at once.

But before the judge could rule, the company’s founder answered.

“Absolutely not.”

Markley and Berry both stared at him, open-mouthed. And then Markley confidently retook his seat, crossing his long legs. “All right,” the corporate attorney said easily, gesticulating for the witness to continue.

“Absolutely not,” repeated von Sochocky.

Berry could not believe it. For not only had Grace and Quinta told him about this, Martland and Hoffman had too: and they had all heard it from the doctor’s own mouth. Why was he now backtracking? Perhaps he was concerned about how he would appear; or perhaps something else had happened. “We should get a line on what [von] Sochocky is doing and where he is,”22 a USRC memo had noted back in July. Perhaps there had been a conversation behind closed doors that had led to the doctor’s change of tune.

Berry quizzed him on his warning to Grace, too. Perhaps here, at least, he could find some traction.

“Well, Mr. Berry,” von Sochocky replied, “I don’t want to deny that, but I don’t recollect that very distinctly… There is a possibility I told her that, which would be the perfectly natural thing to do, passing by the plant, seeing the unusual thing of a girl putting a brush to her lips; of course I would say [‘Do not do that’].”23

That account sounded peculiar even to John Backes’s ears. “What reason had you for doing that?” the judge asked.24

“Unsanitary conditions,” replied von Sochocky promptly.

“You cautioned this young lady not to put the brushes in her mouth,” Backes said plainly. “I want to know whether at that time you were apprehensive that the paint with the radium in it might affect her deleteriously.”

But the doctor was unmoved. His choice of pronoun is notable. “Absolutely not,” he replied to the judge. “[The danger] was unknown to us.”

Berry was bitterly disappointed. Publicly, in court, he denounced von Sochocky as a “hostile witness.” Grace Fryer, to whom the warning had been given, must have had a few choice adjectives of her own flying through her mind.

Berry gave her a chance to speak again. She was recalled to the stand immediately after von Sochocky’s testimony—“not to discredit [the doctor],” Berry explained, “but to show actually what he did say.” But Markley objected to her evidence at once, and the judge was forced to sustain it, seemingly against his will. “Strike out the answer,” Backes commented. “These rules of evidence have been invented to prevent people from telling the truth.”

There were only a handful of other witnesses, including Katherine Wiley and Dr. Flinn, who was there as a paid witness for USRC. And then, at 11:30 a.m. on April 27, 1928, Berry rested his case. Now, for the rest of the day and in subsequent days to follow, the United States Radium Corporation would have an opportunity to put their side of the story and then—then, the girls thought hopefully, wondering how they would feel when the time came—the verdict would be given.

Markley stood up, his long body sliding out of his chair effortlessly. “I was wondering,” he said smoothly to John Backes, “we may be able to shorten this if we have time for a conference?”

There was a discussion off the record. Afterward, as the judge’s gavel banged, Backes made a pronouncement.

“The hearing is adjourned to September 24.”

September was five months away. Five months. To put it bluntly, it was time that the girls, in all likelihood, probably didn’t have.

The delay, cried Katherine Schaub, was “heartless and inhuman.”25

But the law had spoken. Nothing further would be done until September.