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A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook Title: The Story of my Life (1932) Author: Clarence Darrow (1857-1938) eBook No.: 0500951h.html Edition: 1 Language: English Character set encoding: HTML--Latin-1(ISO-8859-1)--8 bit Date first posted: October 2005 Date most recently updated: October 2005 This eBook was produced by: Don Lainson dlainson@sympatico.ca Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editions which are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particular paper edition. Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this file. This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online at http://gutenberg.net.au/licence.html To contact Project Gutenberg of Australia go to http://gutenberg.net.au
I "arrive."
On religious and social questions, our family early learned to stand alone.
As I look back at my school-days, I am astounded at the appalling waste of time.
I never advise any one to play poker or not to play poker, but I always advise them to keep the limit down.
I discovered that a little book, "Our Criminal Code and Its Victims," was to make its author my idol, and my life what it is.
Providence provides for me by ill-treating my superior.
No one knew what Mr. Debs and the A. R. U. were enjoined from doing; it depended upon how many inferences the court could base on further inferences.
From his cell in Atlanta Prison he saw the flowers in the garden but not the bars at the window.
Defending men charged with crime soon meant something more than winning or losing a case; it meant searching for the causes of human conduct.
There are very few, even among idiots, who cannot fill some position if rightly trained.
Altgeld said: "I have been thinking over Bryan's speech, and what did he say anyhow?"
Before pardoning the anarchists, John P. Altgeld said, ". . . from that time, I will be a dead man."
The poor, the dreamers, the idealists, with haunted gaze, came to his office as the anchorite would visit a shrine.
A million people cannot be kept at the point of want without protesting.
Every session of the legislature was opened with prayer, before any of the members could canvass around for people to hold up.
16. THE SKELETON IN THE FOREST
Through it all flitted shadow-pictures of Robin Hood, the greenwood tree, and Daniel Boone, blazing a trail toward a new civilization.
17. THE ATHENS OF THE SAGE-BRUSH
Through a desert waste, a strip of green turns and twists and loops and zigzags; thus the Snake River leads one to Boise, Idaho.
Harry Orchard tells his story:--and what a story!
19. STILL RATTLING THE SKELETON
Once more the doctor lovingly examined the skull with the hole in it, and gave as his opinion that the deceased was killed by a bullet.
A newspaper man brought a telegram to me at the hospital which read: "Darrow dying; interview him."
We found that the state would claim a wide conspiracy, involving investigations from Indianapolis to California.
We were living and fighting on less than a hundred dollars a month, when a stranger of standing wired: "You have defended men for nothing all your life. I will let you have all the money you need."
He was taken to a hospital to die, but unfortunately he recovered.
By the calendar we had been away two years. It seemed a lifetime.
If nations persist in treating each other as enemies, instead of friends, they will always find causes for wars.
All the efforts to foster individual freedom are shattered with shot and shell.
I went in to do what I could . . . against the wave of hatred and malice.
A summer of restless days and sleepless nights.
Mr. Bryan made it clear that he was not so much interested in the Age of Rocks as in the Rock of Ages.
30. SCIENCE VERSUS FUNDAMENTALISM
Making Tennessee safe for knowledge.
The monument at Dayton has progressed to the point of an abandoned hole in the ground.
Bodies "overstuffed" with overeating are popular among the "good" people, but swallowing a drop of alcohol is injurious.
For more than ten years tens of millions of people have defied this fanatical law.
I may not be true to my ideals always, but I never see a negro without feeling that I ought to pay part of a debt to a race captured and brought here in chains.
Montreaux, and The Mediterranean:--How happy one can be with either!
I had stood with the hunted until I was seventy-two years old; I decided to close my office door and call it my day's work.
37. THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST CRIME
It is not a campaign against crime, but an orgy of hatred and vengeance.
A physician traces a condition to its cause, and then treats the cause.
39. THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND
The poor men who have gone to their deaths on gallows are not the only murderers.
When judges add to the death-sentence, "And may God have mercy on your soul," they have their fingers crossed.
I had other interests and inclinations; and the time was growing short.
Better to say "I don't know," than to guess at answers.
No one can even imagine the place or form of a future life.
44. DELUSION OF DESIGN AND PURPOSE
If there is purpose in the universe, then what is that purpose?
To the average man, a lawsuit is a calamity.
The big arm-chair in the library lures me.
47. TOWARD THE END OF THE TRAIL
In spite of all philosophy, we are prone to feel regret over things beyond recall.
It may seem absurd that I should be sitting here trying to write about myself in an age when only a mystery story has any chance as a best-seller. I can think of nothing about myself to distort into any such popular fiction. If I tell anything it will be but a plain unvarnished account of how things really have happened, as nearly as I can possibly hold to the truth.
First of all, I have noticed that most autobiographers begin with ancestors. As a rule they start out with the purpose of linking themselves by blood and birth to some well-known family or personage. No doubt this is due to egotism, and the hazy, unscientific notions that people have about heredity. For my part, I seldom think about my ancestors; but I had them; plenty of them, of course. In fact, I could fill this book with their names if I knew them all, and deemed it of the least worth.
I have been told that I came of a very old family. A considerable number of people say that it runs back to Adam and Eve, although this, of course, is only hearsay, and I should not like to guarantee the title. Anyhow, very few pedigrees really go back any farther than mine. With reasonable certainty I could run it back to a little town in England that has the same name as mine, though the spelling is slightly altered. But this does not matter. I am sure that my forbears run a long, long way back of that, even--but what of it, anyhow?
The earliest ancestor of the Darrow family that I feel sure belonged to our branch was one of sixteen men who came to New England the century before the Revolutionary War. This Darrow, with fifteen other men, brought a grant from the King of England for the town of New London, Conn. He was an undertaker, so we are told, which shows that he had some appreciation of a good business, and so chose a profession where the demand for his services would be fairly steady. One could imagine a more pleasant means of livelihood, but, almost any trade is bearable if the customers are sure. This Darrow, or rather his descendants, seemed to forget the lavish gift of the King, and took up arms against England under George Washington. So far as having an ancestor in the Revolutionary War counts for anything, I would be eligible to a membership of the D. A. R., although I would not exactly fit this organization, for, amongst other handicaps, I am proud of my rebel ancestors, and would be glad to greet them on the street, should they chance my way.
But it is not for love of looking up my ancestry, or a desire to brag, that I am setting all this down, but for a much more personal reason. All of it had an important bearing upon me, and shows the many, many close calls I had when I was casting about for an ancestral line and yearning to be born. The farther back I go, the more unlikely it seems that I am really here, and I sometimes pinch myself to make sure that it is not a dream; but I assume that I am I, and that I really came all the way from Adam, with all the vicissitudes of time and tide that are so entwined with mortal life.
Did you, who read this, ever figure what a scant chance you had of getting here? If you did come from Adam, you must have had millions on millions of direct forbears, and, if one ancestor had failed to come into the combination, you would not be you, but would be some one else entirely, if any one at all. So I do not allow myself to worry about the long-lost trail, but am content with thinking over the slight chance my father and mother had to meet, and hence my own still lesser chance for life after I had jumped all the hurdles between Adam and my parents.
If a man really has charge of his destiny at all, he should have something to say about getting born; and I only came through by a hair's-breadth. What had I to do with this momentous first step? In the language of the lawyer, I was not even a party of the second part. Two generations back is not so very far away; the reader will not need to try to consider all the near-accidents since Adam, but I will illustrate the whole venture by one narrow escape I had seventy-five years before I was born.
It seems that my grandfathers from both sides came from Connecticut. They had never met in the East, and did not come at the same time. Both of them drove from New England, for there were no railroads in that day, much less automobiles. The journey was long, and more or less disagreeable. My father's parents came first, but, for some reason, stopped at the little town of Henrietta, near Rochester, N. Y. Why they stopped there, I cannot imagine. I was there once myself, but I did not stop. When I visualize the paternal grandfather Darrow driving off on a thousand-mile trip into a near-wilderness I can hardly refrain from shouting to tell him that he has left Grandfather Eddy behind. But later on my grandfather on my mother's side drove away into the unknown West as if in search of a mate for one of his unborn daughters, so that I could have a couple of parents after many years. He drove and drove for weeks and months into the West until he pitched his tent in the wilds that later were named Windsor, Ohio. No doubt they drove through Henrietta, for that was along the main road into the West, but they did not stop, even long enough to meet my future mother's parent. Some years later my father's father drove from Henrietta to western Ohio and stopped at the little hamlet of Kinsman, twenty-five miles from Windsor, the town where my mother was waiting to be born. Thus far, my chance for getting into the scheme was about zero. It was necessary for the boy and girl to meet before they could become my father and mother, and this chance seemed less than one in a million when the families lived in Connecticut.
Both grandfathers were poor and obscure, else they would have stayed where they were. But their children, as they grew up, were sent to school. About thirty-five miles from Windsor and sixty from Kinsman, was a little town called Amboy, in northern Ohio, near Oberlin. In Amboy was a well-known school. Emily Eddy and Amirus Darrow were destined to go to that school, and so they went. I can leave the rest to the reader's imagination. When I think of the chances that I was up against, even when so near the goal, it scares me to realize how easily I might have missed out. Of all the infinite accidents of fate farther back of that, I do not care or dare to think.
It is obvious that I had nothing to do with getting born. Had I known about life in advance and been given any choice in the matter, I most likely would have declined the adventure. At least, that is the way I think about it now. There are times when I feel otherwise, but on the whole I believe that life is not worth while. This does not mean that I am gloomy, or that this book will sadden the Tired Business Man, for I shall write only when I have the inclination to do so, and at such times I am generally almost unmindful of existence.
But as I write these words the sun is shining, the birds are making merry in the bright summer day, and I am asking why I sit and plague my brain to recall the dead and misty past while light and warmth and color are urging me to go outdoors and play.
Doubtless a certain vanity has its part in moving me to write about myself. I am quite sure that this is true, even though I am aware that neither I nor any one else has the slightest importance in time and space. I know that the earth where I have spent my life is only a speck of mud floating in the endless sky. I am quite sure that there are millions of other worlds in the universe whose size and importance are most likely greater than the tiny graveyard on which I ride. I know that at this time there are nearly two billion other human entities madly holding fast to this ball of dirt to which I cling. I know that since I began this page hundreds of these have loosened their grip and sunk to eternal sleep. I know that for half a million years men and women have lived and died and been mingled with the elements that combine to make our earth, and are known no more. I know that only the smallest fraction of my fellow castaways have even so much as heard my name, and that those who have will soon be a part of trees and plants and animal and clay. Still, here am I sitting down, with the mists already gathering about my head, to write about the people, desires, disappointments and despairs that have moved me in my brief stay on what we are pleased to call this earth.
Doubtless, too, the emotion to live makes most of us seek to project our personality a short distance beyond the waiting grave. But whatever the reason may be, I am doing what many, many men have done before, and will do again--talking and gossiping about the past. I am doing this as a boy plays baseball by the hour or dances through the night. I am doing it because all living things crave activity, and I am still alive. Whether the movement is a journey around the globe or an unsteady walk from the bedroom to the dining room and back, it is but a response to what is left of the emotions, appetites and energies that we call being.
The young man's reflections of unfolding life concern the future--the great, broad, tempestuous sea on whose hither shore he stands eagerly waiting to learn of other lands and climes. The reactions and recollections of the old concern the stormy journey drawing to a close; he no longer builds castles or plans conquests of the unknown; he recalls the tempests and tumults encountered on the way, and babbles of the passengers and crew that one by one dropped silently into the icy depths. No longer does the aging transient yearn for new adventures or unexplored highways. His greatest ambition is to find some snug harbor where he can doze and dream the fleeting days away. So, elderly men who speak or write turn to autobiography. This is all they have to tell, and they cannot sit idly in silence and wait for the night to come.
Autobiography is never entirely true. No one can get the right perspective on himself. Every fact is colored by imagination and dream. The young look forth across the sea to a mirage of fairylands filled with hidden treasures; the aged turn to the fading past, and through the mist and haze that veils once familiar scenes, bygone events assume weird and fanciful proportions. Almost forgotten men, women and children reappear along the far-off shore, and their shadows are reflected back in dimmed or magnified outlines in the softly setting sun. Then, too, all human egos, and perhaps other egos, place prime importance upon themselves; each is the centre of the great circle around which all else revolves; no one can see and feel in any other way. Although all intelligent people realize that they are as nothing in the procession that is ever moving on, yet we cannot but feel that when we are dead the parade will no longer move. So while we can still vibrate with tongue and pen and with every manifestation of our beings, we instinctively shout to the crowd to pause and for a little time turn their eyes and ears toward us. That is what I am doing now, and am doing it because I have nothing else to do. I am doing it because it helps topass away the time that still remains. I know that life consists of the impressions made upon the puppet as it moves across the stage. I shall endeavor not to magnify the manikin. I am interested not in the way that I have fashioned the world, but in the way that the world has moulded me.
I hope that no one will turn from this book for fear it is sad and will make him unhappy. I am not an optimist in the ordinary sense of the word. I can tell of my life only as I see it, but I fancy that the story will not be unduly serious or tragic. I have never taken any one very seriously, and least of all myself. I am not trying to teach any moral or point any way. The billions on billions of humans that have come upon the stage, made their bow, and then retired beyond the scenes, have one and all played the same part. One and all they, for a time, have taken a distinctive form and name, and then disappeared forever. One and all, they have known joys and sorrows, and most of them are now lost in sleep and oblivion. My life has not been sad, and as the end approaches it brings no sorrow. When the evening hours have crept on I have always looked forward with satisfaction, if not pleasure, to the night of rest; a space of time with no consciousness to mar the peace and serenity of the void between the evening and the coming dawn. So, to-day, after a long life of work and play and joy and sorrow, I am fully aware of the friendly night that is stealing on apace. The inevitable destiny brings no fear or pain, so why should others be saddened by what I have to tell?
One cannot live through a long stretch of years without forming some philosophy of life. As one journeys along he gains experiences and even some ideas. Accumulated opinions and philosophy may be more important to others than the bare facts about how he lived, so my ambition is not so much to relate the occurrences as to record the ideas that life has forced me to accept; and, after all, thoughts, impressions and feelings are really life itself. I should like to think that these reflections might make existence a trifle easier for some of those who may chance to read this story.
As I have already said, my father's ancestors were rebels and traitors who took up arms against Great Britain in the War of the Revolution. It is easy for me to believe that my father came of rebel stock; at least he was always in rebellion against religious and political creeds of the narrow and smug community in which he dwelt. But ancestors do not mean so much. The rebel who succeeds generally makes it easier for the posterity that follows him; so these descendants are usually contented and smug and soft. Rebels are made from life, not ancestors.
My father, in his early life, was a religious man. He was born into the Methodist Church. This indicates that he came of plebeian stock, for there were also an Episcopalian and a Presbyterian Church in the little town. Either his parents were too humble for one of these aristocratic temples, or, perhaps my grandfather was converted at a Methodist revival, which was one of the affairs to go to, even after I was born. My father had a serious but kindly face. In his leisure hours he was always poring over books. I wish I knew more about his youth; it might furnish some interesting data as to the development of the family and the pranks of heredity and environment. He was one of seven children who came with their father to eastern Ohio, which was then almost a frontier land. The family must have been very poor, and their means of existence precarious in those early days, at the beginning of the nineteenth century. When a boy, I knew most of my uncles and aunts; they seemed fairly intelligent, but I cannot remember ever seeing a book in the house of any member of my father's family excepting in my father's home.
Not only were there no books in my grandfather's house, but there were practically none anywhere in the community. One of my earliest recollections is the books in our home. They were in bookcases, on tables, on chairs, and even on the floor. The house was small, the family large, the furnishings meagre, but there were books whichever way one turned. How my father managed to buy the books I cannot tell. Neither by nature nor by training had he any business ability or any faculty for getting money.
My mother's father was a fairly prosperous farmer. Neither he nor any of his family were church attendants. Out of the five or six children, my mother alone cared especially for books. Her family were substantial people of fair intelligence, but were inclined to believe that a love of books was a distinct weakness, and likely to develop into a very bad habit. One who spent his time reading or studying when he might be at work was "shiftless" and improvident. Benjamin Franklin's Almanac, with its foolish lessons about industry and thrift, was the gospel of the family.
Aside from one uncle who seemed fairly well-informed, I do not remember that a single one of my mother's brothers and sisters cared at all for books. Of my father's children, seven of us grew to mature years, and all but one had a liking for reading and learning; most of us would leave almost any sort of work or amusement to spend our time with books. How did it come about that of my father's family he alone, out of seven or eight, had any thirst for learning? And why was it that of my mother's family she was the only one that cared for books? And why did it happen that of the children of my father and mother all but one always had an abiding love for reading?
Of the group interwoven with my father's early life, why had he alone that overwhelming desire for books?--a love so strong that it remained with him and solaced him to his dying day, at the age of eighty-six. Was it imparted to him through the seed from which he grew? Was heredity the cause? Apparently his father did not care for books, and certainly conveyed no fondness for learning to his other sons and daughters. My grandparents on both sides each reared one child who in the yearning for education seemed as strangers to the rest.
I know nothing of my great-grandparents, but they must have been still more obscure. Is there any reason for speculating upon some possible spark of life from some unknown and improbable outside source? In my parents' offspring, the case was reversed; but the problem is the same; one child cared nothing for the intellectual life, and all the others prized books. If I knew my father's and mother's childhood associates I might find that some companion or school teacher at the right time kindled the quenchless flame in their young minds; but of this I have no knowledge. It is clear that both my parents, who met at school, away from home, had already shown a bent for study; and this was doubtless nurtured by the school. They married, and their zest for books was a part of the new home life, and we children were brought up in an atmosphere of books, and were trained to love them. It is easier for me to believe that our taste for them came from our early environment than that it was carried down in the germ-plasm of which so little is really known. Why did one brother not care at all for books? Who can tell? He was older than I, and of course I did not know his closest friends or when some alien influence might have entered and moulded his life. It seems reasonable to believe that by some intervention at a critical period he was led into another direction that perhaps changed the whole tenor of his nature and his life.
Soon after the marriage of my father and mother they went to Meadville, Penna., for a time. My father chose Meadville on account of Allegheny College, a Methodist institution, located in the town. I know nothing of how they lived. I should have known, but, long before I ever thought of beguiling my last years with a story of my life, the lips which could have spoken were closed forever. It would be hopeless to search for the happenings and doings of an obscure man. My father must have undergone great privations. He graduated from the college, where my two sisters received diplomas later on. He was still religious. His religion was born from a sensitive nature that made him pity the sad and suffering, and which, first and last, tied him to every hopeless cause that came his way.
On one hill in Meadville stood Allegheny College, sponsored by the Methodist Church. On another elevation was a Unitarian seminary, and in the town was a Unitarian Church. Both my parents must have strayed to this church, for when my father's time had come to take a theological course he went to the Unitarian school in Meadville, on the other hill from the Methodist college, where he took his first degree. In due time he completed his theological course, but when he had finished his studies he found that he had lost his faith. Even the mild tenets of Unitarianism he could not accept. Unitarianism, then, was closer to Orthodoxy than it is to-day, or he might have been a clergyman and lived an easier life. In the Unitarian school he read Newman and Channing, but later went on to Emerson and Theodore Parker. His trend of mind was shown by the fact that his first son was Edward Everett. When it came my turn to be born and named, my parents had left the Unitarian faith behind and were sailing out on the open sea without a rudder or compass, and with no port in sight, and so I could not be named after any prominent Unitarian. Where they found the name to which I have answered so many years I never knew. Perhaps my mother read a story where a minor character was called Clarence, but I fancy I have not turned out to be anything like him. The one satisfaction I have had in connection with this cross was that the boys never could think up any nickname half so inane as the real one my parents adorned me with.
Some years before I was born my parents left Meadville and moved back to the little village of Kinsman, about twenty miles away. I have no idea why they made this change, unless because my father's sister lived in Kinsman. All life hangs on a thread, so long as it hangs; a little movement this way or that is all-controlling. So I cannot tell why I was born on the 18th of April in 1857, or why the obscure village of Kinsman was the first place in which I beheld the light of day. When I was born the village must have boasted some four or five hundred inhabitants, and its importance and vitality is evident because it has held its own for seventy-five years or more. If any one wants to see the place he must search for the town, for in spite of the fact that I was born there it has never been put on the map.
But in truth, Kinsman is a quiet, peaceful and picturesque spot. Almost any one living in its vicinity will inform the stranger that it is well worth visiting, if one happens to be near. The landscape is gently rolling, the soil is fertile, beautiful shade trees line the streets, and a lazy stream winds its way into what to us boys was the far-off unknown world. Years ago the deep places of the stream were used for swimming-holes, and the shores were favorite lounging-places for boys dangling their fishing-lines above the shaded waters. There I spent many a day expectantly waiting for a bite. I recall few fishesthat ever rewarded my patience; but this never prevented my haunting the famous pools and watching where the line disappeared into the mysterious unfathomed depths.
The dominating building in Kinsman was the Presbyterian Church, which stood on a hill and towered high above all the rest. On Sunday the great bell clanged across the surrounding country calling all the people to come and worship under its sheltering roof. Loudly it tolled at the death of every one who died in the Lord. Its measured tones seemed cold and solemn while the funeral procession was moving up the hillside where the departed was to be forevermore protected under the shadow of the church.
If I had chosen to be born I probably should not have selected Kinsman, Ohio, for that honor; instead, I would have started in a hard and noisy city where the crowds surged back and forth as if they knew where they were going, and why. And yet my mind continuously returns to the old place, although not more than fiveor six that were once my schoolmates are still outside the churchyard gate. My mind goes back to Kinsman because I lived there in childhood, and to me it was once the centre of the world, and however far I have roamed since then it has never fully lost that place in the storehouse of miscellaneous memories gathered along the path of life.
I have never been able to visualize the early history of my parents. Not only had they no money, but no occupation; and under those conditions they began the accumulation of a family of children which ultimately totalled eight. These were born about two years apart. I was the fifth, but one before me died in infancy; it is evident that my parents knew nothing of birth-control, for they certainly could not afford so many doubtful luxuries. Perhaps my own existence, as fifth in a family, is one reason why I never have been especially enthusiastic about keeping others from being born; whenever I hear people discussing birth-control I always remember that I was the fifth.
All his life my father was a visionary and dreamer. Even when he sorely needed money he would neglect his work to read some book. My mother was more efficient and practical. She was the one who saved the family from dire want. Her industry and intelligence were evident in her household affairs and in my father's small business, too. In spite of this, she kept abreast of the thought of her day. She was an ardent woman's-rights advocate, as they called the advanced woman seventy years ago. Both she and my father were friends of all oppressed people, and every new and humane and despised cause and ism.
Neither of my parents held any orthodox religious views. They were both readers of Jefferson, Voltaire, and Paine; both looked at revealed religion as these masters thought. And still, we children not only went to Sunday school but were encouraged to attend. Almost every Sunday our mother took us to the church, and our pew was too near the minister to permit our slipping out while the service was going on. I wonder why children are taken to church? Or perhaps they are not, nowadays. I can never forget the horror and torture of listening to an endless sermon when I was a child. Of course I never understood a word of it, any more than did the preacher who harangued to his afflicted audiences.
At Sunday school I learned endless verses from the Testaments. I studied the lesson paper as though every word had a meaning and was true. I sang hymns that I remember to this day. Among these was one in which each child loudly shouted "I want to be an angel!--and with the angels stand; a crown upon my forehead, a harp within my hand!" Well do I remember that foolish hymn to this very day. As a boy I sang it often and earnestly, but in spite of my stout and steady insistence that I wanted to wear wings, here I am, at seventy-five, still fighting to stay on earth.
On religious and social questions our family early learned to stand alone. My father was the village infidel, and gradually came to glory in his reputation. Within a radius of five miles were other "infidels" as well, and these men formed a select group of their own. We were not denied association with the church members; the communicants of the smaller churches were our friends. For instance, there was a Catholic society that met at the home of one of its adherents once in two or three weeks, and between them and our family there grew up a sort of kinship. We were alike strangers in a more or less hostile land.
Although my father was a graduate of a theological seminary when he settled in Kinsman, he could not and would not preach. He must have been puzzled and perplexed at the growing brood that looked so trustingly to the parents for food and clothes. He must have wearily wondered which way to turn to be able to meet the demand. He undertook the manufacture and sale of furniture. His neighbors and the farmers round about were the customers with whom he dealt. Even now when I go back to Kinsman I am shown chairs and bedsteads that he made. He must have done honest work, for it has been more than fifty years since he laid down his tools. Now and then some old native shows me a bed or table or chair said to have been made by me in those distant days, but though I never contradict the statement, but rather encourage it instead, I am quite sure that the claim is more than doubtful.
Besides being a furniture maker, my father was the undertaker of the little town. I did not know it then, but I now suppose that the two pursuits went together in small settlements in those days. I know that the sale of a coffin meant much more to him and his family than any piece of furniture that he could make. My father was as kind and gentle as any one could possibly be, but I always realized his financial needs and even when very young used to wonder in a cynical way whether he felt more pain or pleasure over the death of a neighbor or friend. Any pain he felt must have been for himself, and the pleasure that he could not crowd aside must have come for the large family that looked to him for bread. I remember the coffins piled in one corner of the shop, and I always stayed as far away from them as possible, which I have done ever since. Neither did I ever want to visit the little shop after dark.
All of us boys had a weird idea about darkness, anyhow. The night was peopled with ghosts and the wandering spirits of those who were dead. Along two sides of the graveyard was a substantial fence between that and the road, and we always ran when we passed the white stones after dusk. No doubt early teaching is responsible for these foolish fears. Much of the terror of children would be avoided under sane and proper training, free of all fable and superstition.
My mother died when I was very young, and my remembrance of her is not very clear. It is sixty years since she laid down the hard burden that fate and fortune had placed upon her shoulders. Since that far-off day this loving, kindly, tireless and almost nameless mother has been slowly changed in Nature's laboratory into flowers and weeds and trees and dust. Her gravestone stands inside the white fence in the little country town where I was born, and beside her lies a brother who died in youth. I have been back to the old village and passed the yard where she rests forever, but only once have gone inside the gate since I left my old home so long ago. Somehow it is hard for me to lift the latch or go down the walk or stand at the marble slab which marks the spot where she was laid away. Still I know that in countless ways her work and teaching, her mastering personality, and her infinite kindness and sympathy have done much to shape my life.
My father died only twenty-five years ago. He is not buried in the churchyard at Kinsman. The same process of the reduction of the body to its elements has gone on with him as with my mother. But in her case it has come about through accumulating years; with him it was accomplished more quickly in the fiery furnace of the crematorium and his ashes were given to his children and were wafted to the winds.
Who am I--the man who has lived and retained this special form of personality for so many years? Aside from the strength or weakness of my structure, I am mainly the product of my mother, who helped to shape the wanton instincts of the child, and of the gentle, kindly, loving, human man whose presence was with me for so many years that I could not change, and did not want to change.
Since then a brother and sister, Everett and Mary, have passed into eternal sleep and have gone directly through the fiery furnace and their ashes are strewn upon the sands. I know that it can be but a short time until I shall go the way of all who live; I cannot honestly say that I want to be cremated, but I am sure that I prefer this method of losing my identity to any other I might choose.
The memory pictures of the first fifteen years of life that drift back to me now are a medley of all sorts of things, mainly play and school. Never was there a time when I did not like to go to school. I always welcomed the first day of the term and regretted the last. The school life brought together all the children of the town. These were in the main simple and democratic. The study hours, from nine to four, were broken by two recesses of fifteen minutes each and the "nooning" of one hour which provided an ideal chance to play. It seems to me that one unalloyed joy in life, whether in school or vacation time, was baseball. The noon time gave us a fairly good game each day. The long summer evenings were often utilized as well, but Saturday afternoon furnished the only perfect pleasure we ever knew. Whether we grew proficient in our studies or not, we enjoyed renown in our community for our skill in playing ball. Saturday afternoons permitted us to visit neighboring towns to play match games, and be visited by other teams in return.
I have snatched my share of joys from the grudging hand of Fate as I have jogged along, but never has life held for me anything quite so entrancing as baseball; and this, at least, I learned at district school. When we heard of the professional game in which men cared nothing whatever for patriotism but only for money--games in which rival towns would hire the best players from a natural enemy--we could scarcely believe the tale was true. No Kinsman boy would any more give aid and comfort to a rival town than would a loyal soldier open a gate in the wall to let an enemy march in.
We could not play when the snow was on the ground, but Kinsman had ponds and a river, and when the marvellous stream overran its banks it made fine skating in the winter months. Then there were the high hills; at any rate, they seemed high to me, and the spring was slower in coming than in these degenerate days, it seemed. To aid us in our sports there was a vast amount of snow and ice for the lofty, swift slides downhill, and few experiences have brought keener enjoyment, which easily repaid us for the tedious tug back to the top. I am not at all sure about the lessons that I learned in school, but I do know that we got a great deal of fun between the study hours, and I have always been glad that I took all the play I could as it came along.
But I am quite sure that I learned something, too. I know that I began at the primer and read over and over the McGuffey readers, up to the sixth, while at the district school. I have often wondered if there was such a man as Mr. McGuffey and what he looked like. To me his name suggested side-whiskers which, in Kinsman, meant distinction. I never could understand how he learned so much and how he could have been so good. I am sure that no set of books ever came from any press that was so packed with love and righteousness as were those readers. Their religious and ethical stories seem silly now, but at that time it never occurred to me that those tales were utterly impossible lies which average children should easily have seen through.
McGuffey furnished us many choice and generally poetical instructions on conduct and morals. And the same sort were found in other books, also. I remember one that I used to declaim, but I do not recall the book where it was found; this was an arraignment of the tobacco habit. It is not unlikely that this gem had something to do with the Methodist Church not permitting a man who smokes to be ordained as a preacher. Anyhow, I haven't heard of or seen this choice bit of literature and morals for sixty years, but here it is, as I remember it:
"'I'll never chew tobacco;
No, it is a filthy weed.
I'll never put it in my mouth,'
Said little Robert Reed.
Why, there was idle Jerry Jones,
As dirty as a pig,
Who smoked when only ten years old,
And thought it made him big.
He'd puff along the open streets
As if he had no shame;
He'd sit beside the tavern door
And there he'd do the same."
The girls made their hatred of liquor just as clear, although I do not recall their words, but I do know the title of one recitation. The name carried a threat to all of us boys, declaring:
"The lips that touch liquor
Shall never touch mine."
From what I see and hear of the present generation I should guess that Doctor McGuffey and his ilk lived in vain.
I am inclined to think that I had the advantage of most of the boys and girls, for, as I have said, my home was well supplied with books, and my father was eager that all of us should learn. He watched our studies with the greatest care and diligently elaborated and supplemented whatever we absorbed in school. No one in town had an education anywhere near so thorough as his education that hard work and rigorous self-denial had afforded him.
I am never certain whether I have accomplished much or little. This depends entirely upon what comparisons I make. Judged with relation to my father, who reared so large a family and gave us all so good an education from the skimpy earnings of a little furniture store in a country town, I feel that my life has been unproductive indeed. How he did it I cannot understand. It must have been due largely to the work and management of my mother, who died before I was old enough to comprehend. But from the little that I remember, and from all that my older brothers and sisters and the neighbors have told me, I feel that it was her ability and devotion that kept us together, that made so little go so far, and did so much to give my father a chance for the study and contemplation that made up the real world in which he lived. In all the practical affairs of our life, my mother's hand and brain were the guiding force. Through my mother's good sense my father was able to give his children a glimpse into the realm of ideas and ideals in which he himself really lived.
But I must linger no longer at the threshold of life, which has such a magic hold on my conscious being.
In due time I finished my studies at the district school, and now, grown to feel myself almost a man, was given newer and larger clothes, and more books, along with which came a little larger vision; and I went to the academy on the hill, and timorously entered a new world.
My eldest brother, Everett, who was always the example for the younger children, was then, by what saving and stinting I cannot tell, pursuing his studies at the University of Michigan; and my oldest sister, Mary, was following close behind. I have not the faintest conception how my father and mother were able to accomplish these miracles, working and planning, saving and managing, to put us through.
Any one who desires to write a story of his ideas and philosophy should omit childhood, for this is sacred ground, and when the old man turns back to that fairyland he lingers until any other undertaking seems in vain.
But the first bell in the academy tower has stopped ringing and I must betake myself and my books up the hill.
As I entered the academy I was at once aware that I had changed. I had stepped out of childhood, where we were controlled by commands, and had become a youth, where I had some rights. In all my years at the district school our teachers were women. Now we had a man. It took some time and trial to feel out just how far we dared to run counter to his will, or to act on our own. But we learned, in the true scientific manner, of trial and error, and trial and success.
We had left arithmetic behind and had algebra in its place. And instead of our English grammar we now made a bold effort at Latin. We took McGuffey's with us, for the sixth reader was not used in the primary grade. So we were still pursued by silly, fantastic stories teaching what McGuffey must have thought were moral precepts. But all this did not last long. Then, for the first time, we studied history. Not for any special purpose, or, seemingly, with any end in view, but it was necessary that we put in the time.
We still had baseball. We now were older and stronger and more fleet of foot, and took more pride in the way we played. Most of the games in the district school were far beneath our dignity at the academy, but baseball received all the former adoration, and even more. We began to be self-conscious about the girls, but this was quite easily and rapidly overcome.
As I look back at my days at the district school and the academy, I cannot avoid a feeling of the appalling waste of time. Never since those days have I had occasion to use much of the arithmetic that I learned. In fact, only the merest fraction has ever been brought into service. I am satisfied that this is the experience of almost all the boys and girls who went to school when I was young; and as near as I can tell this is true to-day. I began grammar in the grades, and continued it in the high school, but it was a total loss, not only to me but to all the rest. I would be the last to deny the value of a good understanding of some language, but the method of our public school was the poorest and the most expensive for getting that understanding. For my part, I never could learn grammar, at either the primary or the high school. I have used language extensively all my life, and no doubt have misused it, too; in a way, I have made a living from its use, but I am convinced that I was rather hindered than helped in this direction by the public schools. I am well aware of my own defects in the use of language and have always tried, and still try, to correct my shortcomings in this respect, but with only indifferent success.
Most of the rules for grammar and pronunciation are purely arbitrary. Any one who makes any pretense of observation and experience cannot fail to note the differences in the forms of speech and pronunciation in different countries and in various sections of each country. The correct use of words can only come from environment and habit, and all of this must be learned in childhood from the family or associates, otherwise it will not be known. Committing rules represents only feats of memory that have no effect on speech.
Memorizing history is likewise of no avail. We learned the names of presidents and kings, of the generals, of the chief wars, and those accidents that had been accepted as the great events of the world; but none of it had any relation to our lives. We studied Roman, Greek, and Egyptian histories, and then took English, French, and German, too, but all of the happenings had a dreary far-off setting that was no part of the world and time in which we lived. As well might Cæsar and Hannibal and Napoleon have inhabited Mars, so far as we students were concerned. To us they meant nothing but dry and musty dates and proper names. Even dates did not connect us with the events of their day. Ira Meacham, then the oldest citizen in Kinsman, seemed as far away in the past and as detached from us as Noah and his adventures with some kind of boat and cargo of animals and equally alien to our time and place. In youth, and probably in later life, everything back of our own existence seems weird and unreal and far removed from the life that we know. Attempting to store the brain with unrelated facts and matters entirely irrelevant to the present is worse than useless, for it confuses and distorts.
As I look back at the district school and the academy, I plainly see the boys and girls that gathered at the ringing of the bell. They were the children of the men and women of Kinsman and the territory just outside. Most of these families were farmers. Next in number were the small shop-keepers. There were two or three blacksmiths, a stone-cutter, a tinner, a carpenter, a few laborers, two doctors, two or three preachers, and a dentist. Few of these had ever been far from home, and all knew next to nothing of the outside world. Most of their children followed in their steps. Very few of these laughing, boasting boys and girls ever left the old village, and almost none were drawn into any broader or different fields than their parents knew before. None of them ever found any practical use for what they learned, or tried to learn at school beyond ordinary reading and writing. The exceptions who aspired to other avenues were moved by some inner or outer urge and specially prepared for their future course of life.
Schools probably became general and popular because parents did not want their children about the house all day. The school was a place to send them to get them out of the way. If, perchance, they could learn something it was so much to the good. Colleges followed the schools for the same reason. These took charge of the boy at a time when he could be of little or no use at home, and was only a burden and a care.
All established institutions are very slow to change. The defects of schools and colleges have been discussed for many years, and the lines of a rational and worth-while education have been developed to take their place, but still the old-time education with most of the ancient methods persists and flourishes yet.
It is worse than useless to try to make scholars of the great majority of boys and girls. In fact, scholarship as it is understood is not so necessary to life as people have been taught to believe. Man does not live by books alone. Indeed, they fill a very small part of the life of even those who know how to read.
Schools were not established to teach and encourage the pupil to think; beyond furnishing a place for keeping the children out of the way, their effort was to cement the minds of pupils according to certain moulds. The teachers were employed to teach the truth, and the most important truth concerned the salvation of their souls. From the first grade to the end of the college course they were taught not to think, and the instructor who dared to utter anything in conflict with ordinary beliefs and customs was promptly dismissed, if not destroyed. Even now there are very few schools that encourage the young or the old to think out questions for themselves. And yet, life is a continuous problem for the living, and first of all we should be equipped to think, if possible. Then, too, education should be adjusted to the needs of the pupil and his prospective future. Wise teachers and intelligent parents can tell at an early age the trend and probable capacity of the mind of the child. All learning should be adapted to making life easier to be lived.
After finishing at the academy, I went one year to Allegheny College, at Meadville, in the preparatory department. I still found baseball an important adjunct to school life. Here I continued my Latin and tried to add some Greek, with very poor success. I found geometry far easier, but no more useful. I did get something in zoology that remained with me; but I cannot to-day find the slightest excuse for studying either Latin or Greek; both are absolutely devoid of practical value. The college professor who gives his life to Latin cannot speak it as well as the street gamin who lived in Rome two thousand years ago; and all the treasures of learning that were buried in ancient languages have long since been better rendered into English and other languages than any modern student could ever hope to do. If perchance some untranslated manuscript should be unearthed, there is little need that all boys and girls should learn Latin so that it may be translated. There is no possible chance that the keys for translating languages will again be lost. To spend years in studying something that has nothing but what is called a cultural value is most absurd. All knowledge that is useful has a cultural value; the fact that it has some other value should make it more desirable instead of less.
Since I left Allegheny College I have never opened the lids of Virgil or any other Latin author, except in translation. Greek was even more useless and wasteful of time and effort than Latin. I never really attempted to do anything with either, excepting to "get by," and it is hard to understand the apologists for the dead languages of the dead. We live in a world full of unsolved mysteries. Their real study has been but begun. Every fresh fact that we master can add to the happiness of man, both by its use in life and by the cultural value that worth-while knowledge brings. I am inclined to believe that the age-long effort to keep the classics in schools and colleges has been an effort not to get knowledge but to preserve ignorance. The mythical soul really is not worth so much consideration.
I spent one year at Allegheny College. I came back a better ball player for my higher education. I learned to despise the study of Latin and Greek, although I never told my father so. He believed that there could be no education without Latin and Greek, and he had added Hebrew to the list. I did learn something of geology, and caught a glimpse of the wonders of natural science. Throughout my life I have been industriously enlarging my view of what some are pleased to call the "material" world, but what to me is the only world.
I went home for my summer vacation, intending to return to college the next autumn, but the panic of 1873 settled this matter for me. Although my father was anxious that I should go back, I was certain that I ought not to burden him longer. So I abandoned further school life and began my education.
My mother died before I went away to school. My memory of her is blurred and faded, although I was fourteen years old at the time. I know that she had a long illness, and for months calmly looked forward to swift and certain death. She had no religious beliefs. Her life was given fully and freely to her home and children, and she faced the future without hope or fear. On the day of her death I was away from home, so I did not see her in her last moments, though all the family were summoned. I never could tell whether I was sorry or relieved that I was not there, but I still remember the blank despair that settled over the home when we realized that her tireless energy and devoted love were lost forever.
After I left Allegheny College I was set to work in the factory and the little store. I was never fond of manual labor. I felt that I was made for better things. I fancy all boys and girls harbor the same delusion. I had no mechanical ability, and to this day have none. I could do rather well at a turning lathe, and could handle a paint brush, but I never bragged about it. But I still played baseball. I don't know just when I gave up the game, but I think that it forsook me when I was no longer valuable to my side.
During the winter I taught a district school in a country community. I remember even the salary, or wages, that I received. The pay was thirty dollars a month "and found"--the latter of which I collected by going from house to house one night after another, and then returning to my own home on Friday night. Boarding around was not so bad. I was "company" wherever I arrived, and only the best was set before me. I had pie and cake three times a day. I taught in the same school three winters, which completed that part of my career. I have been teaching more or less all my life, but confining my activities to those who did not want to learn. In this three years I had some fifty scholars, ranging from seven years old to a year or two above my own age. On the whole, it was a pleasant three years. I am not sure how much I taught the pupils, but I am certain that they taught me. In most district schools rods and switches were a part of the course. My school was large and had caused much trouble to the teachers before I came, but I determined that there should be no corporal punishment while I was there, and of this the pupils were early informed. I told them that I wanted no one to do anything through fear. I joined in their games and sports, including, of course, baseball when the snow was not on the ground. I lengthened the noon hours and recesses, which made a hit with the pupils but brought criticism from their parents. However, I managed to convince them that I was right, and am still quite sure that I was. Whether they learned much or little, they certainly enjoyed those winters. No matter when I go back to my old home I am sure to meet some of the thinning group whom I tried to make happy even if I could not make them wise. I feel sure that if the same effort could be given to making people happy that is devoted to making them get an education which could not be accomplished this world would be a much better home for the human race.
During my teaching days I began the study of law. I am not sure what influenced me to make this choice. I knew that I never intended to work with my hands, and no doubt I was attracted by the show of the legal profession. When I was still quite young the lawyers from the county seat always visited our town on all public occasions. On the Fourth of July and on Decoration Day, in political campaigns and on all holidays, they made speeches and were altogether the most conspicuous of the locality. Then, too, we lived across the street from a tin-shop, and the tinner was the justice of the peace, and I never missed a chance to go over to his shop when a case was on trial. I enjoyed the way the pettifoggers abused each other, and as I grew toward maturity I developed a desire to be a lawyer, too. Every Monday morning, as I started off to teach my school, I took a law book with me, and having a good deal of time improved it fairly well.
When my third term of teaching ended my eldest brother, Everett, was teaching in high school, and my sister, Mary, in a grade school. They were both as self-sacrificing and kind as any human beings I have ever known; they and my father insisted that I should go to Ann Arbor in the law department, which I did for one year. At that time the full course was two years. At the end of one year I was positive that I could make my preparation in another year in an office, which would cost much less money and give a chance to be admitted to the bar at twenty-one. So I went to work in a law office in Youngstown, Ohio, until I was ready for examination for admission to the bar. In those days a committee of lawyers were chosen to examine applicants. They were all good fellows and wanted to help us through. The bar association of to-day lay down every conceivable condition; they require a longer preliminary study, and exact a college education and long courses in law schools, to keep new members out of the closed circle. The Lawyers' Union is about as anxious to encourage competition as the Plumbers' Union is, or the United States Steel Co., or the American Medical Association.
When I considered that I was ready for the test I presented myself, with some dozen other ambitious young men, for the examination. A committee of lawyers was appointed to try us out. That committee did not seem to take it as seriously as examiners do to-day. I was not made to feel that the safety of the government or the destiny of the universe was hanging on their verdict. As I remember it now, the whole class was passed, and I became a member of the Ohio Bar. Youngstown was then a promising manufacturing town and county seat. It was about twenty miles from the place of my birth. I would have been glad to open an office there, but it was a city of twenty thousand people, and I felt awed by its size and importance; so I went back home and reported my success to my father. He was delighted, and possibly surprised, at my good luck. Poor man, he was probably thinking what he could have done had Fortune been so kind to him. But, like most parents, the success of the son was his success. My neighbors and friends warmly congratulated me, but it was some time before they encouraged me with any employment. They could not conceive that a boy whom they knew, and who was brought up in their town, could possibly have the ability and learning that they thought was necessary to the practice of law.
In the English expression, I had now been "called" to the bar. Lawyers are very fond of fiction; especially the English lawyers. Working a long time on obscure subjects, spending all your money, and as much of your family's as you can get, and finally passing examinations against the will and best efforts of the inquisitors, means getting "called to the bar." I now had a license to practice law, but no one had called me to practice on him. Perhaps I might digress on the brink of a new and untried world to take account of stock, as one might say.
I had no money and no influential friends. I had a rather meagre education. I had never been carefully and methodically trained, and I have felt the lack of it all my life. My law education came from a year's study at a good law school and from a year's reading under a lawyer's direction. I had never had any experience in court work or in the preparation of cases. I then knew, and have ever since been aware, that I needed specific training which I could not get. I was none too industrious, and I have never loved to work. In fact, strange as it may seem, I have never wanted to do the things that I did not want to do. These activities are what I call work. I liked to do certain things no matter how much exertion they required; I liked to play baseball, no matter how hot the day. I liked to read books that I liked to read. I liked debating in school and out of school. I liked to "speak pieces" and was always keen to make due preparation for that, no matter what the subject might be. I always preferred diversions to duties, and this strange taste has clung to me all through life. Again and again these tendencies have kept me from turning to things that my parents and teachers have felt that I should do. In this, the parents and teachers have doubtless often been right. Doing something that one ought to do means foregoing pleasure and enduring pain, or at least boredom, in the hope and belief that one will all the more enjoy a thing in the future by abstaining from it now. Undoubtedly often this is true.
I was strong and healthy. I seemed to have a good mind. I really had a rather good education. While this education was not detailed and explicit, still it was broad and comprehensive for one of my years. I had a strongly emotional nature which has caused me boundless joy and infinite pain. I had a vivid imagination. Not only could I put myself in the other person's place, but I could not avoid doing so. My sympathies always went out to the weak, the suffering, and the poor. Realizing their sorrows I tried to relieve them in order that I myself might be relieved. I had a thoroughly independent, perhaps individual, way of looking at things, and was never influenced by the views of others unless I could be convinced that they were nearly right. I had little respect for the opinion of the crowd. My instinct was to doubt the majority view. My father had directed my thought and reading. He had taught me to question rather than accept. He never thought that the fear of God was the beginning of wisdom. I have always felt that doubt was the beginning of wisdom, and the fear of God was the end of wisdom.
I took a little office in the village of Andover, ten miles from Kinsman, borrowed some money to buy some books, and flung my shingle to the breeze. I did not succeed at first. I am not certain that I ever did. In fact, I don't know the meaning of the word "success." To some--perhaps to most--it means "money." I never cared much for it nor tried to get much of it or ever had a great deal, but still most of my life I have had what I needed. To some, success means political preferment; this I never wanted. It is hard enough to maintain an independent stand and freely express one's self without being handicapped by the desire for office or money. Most people who follow a political career grow to be cowards and slaves; for that matter, so do men who sell prunes. In life one cannot eat his cake and have it, too; he must make his choice and then do the best he can to be content to go the way his judgment leads. Whether he really has anything to do with the making of a choice is still another question for which I have plenty of time and space later on.
Soon after I was twenty-one years old, while I was living in Ashtabula, Ohio, I married Miss Jessie Ohl, whose parents were neighbors and friends of our family. Of this marriage my son Paul was born. Later in life we were divorced--in 1897. This was done without contest or disagreement and without any bitterness on either side, and our son has always been attached to both of us, and she and I have always had full confidence and respect toward each other.
It would not have been possible to build up what lawyers call "a good practice" where my name was first posted on an office door. The part of Ohio where I lived and dreamed was of course a farming section, with farmers' ideas, if farmers can be said to have ideas. There were some things that they did not merely believe. These they knew. They knew that Protestantism was inspired and that all of its creeds, however conflicting, were true. They knew that the Republican party and all of its doctrines came as a divine revelation. They knew that the farmers were the backbone of the country and the most intelligent people in the world. They knew that all pleasure was sinful, and suffering was righteous; that the cities were evil and the country was good. Of course there were no saloons in the place.
The main industry of the farmers was the dairy business. This was carried on by taking milk to the cheese factories to be converted into butter and cheese; and then each farmer would receive his portion of the money coming from the sale of the output.
My business, as it slowly opened up, grew out of the horse trades, boundary lines, fraudulent representations, private quarrels and grudges, with which the world everywhere is rife. There were actions of debt, actions of replevin, cases of tort, and now and then a criminal complaint. Nearly all of the last mentioned grew out of the sale of liquor or watering milk before it was sent to the factory. The liquor prosecutions generally came from the villages, although here and there a farmer was fined for selling hard cider. The whole community was always against the defendant in the liquor cases, but not so in those pertaining to watering milk. Membership in a church in no way affected these cases of dilution. It was so easy to pour a bucketful of water into a milk can that many otherwise upright men could not resist.
In about two years of steady growth I was convinced that I was too big for that place, whereupon I moved to Ashtabula, twenty-five miles away, a town of about five thousand people and then the largest in that part of the country. Soon after my arrival I was elected city solicitor, with a salary of seventy-five dollars a month and the right to take cases on my own account, which salary and perquisites to me seemed all that I was worth.
Ashtabula furnished a somewhat broader field, but was not especially exciting. With me, as with most lawyers, a case became a personal matter, and my side was right. My feelings were always so strong that fees were a secondary matter.
The most important case I had in Ohio was an action of replevin for a harness worth fifteen dollars. There were other cases that involved more money, but this concerned the ownership of a harness which my client, a boy, had been given for attending a wealthy man in a case of illness. The suit was commenced before a justice of the peace ten miles away. I received five dollars for the first trial, but the jury disagreed. It was set for a second trial, but my client had no more five-dollar bills, so I tried it again at my own expense. My client lost the case, but I persuaded a friend of mine to sign a bond to appeal it to the Court of Common Pleas. By that time I had moved to Ashtabula, but went to the adjoining county to try the case, although after the first five-dollar bill I never got a cent, always paying my own expenses and those of my client, too. I won the case before the jury, but it was taken to the Court of Appeals, where the verdict was reversed. Again it was tried by the jury, who again decided in favor of my client. Once more it was carried to the Court of Appeals, which again reversed the case--the result hinged on a question of law. So I decided to appeal to the Supreme Court, although, in the meantime, I had moved to Chicago. I wrote the brief, argued the case, paid all expenses, and the court decided in my favor. It was seven or eight years from the time the case was commenced before it ended. I had spent money that I could not afford to spare, but I was determined to see it through.
This was long ago. There was no money involved, and not much principle, as I see it now, but then it seemed as if my life depended upon the result. Outside of the immediate jurisdiction it was not a famous case, but there are still living in Trumbull County, Ohio, a number of people who remember the case of "Jewell versus Brockway"--which involved the title to a harness.
A country law-business, in those days, had some interest and much excitement, although almost anything attracts attention in a little village. If a horse fell down on the street it drew a great audience. If a safe was lowered from the second story, the entire Main Street came to a standstill to watch it swung by ropes and pulleys to the sidewalk below. After that, we eagerly looked for something else to satisfy our curiosity and interest.
Fortunately, there was usually a poker game in progress somewhere, almost any time of the day or night. The limit was small, to be sure, as befitted a community of slender means, but none the less inspiring. After baseball, the next game to fascinate me was poker. With congenial companions, a deck of cards and a box of chips, and a little something to drink, I could forget the rest of the world until the last white bone had been tossed into the yawning jack pot. I don't know whether I would recommend the sport or not; I doubt if I would recommend anything if I thought my advice was to be followed. Everything depends on one's point of view of life. I am inclined to believe that the most satisfactory part of life is the time spent in sleep, when one is utterly oblivious to existence; next best is when one is so absorbed in activities that one is altogether unmindful of self. Poker is able to supply this for many, in all ranks of life; yet I would not advise any one to play, or not play, but do most emphatically advise them to keep the limit down.
But poker cannot be said to bear any kinship to the profession of law, excepting that in both games you are dealing with chances, which always helps somewhat to relieve one from the tedium and boredom of life. But law practice itself in a country town had its interesting sides. Necessarily, the cases were small; that is, the amount of cash involved was not great. But here, again, what is the difference whether one plays with a blue chip or a white one? The important thing is to play. And habit has much to do with the way one views the importance of the game. I am satisfied that no one with a moderate amount of intelligence can tolerate life, if he looks it squarely in the face, without welcoming whatever soothes and solaces, and makes one forget. Every one instinctively, automatically, seeks satisfaction from the annoyances and banalities of existence. Some resort to play, some to work, others to alcohol or opiates, and even to religion. But, whatever one takes, and quite regardless of relative values, we all seek something and accept something that gives rest and allays the tension of strenuous living.
Much of the business of the country lawyer in my day was the trial of cases before justices of the peace. These often seemed to be exciting events. And right now I am not so sure but that the old-time country lawyers fighting over the title to a cow were as clever, and sometimes as learned, as lawyers now whose cases involve millions of dollars, or human lives. The trials then were not so much a matter of rote. A lawsuit, then, before a justice of the peace, was filled with color and life and wits. Nor was the country lawsuit a dry and formal affair. Every one, for miles around, had heard of the case and taken sides between the contending parties or their lawyers. Neighborhoods, churches, lodges, and entire communities were divided as if in war. Often the cases were tried in the town halls, and audiences assembled from far and near. An old-time lawsuit was like a great tournament, as described by Walter Scott. The combatants on both sides were always seeking the weakest spots in the enemy's armor, and doing their utmost to unhorse him or to draw blood.
A country lawsuit not only gave the farmers and others not employed somewhere to go, but it left in its wake a chain of hatreds and scars that never healed.
In Ashtabula I was quite content, as I had been before in Andover. I had my friends and enemies, my cronies and critics; my arenas in which to fight, and my poker games at night. And, after all, even though now that life may appear small and superficial, and wasteful of time and opportunity--what does it matter? I am now so near the end of the trail that I can look back and contemplate and compare. Would it have made the slightest difference whether I had remained in Ashtabula, or even in Andover, instead of coming to Chicago, whether the stage was larger; or, whether I had been born at all?
Considering my age and the town, I was prospering in Ashtabula, and would doubtless be there now except for an important event for which I was no more responsible than I am for the course of the earth around the sun.
I was married when still a youth and was living there with my wife and son Paul, then four or five years old. I had been practicing law since I came of age, and was nearing my twenty-ninth birthday. Like most other young men I concluded to buy a home, and found one that I thought would do. I had five hundred dollars in the bank, and I bought the place for thirty-five hundred. The five hundred was to be paid down and the balance over a series of years. The owner was to deliver the deed to my office the next day. He appeared at the appointed time only to tell me that his wife refused to sign the document, so he could not sell the house. As I had made up my mind to buy this home I was peeved, to put it mildly, but managed to control my temper and answered bluntly, "All right, I don't believe I want your house because--because--I'm going to move away from here."
It is perfectly plain that the wish or whim of the woman shaped my whole future, and perhaps hers and her family's as well. Had I bought the house I would probably be in Ashtabula now trying to meet overdue payments. Perhaps I would be in the graveyard, perhaps in a little law office. No one can possibly guess. But certain it is, whether for better or worse, my life would have been a radically different one. It was easy enough to decide to leave Ashtabula when the woman refused to sign the deed, but where should I go? The world looked big and lonely, and my savings very small. My brother Everett was teaching in Chicago, and this doubtless had something to do with choosing that city for my new venture. Because of Everett's age and intelligence and kindliness all the family, including myself, always respected him and went to him for advice and assistance; and up to the time of his death, a few years ago, none of us ever looked to him in vain.
From my youth I was always interested in political questions. My father, like many others in northern Ohio, had early come under the spell of Horace Greeley, and, as far back as I can remember, the New York Weekly Tribune was the political and social Bible of our home. I was fifteen years old when Horace Greeley ran for the presidency. My father was an enthusiastic supporter of Greeley and I joined with him; and well do I remember the gloom and despair that clouded our home when we received the news of his defeat. From Greeley our family went to Tilden in 1876, but I was not old enough to vote. Of course most of the people in our neighborhood were for Hayes. In our town it was hard to tell which was the chief bulwark, Republicanism or religion. Both were sacred; but not to my family, who always lined up against the great majority. Our candidate, Samuel J. Tilden, was elected in 1876, but was not allowed to take his seat. The Civil War was not then so far in the background as it is now, and any sort of political larceny was justifiable to save the country from the party that had tried to destroy the Union. So, though Tilden was elected, Rutherford B. Hayes was inaugurated and served Tilden's term.
The Tilden campaign stimulated me to find out all I could about political questions, and I tried to carefully form an opinion on the issues of the day. My reading of history and political economy convinced me that states' rights and free trade were both sound doctrines. When the campaign between Blaine and Cleveland disturbed the political life of the Republic, I was for Cleveland.
As political questions have come and gone I have clung in my political allegiance to the doctrines of states' rights and free trade. To me they are as true and almost as important as they were in the historical campaign of 1884, when Cleveland was elected President of the United States. While I have always been interested in the political situation, I have never wanted a political career. The scheming and dickering and trading for political place never appealed to me, and I concluded early in life that if one entered a political course he must leave his independence behind, and this I could never abide. For a young man I took a considerable part in each of the three campaigns for Grover Cleveland, and then, and ever since, this President has been one of my idols. His courage, independence and honesty have always seemed far above those of most of the political figures of his time, or since his day.
Strange as it may seem, a banker in Ashtabula, Amos Hubbard, was the first man to give me some insight into radical political doctrines. He, like many others in that period, had been greatly influenced by Henry George's "Progress and Poverty." On his advice I read the book and felt that I had found a new political gospel that bade fair to bring about the social equality and opportunity that has always been the dream of the idealist. While Mr. Hubbard gave me a first insight into advanced political economy, Judge Richards, a police judge in Ashtabula, gave me my first sane idea of crime and criminals. He gave me a little book, "Our Penal Code and Its Victims," by Judge John P. Altgeld, of Chicago, which was a revelation to me. This book and the author came to have a marked influence upon me and my future.
I came to Chicago in 1888. Soon after my arrival I joined the Single Tax Club, and took part in the second Grover Cleveland campaign, then going on. This club met regularly every week for several years. In due time I realized that at every meeting the same faces appeared and reappeared, week after week, and that none of them cared to hear anything but a gospel which they all believed. It did not take long for Single Tax to become a religious doctrine necessary to salvation. But, the Single Tax Club furnished a forum for ambitious young lawyers to win a hearing in; and I generally participated in the debates, which led to my speaking at ward meetings and other public gatherings from time to time.
In those days I was rather oratorical. Like many other young men of that day, I did the best, or worst, I could to cover up such ideas as I had in a cloud of sounding metrical phrases. In later years nothing has disturbed my taste along that line more than being called an "orator," and I strive to use simpler words and shorter sentences, to make my statements plain and direct and, for me, at least, I find this the better manner of expression.
When I arrived in Chicago I rented a very modest apartment and took desk room in an office. I had no money to waste and never liked to borrow or be in debt, so I tried to live within my means, but in this I did not fully succeed in that first year in Chicago. I had few friends and acquaintances, and these did not have enough money to indulge in the extravagance of litigation. In that first year, all told, I did not receive in fees, or any other way, more than about three hundred dollars. I began to feel discouraged. From the very first a cloud of homesickness always hung over me. There is no place so lonely to a young man as a great city where he has no intimates or companions. When I walked along the street I scanned every face I met to see if I could not perchance discover some one from Ohio. Sometimes I would stand on the corner of Madison and State Streets--"Chicago's busiest corner"--watching the passers-by for some familiar face; as well might I have hunted in the depths of the Brazilian forest. Had all my associates in Ohio suddenly come to Chicago en masse it would not have been possible to detect them there in the solid, surging sea of human units, each intent upon hurrying by and attending to his own small affairs.
At the Henry George Club I formed some congenial friendships and never missed one of their meetings; here I found a chance to talk so that I would not completely forget how to form sentences and feel at home on my feet. As the election of 1888 approached I was invited to make some speeches for the Democratic party in various halls throughout the city. When I appeared at a meeting it was with a long line of other ambitious young lawyers, each of us eager to make his voice heard in the general palaver; I was usually put down toward the end of the list, by which time I had little chance for attracting attention even if any one cared to listen. If by any luck I seemed to be getting the ear of the audience, I was soon interrupted by a string of candidates entering the hall anxious for their turn. The audience would rise and cheer and call for their favorite leaders, and the opportunity of the evening would be gone in the all-around din. Yet, in spite of all handicaps, I did make some acquaintances. Gradually it came to pass that some member of an audience would call for me, and I would respond without any pretense at reluctance. I knew that if I waited some other favorite would appropriate my chance. Now and then I was invited to make a talk at some civic meeting, but I did not seem to make a hit. Generally there were others whose faces were better known to the listeners. Then, my training had been neglected. My father had directed my reading, and had insisted that I study political economy, and speak only if I had something worth saying; at a political hubbub this was the worst thing one could do, and the last thing the audience expected or wished.
One night I was asked to speak at a West Side meeting, called to discuss some civic problem. The leading speaker was William B. Mason, who was at that time a State senator, and afterwards became a United States senator. I had long wanted the newspapers to notice my existence, but the reporters refused to even look at me. I entered the theatre through the back door and noted with joy that the place was packed. In front of the stage were a half-dozen or more newspaper reporters that gladdened my heart. Easily I sized up the situation and felt that my time had come. After a few preliminaries I was introduced amidst loud calls for Mason. I looked around and over at the audience, trying to gain their attention. The eyes can be very useful for quelling an audience or forcing people to focus on a speaker. I made my speech. I feel sure that it was not very bad. Probably not bad enough. I could see that the audience was waiting for William B. Mason, so I took no chances in delaying them too long. But the one thing that forcibly impressed me while I spoke was that not one of the newspaper men wrote a single line. They leaned back in their chairs and glanced at me with the complacent and sophisticated countenances of newspaper men. They knew why they were there, and whom their editors and the public would want to read about the next day. When I sat down there was slight applause. No speaker can get along without at least a little of that. Such approval as was manifested by the politest and kindliest there was drowned in the cries for "Mason!" They had come to hear him and were not interested in waiting. When he arose and stepped to the front of the platform, the entire audience stood up and wildly cheered; the newspaper men grabbed their books and pencils and began to write.
The next morning I hopefully looked over the newspapers. The front pages were covered with Senator Mason, but not a word about me. It was very discouraging for an energetic young man with the world before him. It began to look as though the world would always be before me. I had no envy for Mr. Mason, but what would I not have given for just a few lines of all that space devoted to him! After that evening I came to know Senator Mason very well, and never have I known a more kindly, humane and genial fellow. He, also, was an idealist, but not too far ahead of the crowd. He was a man of ability, filled with gentleness and good will toward all the world.
I was disappointed and discouraged, especially because the newspapers had made no mention of my speech. I did not know the press so well then as I do to-day. Since then they have given me more attention than I deserved, and often much more than I wanted. Through the first half of my life I was anxious to get into the papers; in the last half I have often been eager to keep out. In neither case have I had much success. Often I have felt that newspapers were unkind and unfair to me; and sometimes they have been. But, when I reflect that I have never been on the popular side of any issue, that I have always seemed to court opposition, that I have always stood with the minority against all popular causes and mass hysteria--that I have always voted "No" and been independent to the point of recklessness, I feel that I have gotten off easily. After all is said and done I am inclined to think that they have treated me very well. I always, really, have had many warm friends among newspaper men; a good many who were also minority men. Every large office has a number of this sort, and they have never failed to be as considerate as it was possible for them to be.
After the meeting at the West Side hall I was in gloom amounting almost to despair. If it had been possible I would have gone back to Ohio; but I didn't want to borrow the money, and I dreaded to confess defeat. I did not then know the ways of Fate. I did not know that Fortune comes like the day, sometimes filled with sunshine, sometimes hidden in gloom. I had not then learned that one must accept whatever comes along without regret; that he must not take either gratification or disappointment too seriously. I did not know, as Bret Harte put it, that the only sure thing about luck is that it will change. And luck can change as suddenly as daylight and darkness in a tropical land.
Soon after the blow in connection with the West Side meeting a "Free Trade Convention" was staged in Chicago. The closing session was held in Central Music Hall, at that time the most popular auditorium in the city; Henry George was to be the big drawing-card. Mr. George was then in the zenith of his power. I was invited to appear on the same programme. The great auditorium was packed, to my satisfaction. I looked out upon the audience with renewed hope. Every Single Taxer in Chicago seemed to be present, and a great throng besides. Mr. George was the first speaker, which looked ominous to me. I was afraid of either the first or last place; either one seemed fraught with peril. No one knew the tariff question better than Henry George. More than this, he was a strong idealist, and had the audience in his grasp from the first moment to the last. Every one but me was carried away with his able address. I was disappointed. I was sorry that it was so good. I twitched nervously in my chair until he had finished and the applause began to die away. I felt that after his wonderful address I would not be able to hold the audience. I realized that the crowd had come to hear him, and that but a few among them had ever heard of me.
When the applause subsided people began getting up and going away. The show was over. I said to the chairman, "For goodness sake get busy before every one leaves the house!" Quickly he introduced me, and my friends paused and did their best to give me a good reception. I had discovered enough about public speaking to sense that unless a speaker can interest his audience at once, his effort will be a failure. This was particularly true when following a speaker like Henry George, so I began with the most striking phrases that I could conjure from my harried, worried brain. The audience hesitated and began to sit down. They seemed willing to give me a chance. I had at least one advantage; nothing was expected of me; if I could get their attention it would be easier than if too much was expected. Not one in twenty of the audience knew much about me. As a matter of fact, I had taken great pains to prepare my speech. The subject was one that had deeply interested me for many years, one that I really understood. In a short time I had the attention of the entire audience, to my surprise. Then came the full self-confidence which only a speaker can understand; that confidence that is felt as one visits by the fireside, when he can say what he pleases and as he pleases; when the speaker can, in fact, visit with the audience as with an old-time friend. I have no desire to elaborate on my talk, but I know that I had the people with me, and that I could sway those listeners as I wished.
But the crowning triumph had come as I warmed to my subject and waxed earnest in what I had to say, and became aware that the newspaper men down in front were listening, and were plying their pencils, recording my words, or seeming to record them, as fast as they shot past. When I finally finished, the audience was indeed generous and encouraging with its applause and appreciation. Henry George warmly grasped my hand. My friends and others came around me, and it was some time before I could leave the stage.
I have talked from platforms countless times since then, but never again have I felt that exquisite thrill of triumph after a speech. This was forty years ago, and even now I occasionally meet some one who tells me that he heard my speech at Central Music Hall the night I was there with Henry George. I know that at least a part of this enthusiasm came because I was unknown, and nothing was expected of me.
The next morning I was awake early and went out and bought all the papers. This time my name was all over the front page. The reporters had certainly done their best. I read them all carefully, and then I read them all over again. It was exceedingly pleasant to my senses. Since that day I have often seen my name prominently featured on the outsides and insides of newspapers; often I have refrained from reading what was said, and have felt that only by closing my eyes and steeling my heart could I go on with the work on which I had set my mind.
I went to my office earlier than usual the next morning. No customers were there. Soon some of my Single Tax friends and Socialist companions began coming in to congratulate me on my speech. This was pleasing but not profitable. Single Taxers and Socialists never come for business; they come to use your telephone and tell you how the world should be organized so that every one could have his own telephone. But of course I enjoyed their visit and appreciated their good will, and began to feel more hopeful.
The city did not look so big, nor feel so cold now. All through the day I received some real invitations to speak at good meetings in the campaign then in progress. DeWitt C. Cregier was running for mayor of Chicago on the Democratic ticket. I had been asked to speak at various meetings before, but never until then had I been invited to choose my hall and colleagues. This time I was asked to do both. I named my hall, but I took no chances, and said that I would speak alone. And I did.
In spite of my fond hopes, business did not come with a rush. Strange to say, the meeting did not bring clients, and these were what I needed most. A few weeks after Henry George and I had spoken at Central Music Hall, DeWitt C. Cregier was elected mayor of Chicago. Although I had taken part in his campaign I had never met him, and did not even try to make his acquaintance. I knew that almost every one who had voted for him would expect some favor in return, and I had no ambition to enter into that sort of contest.
It was perhaps two months after the election that I was wearily sitting in my office when a messenger brought me a letter. It was from DeWitt C. Cregier, asking me to come over and see him when I had time. The latter part of the sentence sounded like a joke. I had time right then. So I put the letter into my pocket and went to see the mayor. The hall and the offices were crowded with politicians looking for jobs. I sent in my name and was not kept waiting. After a little preliminary conversation Mr. Cregier asked me if I would take the position of special assessment attorney.
I had very little idea of the duties of a special assessment attorney. I was told that the salary was three thousand dollars for only a year's time, and this seemed to me a fabulous sum, so I told him that I would be glad to take it and do the best I could. He asked me when I could be ready to begin. I answered that I saw no reason why I should not begin right now. So I was placed on the pay roll before I left the office, and immediately and recklessly started in.
Very soon I grew familiar with the work. Of course many questions came up for immediate answers which I did not fully understand, but I used the best judgment I had and always answered promptly. Seldom did I find that I had guessed wrong. I thought, then, that it was my natural judgment and wisdom that led me to always answer right. Since that time I have modified my opinion. I was working for the city of Chicago. I had all the strength of a large city behind my decision; few were able to contest my opinion, and even if they did, the tendency of the courts was always to decide for the city. All my experience in life has strengthened this conclusion. Every advantage in the world goes with power. The city, the State, the county, the nation can scarcely be wrong. Behind them is organized society, and the individual who is obliged to contest for his rights against these forces in either civil or criminal courts is fighting against dreadful odds.
When I had been special assessment attorney for about three months some political complication compelled the resignation of the assistant corporation counsel and I was given his place. My salary then became five thousand dollars a year. My duties were more strenuous and I gave them all my time and attention. This position kept me in court a great deal in contested cases. At the same time every alderman and city official had the right to ask my advice, which I learned to give as promptly as possible, often simply making the best guess I could, and almost invariably finding that my advice settled the whole controversy. For about ten months I remained in this office, and then the corporation counsel was stricken with an illness that compelled him to go south to a warmer climate, whereupon I became acting corporation counsel, and was the head of the law department of the city of Chicago. When luck began to change everything seemed rapidly to come my way. As acting corporation counsel I was in daily conference with the Mayor, and we came to be good friends. In one of my interviews I asked him how he happened to send for me and ask me to be special assessment attorney, never having met me before. He replied, "Don't you know? Why, I heard you make that speech that night with Henry George."
How much had I to do with all this? I had nothing whatever to do with my birth, which was a rather important event in the whole scheme. It seemed that in the infinite chances that bring forth life I was to be I. Nor had I the slightest thing to do with the sort of being that was spawned out with all the rest; nor the environment in which I found myself. Every turn of the development came from a cause that was controlling to me. Had I been able to deliberate, I could only have considered the arguments for and against each step, and my answer would necessarily have been in the way that seemed best to me in view of all circumstances, including my structure. Passing by an endless number of influences of equal import that determined my destiny, I had nothing to do with the woman refusing to sign the deed that drove me to Chicago. Had she signed that deed I should not have left Ashtabula, Ohio. I had nothing to do with being invited to speak at the Henry George meeting. I had nothing to do with a man being in the audience who afterward became mayor. I had nothing to do with being invited to become special assessment attorney. I had nothing to do with political differences that made me assistant corporation counsel. I had nothing to do with illness coming upon the corporation counsel, which placed me at the head of the department for the time. But, while I did not make the corporation counsel ill, I am afraid that I fully approved it. His sickness seemed to be what is generally called "an act of Providence." If it was such an act, it is plain that Providence was thinking of me and not of him.
For the following two years I was very busy with the affairs of the city of Chicago. Every man was my client; that is, every one who had any business with the city of Chicago. I found most of the officials, like the average office-holders, anxious to shirk responsibility. Nothing could be done without the advice of the Corporation Counsel's office. It was my business to assume the responsibility. I always took my share of the burden, and made no attempt to dodge. In cases of doubt I resolved the doubt in favor of the city, as all officials do, but I never let this rule prevent me from deciding in favor of the property holder and the citizen when I was satisfied that he was right.
In this place I made the acquaintance of all the aldermen and most of the politicians of Chicago. I never admired politicians, though they are generally kindly and genial, and often very intelligent; but seldom is there one with real courage. Their constituency is that mysterious entity known as "the people"--with all its ignorance, its prejudices, its selfishness, and, worst of all, its insincerity as to either men or principles. This is the despair of ever accomplishing anything of real value in the affairs of state. While I liked political questions, I did not like politicians, as such, and never wanted political office.
During these early years in Chicago I was very much interested in what passes under the name of "radicalism" and at one time was a pronounced disciple of Henry George. But as I read and pondered about the history of man, as I learned more about the motives that move individuals and communities, I became doubtful of his philosophy. I never believed that land should be reduced to private ownership, and I never felt that any important social readjustment could come while any one could claim the unconditional right to any part of the earth and "the fulness thereof." The error I found in the philosophy of Henry George was its cocksureness, its simplicity, and the small value that it placed upon the selfish motives of men. I grew weary of its everlasting talk of "natural rights." The doctrine was a hang-over from the seventeenth century in France, when the philosophers had given up the idea of God, but still thought that there must be some immovable basis for man's conduct and ideas. In this dilemma they evolved the theory of natural rights. If "natural rights" means anything it means that the individual rights are to be determined by the conduct of Nature. But Nature knows nothing about rights in the sense of human conception. Nothing is so cruel, so wanton, so unfeeling as Nature; she moves with the weight of a glacier carrying everything before her. In the eyes of Nature, neither man nor any of the other animals mean anything whatever. The rock-ribbed mountains, the tempestuous sea, the scorching desert, the myriad weeds and insects and wild beasts that infest the earth, and the noblest man, are all one. Each and all are helpless against the cruelty and immutability of the resistless processes of Nature.
Socialism seemed to me much more logical and profound; Socialism at least recognized that if man was to make a better world it must be through the mutual effort of human units; that it must be by some sort of co-operation that would include all the units of the state. Still, while I was in sympathy with its purposes, I could never find myself agreeing with its methods. I had too little faith in men to want to place myself entirely in the hands of the mass. And I never could convince myself that any theory of Socialism so far elaborated was consistent with individual liberty. To me liberty meant only power to do what one wished to do. Free will had nothing to do with the wanting. Man did not create the wishes; he simply struggled to carry them out. I never could imagine life being worth while without the opportunity to carry out individual desires. I always have had sympathy for the Socialistic view of life, and still have sympathy with it, but could never find myself working for the party.
Anarchism, as taught by Kropotkin, Recluse and Tolstoy, impressed me more, but it impressed me only as the vision of heaven held by the elect, a far-off dream that had no relation to life. So, without having any specific radical faith, I always was friendly toward its ideals and aims, and could feel and see the injustice of the present system, and generally found myself in conflict with it.
This is still my attitude on social and political questions. I believed in keeping society flexible and mobile, and embracing what seemed like opportunity to bring about a fairer distribution of this world's goods. Living in the North, and holding these views, I have always been driven to the support of the Democratic party, with few illusions as to what it meant.
Neither government nor political economy is an exact science. They concern the arrangement of human units. If it were possible to demonstrate what sort of an arrangement would be best for the individuals of the state, it would be of no avail. Humans cannot be controlled like inanimate objects, or even like the lower animals. Each human unit is in some regard an independent entity with his own ideas, his hopes and fears, loves and hates. These attitudes are constantly changing from day to day, and year to year. They are played upon by shrewd men, by influential newspapers, by all sorts of schemes and devices which make human government only trial and success, and trial and failure. Human organizations are simply collections of individuals always in motion and always seeking for easier and more harmonious adjustment, and never static.
I could see but one way toward any general betterment of social organization, and that was by teaching sympathy and tolerance. This in itself is so hopeless a task that every one despairs of any result worth the effort. Sympathy or its lack is so entirely due to the character of the physical organism that teaching is of little help. Sympathy is the child of imagination, and possibly this can be cultivated if the effort is begun in childhood. Imagination gives one power to put oneself in another's place. It does more; it compels him to rejoice and suffer with the joys and sorrows of those about him. Like almost everything else, it brings both pain and pleasure, and whether it adds to the happiness of the individual or increases his misery, cannot be told; of course it does both, but I know no way of finding out the net result.
In politics, political economy, and human institutions, men make the great mistake of thinking that any special adjustment of individual units is perfect or sacred. Probably no organization or any part of one is wholly either good or bad. Even if at some time it seemed to conduce to man's highest good it would not follow that it would have the same effect at all times or places. I could never be convinced that any institution was wholly good or wholly evil. This feeling has prevented me from obeying orders or being a bitter partisan on any question. Instinctively I lean toward the integrity of the individual unit, and am impatient with any interference with personal freedom. However, I know that society can not exist without recognizing the necessity of some control of the individual. If men could be taught to understand that the object sought should be to produce happiness, satisfaction, and general well-being for all, I believe the conditions of life could be made much easier and human beings made happier than they now are. This is a changing world, and still it must maintain a certain amount of consistency and stability or the individual units would separate, and chaos would make any co-operation impossible.
Naturally my connection with the city administration broadened my acquaintance and called me often to the discussion of social problems in all sorts of clubs and organizations. Every large city has many different cliques, societies and groups, and these are constantly on the lookout for new attractions to keep alive the interests of their members. Generally this becomes a burden to those who are more or less widely known; which is one reason why so few of the addresses are worth while. The speaker who talks at all sorts of meetings is apt to form hasty opinions, grow careless about what he says, and place too great an estimate upon his ideas and those picked up from others and passed along without proper consideration. One thing, however, is almost certain: clubs and societies are always looking for some one new, and just as surely they readily cast the old one out. This process gives the student a chance to test all opinions and explore fresh fields of thought. No writer or speaker should ever be satisfied that his view of things is sound. Only by constant trials and tests can one arrive at the truth, and there is no certainty that even these efforts will determine it.
After two or three years of service in the city law department, I resigned my position and became the general attorney of the Chicago and North-Western Railway Company. It was with a good deal of hesitation and consideration, and after all sorts of advice, that I undertook that position. I was aware that my general views of life were not such as fitted me for this kind of career. Every one connected with the offices of the company knew my opinions and attitudes, but gave me no cause for concern or uneasiness. I was treated with respect and all were most friendly.
This position with the company brought me into a new and varied field. All sorts of questions were submitted to me. I rendered opinions on the liability of the company, in cases of personal injuries, in claims for lost freight, in the construction of the statutes and ordinances, and all the numerous matters that affect the interests of railroads. I also tried a considerable number of cases, some of them involving my old employer, the city of Chicago. In spite of the kindness and consideration of all my associates, I knew that the position was one that I should never really like. It was hard for me to take the side of the railroad company against one who had been injured in their service or against a passenger. I was aware that I always wanted the company to help them, and in this my services were made easier by the general claim agent, Mr. Ralph C. Richards, whose sympathies were the same. I am sure that both he and I were able to help a great many people without serious cost to the road. Later, Mr. Richards practically gave up his position to inaugurate a great work for the prevention of accidents. The policy that he brought about saved many lives and limbs, and has now been largely incorporated into the law.
It was during my services for the Chicago and North-Western Railroad Company that the strike of the American Railway Union occurred, in 1894. Neither before nor since has any such railroad strike happened in America. Mr. Eugene Debs was the head of that organization. He was an intelligent, alert, and fearless man. The strike grew out of a demand for better wages and conditions. The railroads refused to grant the demands. I had then been in my new position about two years, as I now recall it.
When I was sure that there was no chance to settle the difficulties, I realized my anomalous position. I really wanted the men to win, and believed that they should. This had for years been my attitude in cases of strike. I had no feeling that the members of labor unions were better than employers; I knew that like all other men they were often selfish and unreasonable, but I believed that the distribution of wealth was grossly unjust, and I sympathized with almost all efforts to get higher wages and to improve general conditions for the masses.
Still, my duty was to the road, and as the strike loomed it seemed sure that in some way I should be put in positions where one side or the other would doubt my loyalty. Within a few days I found that I had been placed on a committee of all the roads to assist in the management of the strike. I at once went to both the general counsel and the president of the railway company. Both were friends and had full confidence in me. I told them of the situation, and that I could not act on the committee. I made them understand my general feelings and my peculiar position. They recognized it and said that they would not insist upon my being on the committee, that they were perfectly willing to trust me to be neutral, and knew that I would be loyal. I felt then that I should resign my position, that the road had the right to men who were in full accord with their policy; but they urged me to stay, and, of course, their confidence and fairness made a strong appeal to me. So I told them that I would remain, and that if it ever came to a point where either they or I should feel any embarrassment we would take up the question again.
Day after day conditions grew more serious. There was a general interruption of railroad traffic from one end of the country to the other. In many of the great railroads the yards were crowded with idle freight cars. Deputy sheriffs and marshals were called out in all the large cities and many of the smaller ones. I watched the situation with anxiety. I preferred to stay with the North-Western Railway Company, but I could not avoid being in sympathy with the strikers. The Chicago and North-Western Railway Company was involved with all the rest of the roads, and all who came to the offices thought and talked of little else besides the strike. John P. Hopkins was then mayor of Chicago, and John P. Altgeld was governor of the State. These men were both Democrats, and the sheriff of the county was a Republican. Under the laws of the State it was the duty of the mayor in the city and the sheriff in the county to preserve peace. The governor had the right to call out the troops, but only on request of the sheriff or the mayor, when the legislature was not in session. Grover Cleveland was then President of the United States.
A great many cars were burned in the yards of Chicago and other cities. As in most cases, each side claimed that their enemies were responsible for the fires. One night I went to one of the railroad yards and saw many cars in flames. Crowds of people were gathered around to see the destruction; most of them were boys and young men. A number of them were deputies who had been sworn in to preserve the peace. The crowd was quiet and attempted no demonstration. They only stood and looked at the burning cars; and little, if any, effort was made to quench the flames. I presume that it was not possible to get much water so far from the city supply, but of this I am not certain.
I had no knowledge as to who started the fires, but I was satisfied that most of all those in the yards were sympathetic toward the strikers. They were working men and their families, who are always automatically on the side of the strikers, just as the wealthy are on the other side. I have no doubt that many of the deputies who were sworn in were friendly toward the strikers. I have observed many deputies and other officials in times of strikes, and also the militia, and have found that generally they were really in sympathy with the strikers. Most of them were poor, and so without taking any thought about the situation they sided with their class. This has been the case since man evolved. It was clearly the case in the French Revolution, and in all lesser political and social upheavals that ever came to my attention, either through experience or study.
Industrial contests take on all the attitudes and psychology of war, and both parties do many things that they should never dream of doing in times of peace. Whatever may be said, the fact is that all strikes and all resistance to strikes take on the psychology of warfare, and all parties in interest must be judged from that standpoint. As I stood on the prairie watching the burning cars I had no feeling of enmity toward either side. I was only sad to realize how little pressure man could stand before he reverted to the primitive. This I have thought many times since that eventful night.
The strike was hardly well under way before the railroads applied to the Federal Courts to get injunctions against the strikers. Neither then nor since have I ever believed in labor injunctions. Preserving peace is a part of the police power of the State, and men should be left free to strike or not, as they see fit. When violence occurs this is for the police department and not for a court of chancery. I had never been connected with a case involving strikes, but both by education and natural tendency I had a deep-rooted feeling for the men against whom injunctions were issued.
A short time before I had stood on the prairie watching the cars in a cloud of smoke, the railroads asked the Federal Court for injunctions. The General Managers' Association, including all the roads, had appointed Mr. Edwin Walker their attorney in these cases. Mr. Walker was a clever and very astute lawyer. For years he had been the general counsel for the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad Company, and had also represented large interests in Chicago and other parts of the United States.
When the interference in train schedules became general there was, of course, delay in carrying the mails. The railroads put mail cars on every train where there was any possible chance of sending them out. The strike leaders were always advised by their lawyers to try to let mail trains through, but the general stoppage of work nevertheless caused delay.
The injunction cases were commenced by the United States Government. Mr. Edwin Walker was regularly appointed special attorney for the government in the prosecution of these cases. So, in this matter, Mr. Walker was general counsel for the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway Company, for the General Managers' Association, and a special attorney for the United States. I did not regard this as fair. The government might with as good grace have appointed the attorney for the American Railway Union to represent the United States. The A. R. U. had thus far been represented by their regular attorney from Indiana, and Mr. William Irwin, a well-known lawyer from Minneapolis. Soon after the injunctions were issued, Mr. Debs and a good many of my friends came to ask me to go into the case. I did not want to take it up, knowing about what would be involved. I knew that it would take all my time for a long period, with no compensation; but I was on their side, and when I saw poor men giving up their jobs for a cause, I could find no sufficient excuse, except my selfish interest, for refusing. So, again I went to the president of the company and told him that I felt that I should go into the case, although it would mean giving up my position; and I told him that I believed some one whose political views were more in keeping with their interests would be a much better man for the company. He was most cordial and attentive. He agreed that I must do whatever I considered right, but asked me to continue my connection with the road when I went into private practice and take such matters as we agreed upon, at about half the salary I had been receiving. This connection was thus kept up for a number of years. The president of the road was Mr. Marvin Hewitt. We remained the best of friends to the end of his life. He died about 1920, I believe.
And so I gave up my position and became one of the attorneys for Mr. Debs in the great strike of the American Railway Union. I did not want to take the position, and felt that I should not, but I had not been able to justify my strong convictions with a refusal to aid them in their contest. About the time of the issuing of the injunctions, and before I left the North-Western Company, Mr. Edwin Walker, as special government attorney, wired the President of the United States, Grover Cleveland, to send Federal troops to Chicago. He did this against the protest of the governor and the mayor, and clearly without legal rights. The Constitution of the United States provided that the President could send troops to a State on request of the legislature, or of the governor, when the legislature was not in session, but no one seemed to care for the Constitution, as no one does when an occasion seems important. I no longer get so excited over such acts as I once did. I know that when men are sufficiently aroused they ignore laws and customs and precedents, and try to get their way. The great World War demonstrates the impotency of human restraints and arrangements in the face of an overwhelming passion. Governor Altgeld asserted that there was no authority for sending the troops to Chicago; as clearly there was none. As a matter of fact, there was no need whatever of Federal troops, even had the President a legal right to send them. There was no rioting or uncontrollable disorder, no open defiance of the law. Here and there a few men might gather and some discussion might lead to a fight, but that is always a common occurrence in such cases.
It is true that a large number of cars in outlying districts were burned, but no military force could have averted that. This did not result from any uncontrollable disorder. The police at all times had the situation fully in their hands, and there was no sign or chance of disturbance. The Federal troops were really brought as a gesture, but an unfriendly one against the Constitution and the laws and the liberties of the people. When the troops arrived they stood around like the policemen and officers and citizens, until their presence was so obviously useless that they were recalled.
Mr. Debs and all the members of his board were enjoined--enjoined from what? Of course no one could tell. It depended upon how many inferences could be drawn from other inferences, and to what degree. But the injunction and the troops and the press made it impossible to win the strike. I do not mean to discuss the original merits of the strike. The men left the railroads en masse to keep their wages from being cut and working conditions lowered. The railroads resisted because to yield meant greater cost in the running of trains. Both sides were right, but I wanted to see the workers win. I knew of no way to determine what a workman should be paid; what he should have in a way is determined by what he can get, and, so far as we can see, every one's compensation is settled the same way.
In addition to the injunctions, Mr. Debs and all his executive board were indicted by the Federal grand jury for conspiracy. Like all such indictments, these were framed in general terms, to cover anything that by fact or construction might justify a conviction.
If there are still any citizens interested in protecting human liberty, let them study the conspiracy laws of the United States. They have grown apace in the last forty years until to-day no one's liberty is safe. The conspiracy laws magnify misdemeanors into serious felonies. If a boy should steal a dime a small fine would cover the offense; he could not be sent to the penitentiary. But if two boys by agreement steal a dime then both of them could be sent to the penitentiary as conspirators. Not only could they be, but boys are constantly being sent under similar circumstances.
If A is indicted and a conspiracy is charged, or even if it is not charged, the state's attorney is allowed to prove what A said to B and what B said to C while the defendant was not present. Then he can prove what C said to D and what D said to E, and so on, to the end of the alphabet, and after the letters are used up the state's attorney can resort to figures for as long a stretch as he cares to continue. To make this hearsay or gossip competent, the state's attorney informs the court that later he will connect it up by showing that the defendant was informed of the various conversations, or that he otherwise had knowledge of them. Thereupon the complaisant judge holds that the evidence is admissible, but if it is not connected up it will be stricken out. A week or a month may pass by, and then a motion is made to strike it out. By that time it is of no consequence whether it is stricken out or not; it has entered the jurors' consciousness with a mass of other matter, and altogether it has made an impression on his mind. What particular thing made the impression, neither the juror nor any one else can know.
These conspiracy laws, made by the courts, have gone so far that they can never be changed except through a general protest by liberty-loving men and women, if any such there be, against the spirit of tyranny that has battered down the ordinary safeguards that laws and institutions have made to protect individual rights. In that event, any degree of freedom cannot be established except by statutes of the Federal government and of the several States. In this event, these laws will be chipped away by courts through sophistry and tyranny, as they always have been destroyed. Liberty cannot prevail unless the feeling is in the hearts of the people; and wealth, and the hope of it, have taken this away.
In due time, the strike ran its course, as strikes always do. The A. R. U. was destroyed. For many years its members were boycotted; they changed their names and wandered over the land looking for a chance to work. After the strike was over, the cases of Mr. Debs and his associates were called in court. Mr. S. S. Gregory consented to go into the trial of these cases with me. Mr. Gregory was one of the best lawyers I have ever known. He was emotional and sympathetic, he was devoted to the principles of liberty and always fought for the poor and oppressed. In spite of all this, he had a fine practice, and his ability and learning were thoroughly recognized. He at one time was president of the American Bar Association, and his legal attainments were everywhere acknowledged.
The criminal case was first put on trial. At the end of several weeks, and when the case was practically finished, the bailiff reported to the court that a juror was taken ill. The government asked for the dismissal of the jury and a mistrial. We offered to go on with eleven men; the government would not consent. When the jury was dismissed we were informed that they stood eleven to one for acquittal at the time of the discharge. We made several demands to have the case set for trial, but after fighting it off as long as possible the government finally dismissed it.
With exactly the same charge and the same evidence, Judge Woods, a Federal judge from Indianapolis, heard the injunction case. After taking a considerable time for deliberation he found Debs and his associates guilty of violating the injunction. In the whole case there was not one word of evidence connecting any of them with any violence or even the use of inflammatory language. Debs was sentenced to six months' imprisonment in jail and his associates to three months. We then took the case to the Supreme Court of the United States. For this hearing, Mr. Lyman Trumbull volunteered to argue it with us. He had been a judge of the Supreme Court of Illinois, and was for many years a United States senator. His vote in Andrew Johnson's impeachment trial went far to prevent his impeachment. He wrote the Fourteenth Amendment and was the author of much other important legislation of his day. He, like the rest of us, received nothing but expenses for his services. The treasury of the A. R. U. was exhausted before the litigation had really made a start, as it must always be in strike cases, or, at least, so it was twenty-five years ago.
The Supreme Court took the matter under consideration, and in due time decided against Mr. Debs. This opinion strengthened the arm of arbitrary power. It left the law so that, in cases involving strikes, at least, a man could be sent to prison for crime without trial by jury. The opinion of the Supreme Court was unanimous. Justice Holmes and Justice Brandeis were not then members.
So Eugene Debs was sent to jail in Woodstock, Ill., for trying to help his fellow man. He really got off easy. No other offense has ever been visited with such severe penalties as seeking to help the oppressed. When the idealist has tried hard enough and labored long enough it is always easy to lodge a specific charge against him.
A host of friends went to Woodstock jail with Mr. Debs. To be sure they were generally stopped at the door, although they would have wished nothing more than to remain there with him. During his residence in Woodstock the trains daily took visitors to his cell. No house in the town, and few in the land, were or ever had been so popular as the Woodstock jail. When the time for his release came a trainload of friends went from Chicago to Woodstock to welcome him. That night the great Convention Hall, Battery D, was jammed to overflowing with a wildly enthusiastic crowd of his admirers and supporters testifying their love and loyalty. The imprisonment of Eugene Victor Debs in the Woodstock jail made him a world-wide figure.
No one was so interested on either side as to know exactly what it was all about. Both sides swept away the chaff and technicalities. Both sides recognized that Debs had been sent to jail because he had led a great fight to benefit the toilers and the poor. It was purely a part of the world class-struggle for which no individual can be blamed.
In all this there was nothing weird or strange. It was an accident that displayed the workings of man's primal instincts and deep emotions. It was one of the experiences of life that bring hope and despair. Hope, to find that the world boasts some men and women whose idealism and devotion to sympathy for others makes them dare and suffer in a cause; despair, to learn that man is largely ruled by his feelings and emotions and will hate and punish as easily as he will love and approve. It is depressing, because one knows that the structure has not changed since he became a man, and that his very structure makes it impossible that he can ever change.
Eugene V. Debs has always been one of my heroes. And as he must figure further in this story I may as well complete what I have to say of "'Gene" whether in the natural sequence or not. There may have lived some time, some where, a kindlier, gentler, more generous man than Eugene V. Debs, but I have never known him. Nor have I ever read or heard of another. Mr. Debs at once became the head of the Socialist party of America. I never followed him politically. I never could believe that man was so constructed as to make Socialism possible; but I watched him and his cause with great interest. He was not only all that I have said, but he was the bravest man I ever knew. He never felt fear. He had the courage of the babe who has no conception of the word or its meaning.
I differed with Mr. Debs again when America entered the World War. I felt that we should join with the allies, but Mr. Debs, who hated war in any form and for any cause, thought that we should stay out. I am quite sure that his sympathies were with the allies; at least he told me so ten days before he made the speech that was to send him to prison again.
During the war Mr. Debs said very little on the subject. I have always felt that he would have gone through the period without accident except that Rose Pastor Stokes was indicted for opposing the war. The case was ridiculous and flimsy, but the judge and jury were deeply prejudiced, as all of them were through that period, and Mrs. Stokes was convicted. Mr. Debs immediately protested in the strong and vigorous language that he knew how to use. But Mrs. Stokes did not go to prison; a higher court reversed the case, and she was never tried again.
I had nothing to do with the case of Mr. Debs. He knew my views on the war, as did all the others who opposed it, so that, with one or two exceptions, I was not even invited into those cases. While I was strongly for America entering the war, and did all I could to help, still I felt that the courts had gone mad and were heartless in their horrible sentences that would shame savages for their severity; perhaps I should have said: should shame civilized people.
Mr. Debs was tried and convicted. The case was very weak, but Mr. Debs insisted on arguing it to the jury. He told them that he was against the war from the beginning, that he had done all he could to impede it, and should continue to do so till the end. It would have been impossible for any jury to do otherwise under the circumstances, and I have no idea that Mr. Debs expected anything else than conviction. I am inclined to believe that he thought his place was in jail, beside the thousands of others that the government pursued with relentless barbarity. We may admit that during the war it became necessary to confine some men in prison. Most of these were as honest and much higher-minded than most of the civilians who were entrusted with the management of important details connected with our part of the conflict. Every one knew that most of these victims were upright, fine men and women, and that they should have been subjected to no hardships or indignity, but all should have been pardoned at once as soon as the war ended. In place of that, the ruling forces of industry took advantage of the war. After it was over they caused an espionage act to be passed in nearly every State in the Union that was meant to strangle public and private criticism of public men and policies, in the sacred cause of Big Business. These laws denied and defied every principle for which our forefathers fought to obtain freedom for the United States. The treatment of the conscientious objectors, especially after the war, was, to my mind, the worst blot on the intelligence and idealism of Woodrow Wilson, for whom I always felt the highest admiration and regard.
Mr. Debs, true to form, insisted that he had done nothing but what he thought right, and refused to ask for pardon. When he had been in prison for three years, and many efforts had been made for his release, I went to Washington without consulting Mr. Debs. I saw the attorney general, Mitchell Palmer, who was supposed to be a Quaker; perhaps he is, though any Quakerism that might have been in their family probably mostly affected his ancestors. I told him my errand. Mr. Palmer said he would like to help Mr. Debs, and asked if I represented him. When I answered that I did not, he stated that he did not like to discuss the matter with me unless I could say that I represented Mr. Debs. I replied that if he insisted, I would go to Atlanta prison and talk with Mr. Debs and return to Washington. It was in the middle of the summer and the ride was long and disagreeable. I landed in Atlanta early in the morning and went directly to the penitentiary and found the warden without any trouble. I had never seen him before, but he told me that for a long time he had been with Major McClowry, warden of the Illinois State Penitentiary, who was one of my friends.
I explained that I had come specially to see Mr. Debs, and would like to see him alone if possible, the reason for this request being that I had heard many reports of the bad treatment he was receiving in prison. I was doubtful of this, and wanted to know from Mr. Debs. The warden was more than willing, and invited me to use his private room if I wished, saying that he would take another for himself. In a few moments Debs entered and greeted me warmly. He and the warden seemed to be on the best of terms, so much so that I assured the warden that there was no need of his leaving the room. We three then discussed all sorts of subjects, from Socialism and Anarchism to prisons and punishments, and every other social question, until the forenoon had slipped away. I could not get a train for Washington until late at night, so I decided to wait in what was probably the most interesting place in Atlanta, if not in the United States.
The warden asked me to have luncheon with him at his house, and said how sorry he was that he could not take Mr. Debs, too. When we had finished the meal I said that I would like to visit Mr. Debs in his cell if it would be all right to do so. The request was at once granted and he took me there himself, and asked if I wanted him to stay or not. Of course I invited him to remain, and so he did.
Mr. Debs was in a very large cell, made for six persons. Just in front, with only the bars between, was a garden full of beautiful flowers. There was with him a mountaineer from the South, good-natured, simple and fine, who had done nothing but give Nature a chance to convert corn into whiskey; he could not imagine why he was there, any more than I can imagine why men who think themselves civilized build cells. There was also a business man from a Northern city who had been charged with a confidence game; though why his particular kind of confidence game should be singled out from all the rest I could not understand. There were two or three others in the cell, and there was the atmosphere of a happy family; and so it was, for the place was radiant with the sunshine and kindness and love of Eugene V. Debs.
We sat on boxes, on the beds, and the few chairs, the warden with the rest. We discussed with the frankness of friends our experiences, hopes and visions. A jail is a good place for these reflections; there is no business to be disturbed. In answer to my question, Mr. Debs said that he could not ask for anything from the administration, and could make no promises, but if I wanted to help him out he fully appreciated all that I was doing for him.
"Really," he said, "this place is not bad. I look at that garden of flowers. There are bars in front, I know--but I never see the bars."
Mr. Debs was loved and idealized by all the inmates. He did all in his power to help every one with whom he came in contact. He steadily refused to take easier jobs or receive any privileges that were not given to all, as Walt Whitman said, "on equal terms."
It was with reluctance that I bade Mr. Debs "good-by" and went home with the warden to dinner and then to the train. On my return to Washington I called on Mr. Palmer. I expected that Mr. Debs would be pardoned at once. But I was disappointed. It took more work and longer waiting. President Woodrow Wilson and Mitchell Palmer missed a great opportunity to show belated understanding of Mr. Debs and thousands of other honest men whose conscience and humanity had landed them in jail.
It was left for President Harding and Mr. Dougherty to pardon Debs. Although I was never a disciple or follower of either Mr. Harding or Mr. Dougherty, I always remember them with kindliness when I think of Gene. The truth is, no man is white and no man is black. We are all freckled.
Later, I formed the acquaintance of Mr. Harry Dougherty under very favorable circumstances. I told him that I could never forget that it was through his kindness that Mr. Debs was pardoned. He replied, "No, it was not. President Harding asked me to investigate the case and see if we could not let him out; so I sent for Mr. Debs, and asked him to come without guard to see me in Washington. He spent a large part of the day in my office, and I never met a man I liked better." He added, "Won't you please remember me to his wife and brother when you write to them?"
I had always admired Woodrow Wilson and distrusted Harding. Doubtless my opinions about both in relation to affairs of government were measurably correct; still, Mr. Wilson, a scholar and an idealist, and Mr. Palmer, a Quaker, kept Debs in prison; and Mr. Harding and Mr. Dougherty unlocked the door. I know at least two men who understood this: Lincoln Steffens and Fremont Older. So far as I am concerned, I never think of either Harding or Dougherty without saying to myself: "Well, they pardoned Debs!"
In 1894 I opened an office and went into private practice. Neither then nor for any considerable time thereafter did I need to worry over business prospects. For many years my practice covered almost all sorts of litigation. When I began, it was with the intention of trying only civil cases. But no one controls his own destiny, and lawyers are no exception to that rule.
I was willing to undertake the injunction case brought by the railroad companies in behalf of the government against Mr. Debs and his associates, or, brought by the government in behalf of the railroad companies, whichever way one chooses to put it. How one puts it depends on how he views public questions. I had never had anything to do with criminal cases, and, like most other lawyers, did not want to take them. But Mr. Debs insisted that I should defend him, so I undertook the case. Naturally the trial attracted a great deal of attention throughout the country, and, as it resulted in victory for the accused, I was asked to enter other labor cases, and criminal cases as well.
Soon afterward I assumed the defense of Thomas I. Kidd, president of the National Association of Wood Workers, and others along with him, all charged with conspiracy, growing out of a strike in the large sash-and-door factories of Oshkosh, Wis. As in all places outside of big cities and industrial centres, the feeling was very bitter on both sides. The division was, as always, the rich of the community on one side and the workers on the other. The case was reported pretty closely by the newspapers of the Northwest, and the fight was intense and long drawn out. I shall not go into the details of this prosecution. It was one of the earliest conspiracy charges against working men growing out of strikes. The jury was drawn from people of all stations, but after short deliberation they returned a verdict of "Not guilty."
From then on I was very busy with all sorts of litigation: labor cases, strikes, condemnation, chancery, criminal cases, and many contests that were submitted to arbitration. I entered my first criminal case in the attitude of the "good" lawyer--the lawyer who attends all the Bar Association meetings and so gravitates as rapidly as he can to the defense of Big Business. The tragedies, the sorrow and despair that were present in the criminal court I knew nothing of, and did not want to know. A verdict of "Not guilty" or a disagreement had been viewed by me as by the general public as a miscarriage of justice and a reflection on the jury system. The jail was a place spoken of as we sometimes mention a leper colony.
Criminal cases receive the attention of the press. The cruel and disagreeable things of life are more apt to get the newspaper space than the pleasant ones. It must be that most people enjoy hearing of and reading about the troubles of others. Perhaps men unconsciously feel that they rise in the general level as others go down. By no effort of mine, more and more of the distressed and harassed and pursued came fleeing to my office door. What could I do to change the situation? I was not responsible for my peculiar organism. It was due to a certain arrangement of cells in which I had no choice that made it impossible to deny help to those in trouble and pain, if I could see or find a way to give them aid. It was really my lively imagination which put me in the other fellow's place and made me suffer with him; so I only relieved him to help myself.
Strange as it may seem, I grew to like to defend men and women charged with crime. It soon came to be something more than winning or losing a case. I sought to learn why one man goes one way and another takes an entirely different road. I became vitally interested in the causes of human conduct. This meant more than the quibbling with lawyers and juries, to get or keep money for a client so that I could take part of what I won or saved for him: I was dealing with life, with its hopes and fears, its aspirations and despairs. With me it was going to the foundation of motive and conduct and adjustments for human beings, instead of blindly talking of hatred and vengeance, and that subtle, indefinable quality that men call "justice" and of which nothing really is known.
I have read and studied and worked so much on this question of what men call "crime" that to fail to discuss it would be to omit the thoughts and feelings that concern me most, and have made up a large part of my activities in court. We know that man and his strivings and complainings represent a matter of small concern excepting to the individual during his brief consciousness here. Every one knows that the heavenly bodies move in certain paths in relation to each other with seeming consistency and regularity which we call law. If instead of the telescope we use the microscope, we find another world so small that the human eye cannot otherwise see it, but fully as wonderful as the one revealed by the telescope. No one attributes freewill or motive to the material world. Is the conduct of man or the other animals any more subject to whim or choice than the action of the planets?
It will be admitted that no one is responsible for his birth or early environment. No one is responsible for the sort of instruction that he receives in his childhood, or the absence of any, that might have shaped his religious, political, and general views of life.
As to all animals, excepting man, we now know that their actions are determined by causes such as heat and cold, hunger and thirst, and sex. We know that fishes and birds migrate thousands of miles in recurring seasons, probably moved by the instinctive desire to propagate their kind; and we know that all of these causes influence man the same as other animals that inhabit the earth. We know that man's every act is induced by motives that led or urged him here or there; that the sequence of cause and effect runs through the whole universe, and is nowhere more compelling than with man.
In ancient times the diseased were afflicted with devils, and to cure the ill these must be cast out. Jesus is said to have thus driven the devils out of an afflicted man, and the devils took possession of a drove of hogs that straightway jumped into the sea.
Magic was the origin of medicine as it was of religion. It was only when man began to recognize cause and effect that physicians learned something of disease and its causes, and studied means to prevent and cure. Now no intelligent physician would consider treating an ailment without trying to discover its cause. While cause and effect are not always easy to discover, our observations have been so general that we are warranted in the belief that every manifestation of matter, and what we call mind, is the result of some cause, or causes, most of them fairly obvious, but some of them still beyond the ken of man. That crime, so-called, stands out alone as an uncaused manifestation of human conduct is beyond the understanding of those who try to study and comprehend.
The truth is, the causes of crime are much better understood than the causes of insanity or many other ailments or diseases that afflict the unfortunate. There are few men to-day who can be called criminologists who do not recognize and fairly understand this fact.
In spite of the hatred, aversion and cruelty that attend the treatment of crime, we know a good deal about it now that may be called new.
Man has the innate instinct to satisfy his needs and desires that moves every form of animal life. In satisfying these instincts he often comes in conflict with obstacles forbidding their gratification in certain ways. The forbidden ways are not fixed and necessarily cannot be determined by any absolute rules or moral codes, which are always changing as new desires are developed and new methods devised for satisfying needs. The babe is born into the world without any thoughts or inhibitions on any subject. He is equipped with a human organism, and probably a few primitive natural instincts. He has no inherited consciousness that he should not gratify his wants in any way that he can find. The fox going through the woods in search of food happens upon a chicken; instinctively he grabs it and in spite of the chicken's cries kills and devours it to preserve his life. All lower animals pursue the same course, naturally. Instinct tells them what they want, and any possible means are resorted to for bringing about the result. The child is like any other animal; it sees what it wants and reaches out its hand to grasp it. He may like candy, and, as any other animal, takes what he wants where he can find it. Soon he observes that money will buy candy, so, he finds the money, takes it with him and buys candy. No instinctive feeling tells him that this is wrong. It is only through slow and patient teaching that he learns he can be permitted to get money in certain ways and not in others. He is not born with any natural inhibitions against taking it in these certain forbidden ways.
Only after special training does the child finally feel a reaction against taking things in the way called "doing wrong," and while he is being taught there is constantly the conflict between the desire to take things in natural ways and the inhibition that teaching has cultivated. He goes one direction or the other according to the relative strength of the needs and the influence of the created restraints. Nature has given him no sense that one is right and the other wrong.
No matter how fine the training, there are doubtless circumstances where any one will ignore restraints and follow his natural emotions. Any normal person would most likely steal before he would starve; certainly before he would let a member of his family suffer. Most people would steal far short of that line. With the majority there is always a question as to where that line should be drawn. It is determined by the control of the inhibitions and the strength of the need or the desire. It is obvious that no two human beings would draw the line at the same place. The criminal code is not content with certain limitations on conduct that seem perfectly plain. Most persons can see no distinction between stealing and cheating, except that to some cheating seems more cowardly. But what is cheating? If one scans the law books he will find endless conflicts in the opinions of courts. This is true in the nature of things, depending in the last analysis on how the particular sort of conduct appeals to certain judges. The law has always held that one had the right to "puff his wares," to represent that the thing he has to sell is worth much more than its real value, or is of much finer texture than it really is. He may publish broadcast cunningly worded ad's explicitly designed to make men and women of none-too-good mentality buy things that they do not need and cannot afford, in the belief that they are getting bargains. Essentially this is cheating, and published with the intent of getting people's money for nothing. How much moral difference is there between this and stealing outright?--or in burglarizing a home?
Some false representations contravene the law; some do not. The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business, and, besides, could not be done. The line between honesty and dishonesty is a narrow, shifting one and usually lets those get by that are the most subtle and already have more than they can use. The sensibilities of no two men are the same. Some would refuse to sell property without carefully explaining all about its merits and defects, and putting themselves in the purchasers' place and inquiring if he himself would buy under the circumstances. But such men never would be prosperous merchants.
Recalling that those found in prisons are practically always poor, it follows that their needs to get things must be great; and their desires being the same as those of others, the struggle between wants and inhibitions lands them outside the law, when under more fortunate circumstances they would conform. But whatever man does or does not do, he is bound to yield to the strongest motive. It must be remembered, too, that wants and needs are elastic words. In this day and generation, who is poor and who is rich? I can recall when it was scarcely believed possible to be a millionaire. But now, from the standpoint of many men and women, a millionaire is poor. Fortunes have grown so rapidly, their figures are so enormous, and the expenditures of the wealthy so lavish as to excite the envy and even hatred of the millions who toil and strive and save to satisfy the plainest and humblest needs. The new method that brings to some untold wealth adds to the desires of all classes of men and women. It brings new thoughts to the minds of men who know that they cannot play the game that others play. Some proportion, at least, is sure to find its inhibitions too weak to withstand the strain, or to ask what life is worth if one is to be condemned to endless slavery and self-denial.
Crimes such as larceny, burglary, and robbery are more numerous in hard times than in good seasons. They increase during strikes and lockouts. They flourish in panics and with closed shops and factories. They are more frequent in winter than in summer. They would well-nigh disappear if conditions of life came anywhere near being equable and fair and decent.
Punishment as punishment is not admissible unless the offender has had the freewill to select his course. On this question biology has much to say. The beginning of individual existence is in the fertilized cell. When this is accomplished a great deal has happened to the growing life. A large and important part of the character of the child is formed before his birth. The potential strength or weakness of the structure is contained in the embryo. If the fertilized cell has the capacity of only a dwarf it can never produce a robust man instead. What is true of the body is true of the mind and its quality. The mind is the manifestation of the bodily activity. The same origin probably determines some of the larger instincts and tendencies. Surely the unborn has nothing to do with consciously controlling these. Sex is fixed before birth, and this has vital domination over the outcome of life. Color also is determined in the germ plasm, and the white man has an infinitely better chance than the black man.
No one chooses his parents or early environment in the first years which are all-determining after birth. Some are born to poverty, some wealth; some are born of wise parents, more of foolish ones. The early years of life are the most important in the development of the child; this is the special time for forming habits necessary in determining conduct. Education should begin at once, and should be in the hands of intelligent people who understand the nature and tendencies and building of the young. Nothing is truer than that "the child is father to the man." The child should be so carefully observed that parents and teachers are able to detect the trend of its mind and the best aptitudes of the youth. Training should always be with the view of equipping him for self-support, and should be manual as well as mental. No child should go forth from school or home without the best possible mental and physical development for facing its future in the world.
Our compulsory school laws, as administered, do not and cannot perform that function. To force a child into school when he has no capacity or trend for that sort of education is worse than useless. It does not educate, but fosters a spirit that grows rebellious and desperate. He sees others doing just what he cannot do and decides that he is therefore inferior to the rest. Children are naturally fairly adapted to some occupation. They may not care for books, but may like to make a chair, a table, or an automobile. Among rich and poor alike, comparatively few really care for books. Children like to play or work with their hands, which could easily be discovered by watchful, sensible parents and teachers, and if perchance children change their tastes and interests, the course of training should be changed accordingly. In modern cities we now have perhaps one manual school to ten of the other kind. It should be entirely the other way; there should be ten manual-training schools to one of those that teach reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar and the rest of the non-essentials that are taught in schools.
An announcement in a grammar school that any boy who wished could go to work in an automobile factory or an electric shop, or even at a carpenter's or bricklayer's job, and be given the same credits as if he remained in school, would at once disrupt the classes. Books and the education that goes with them is of very late origin. The fact is, even among the grown-ups, very few people now care for books. Let any one look at his neighbor's library, or even at his own, if he doubts it. It is perfectly plain that at birth any two children are equally good or bad, if one is so senseless as to use those words. No one is either good or bad; still, two boys may start apparently alike, and in a very few years one may be in the penitentiary and the other in Congress. What has caused this difference in results? There can be but two causes: one, natural equipment; the other, training and opportunity. If it is natural equipment, then surely no credit or blame should attach to the individual. If due to training, the individual is no more responsible for that. As a matter of fact, most of the individual comes from training and environment. There are but few, even among idiots, who cannot fairly well fill some useful position if rightly trained. Very rarely do clergymen or college professors or carpenters or steamfitters or other skilled workmen go to prison. Almost all the prisoners are persons who had no opportunities or advantages in childhood and early life. If this does not account for their position, something else will, and does.
The boy who lags in his class soon has an inferiority complex that is apt to follow him through all his life. To begin with, he does not want to go to school, which makes plain his deficiency. He plays truant; if forced back to books this increases his resentment. School, at best, is a hopeless bore to the average boy; each day, all through the term, he watches and waits for the playtime and for school to be dismissed at night. When he leaves the classroom he can find plenty of other boys with the same deficiencies that he feels in himself. These are the children of the poor; themselves untrained and incapable of directing improvement in their offspring. The rich can find other avenues for their children who cannot or will not learn; they can become stock brokers or follow some other kind of business and thus adjust themselves to life.
Practically all the inmates of prisons come from the homes of the poor, and have had no chance to become adjusted to conditions. Neither were they taught any occupation or trade to fit them for the stern realities of the world, when they are beyond the school age. The inmates of prisons are mostly the product of large cities, where as boys they had all sorts of companions; their playgrounds were the streets and the alleys, and such vacant spots as the poor of great cities can find. They enter unoccupied buildings and take out lead pipe which they sell to junk dealers. How else would such children get possession of a few coins for themselves? They do not know the meaning of an allowance. Their petty thefts furnish the excitement and emotion necessary to growing life which they can get in no other way. On account of playing ball on the streets, and slight delinquencies, they have already made the acquaintance of the policeman in their neighborhood. Soon they are on the blacklists and taken into the police stations and Juvenile Courts. They want the things that so many other boys get in some other way, but they do not have any other way. Their course is the straight and narrow path from the simplest misdeeds to the penitentiaries and electric chairs, and as inevitable as the course of the other boys who pass from grade schools to graduate from colleges. Who is to blame? To say that it is the fault of the one who goes the luckless way is a travesty upon logic, common sense, and the first elements of fair dealing.
This is not the history of an isolated case. It is the story of almost all of those who tread a dark and tangled maze which leads to disgrace, despair and, often, death in the electric chair. Every one who has the power to think and cares to investigate knows that this is true. And yet people who are discerning and humane can reason out no way to prevent crime excepting by inflicting untold misery, degradation, and dire vengeance upon the victims who are plainly the product of our boasted civilization. While these boys are training for prison they see the sons of the rich living in luxury such as their world has never known. They ask themselves many questions to which they are unable to find any reply.
Almost all convictions are for crimes against property. Aside from these, a growing list is furnished by the fanatical prohibitionists. These are fast piling up their victims under the Volstead Act. For all of this class of offenses, the blame really rests upon prohibition itself. The toll of these victims will continue to increase until Volsteadism is dead, or the public shall have lost the manhood to fight for and preserve their personal rights.
Some of the victims of chance languish long in prison; others are humanely fried to death by the State. Law makers are not students; they are politicians, and the common mass, that is clamoring for greater and more barbaric penalties, do not study or think; they only hate. In fact, there are no murders in the sense portrayed in stories and fables, and the dreadful present-day detective yarns, save for a few, so exceptional and so far apart that they cannot justly be cited as examples. We are turning our prisons into living tombs, inhabited by doomed men living in everlasting blank despair. The man thrust into one of these torture-chambers sees upon the menacing walls:
"All hope abandon ye who enter here!"
Small wonder that men kill to avoid arrest and the prospect of a prison existence. They know that in so doing they are facing almost certain death, but they take that chance rather than face a life of torment in prison.
The second largest number of killings occur between husbands and wives, lovers and sweethearts, men and women in the various sex relations, and most of them are the result of jealousy. For these no penitentiaries are of the least avail; neither men nor women who reach this pass care for consequences, and often seek to kill themselves without the aid of the law, and are frantically disappointed if they fail. Many of these cases could be prevented by sensible divorce laws, which would give easier rights to dissolve unhappy marriages.
People talk of criminals as though they were utterly different from "good" people; as though specially created in order that a large class of the community should have the pleasure of hating them. Those who enjoy the emotion of hating are much like the groups who sate their thirst for blood by hunting and hounding to death helpless animals as an outlet for their emotions. Property crimes, as I have stated before, come from the desire to get something, and the inhibition against getting it except in certain ways. The contrary ways are supposed to be evil because they have been forbidden by law, and all that are not forbidden are supposed to be honorable. Is the desire to get things in spite of all odds confined to criminals? Every instinct that is found in any man is in all men. The strength of the emotion may not be so overpowering, the barriers against possession not so insurmountable, the urge to accomplish the desire less keen. With some, inhibitions and urges may be neutralized by other tendencies. But with every being the primal emotions are there. All men have an emotion to kill; when they strongly dislike some one they involuntarily wish he was dead. I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction.
No one would steal without feeling that he wanted the property and could get it in no other fairly easy way. Machinery has made production easier and less costly; the population is steadily increasing; machines are doing so much of the work that there is constantly a large proportion of men who have no jobs; and even where men do have employment the great majority are so close to poverty that a shade of hard luck or loss of work reduces them to want. In a world of such abundance that we are constantly limiting production, most men live so near the life line that they are always worried for fear of still greater need. To get anything like a fair living men are forced to work longer and harder than there is any need to toil. Great as is the output of the United States to-day, it could doubtless be doubled if distribution were so general and equal, or nearly so, as to give all a chance for a decent living. If useful labor could get fair returns, the loafers, the idlers, the speculators, and even many professional and business men would go to work. Not half the men who are engaged in activities are usefully employed. If our great Captains of Industry, who have the wisdom and ideals, and who now understand organization, would give the same attention to the distribution of wealth as they do to its production, want and crime would disappear. Instead of that, our law makers and influential men think only of harsher laws and more terrorizing brutalities. Every seer, student, prophet, and scientist has taught that man cannot be controlled by fear. To employ that method is to admit defeat before even attempting a saner course.
No doubt there are some men and women who, from mental or physical defects, may always require isolation from their fellows, but this should not be accomplished in the spirit of retribution and revenge, but with an attitude of kindness and consideration. Saving criminals, in its last analysis, is only saving children. And if we save the criminal and the crime we will at the same time save the hypothetical victim.
It is indeed strange that with all the knowledge we have gained in the past hundred years we preserve and practice the methods of an ancient and barbarous world in our dealing with crime. So long as this is observed and exercised there can be no change except to heap more cruelties and more wretchedness upon those who are the victims of our foolish system.
To hold back what are called the evil forces by walls and dungeons and ropes is like an effort to keep back the flow of waters in a mighty river by damming up the stream; the water manages to seep through or work its way around, or mount high enough to sweep away the dam.
It was at the national Democratic convention of 1896 that I first met William Jennings Bryan. He was then a young man thirty-six years old. At that time I was thirty-nine. For several years the country had, as usual, been suffering a financial depression, especially throughout the West and South. The two political parties were torn to pieces by new issues that were real. Up to that time the old question of slavery, secession and the Civil War was still powerful in the division of the two parties. But now both of them seemed to be dissolving as new questions forced themselves to the front. Throughout the West the low price of grain had given birth to the Granger movement. Its chief demand was for the free coinage of silver at the old ratio of 16 to 1.
The Western States and all their population were burdened with debt, and the price of land had slumped with all the products of the farm. Bonds and mortgages had been issued when both gold and silver were legal tender. The indebtedness of the West was held and controlled throughout the East. Every one then believed that the value of money was determined by the amount in circulation. It therefore followed that the demonetization of silver had increased the value of gold and correspondingly lowered the price of grain and farm and wages, and, in short, every commodity that was bought and sold in the market. Likewise the real value of bonds had substantially doubled because the obligations could no longer be paid in gold and silver, but must be paid in gold alone. It was one more great manifestation of the cleavage between the rich and poor. Many of the Western States that had continually been Republican, due to the issues growing out of the Civil War, were now in the political control of the Populist and Democratic parties.
When the forces were forming for the contest of 1896 it became clear that the lines were to be drawn on the restoration of the coinage of silver. The Republican convention met in St. Louis and nominated William McKinley for President. Up to this time McKinley had been an ardent advocate of the free coinage of silver. But he did not propose to let a question of this sort stand between him and the Presidency of the United States. The Republican party declared against the free coinage of silver, so McKinley at once advocated the single standard. Immediately upon the adoption of that platform in the Republican convention, the senators and congressmen of most of the States west of the Mississippi River bolted the convention and turned to the Democratic party. Grover Cleveland was then President of the United States, serving his second term. He was a Democrat, but from New York State, and was bitterly opposed to the free coinage of silver.
Not only had I been steadily aligned with the Democratic party, but my sympathies were with the common man. I was for the debtor rather than the creditor. John P. Altgeld, then governor of Illinois and running for a second term, headed the Illinois delegation.
Mr. Bryan had been twice elected to Congress from Nebraska. This in spite of the fact that Nebraska had long been a Republican State. Mr. Bryan was elected as a bimetallist, and although only thirty-two years old, had distinguished himself in Congress. In the convention of 1896, Governor Altgeld was probably the strongest man. Altgeld was never an easy or fluent speaker; yet he overcame his difficulties and spoke effectively. He was a good student, a good thinker, and an honest, fearless man. He was essentially a man of action, yet he wrote convincingly. He was the first person of any prominence that I had met after coming to Chicago, and after that he had always been my friend, and later was my partner for several months up to the time of his death.
Governor Altgeld made what was, in fact, the keynote speech of the convention. It was vigorous and straightforward. He not only was for the free coinage of silver, but for a political revolution. He declared strongly against the issuance of injunctions by the courts in labor cases, which he dubbed "government by injunction." Altgeld was always bold, aggressive, and radical. I had a seat on the platform near the speakers, where I could hear every word.
William Jennings Bryan entered the convention at the head of a contesting delegation from Nebraska. The gold forces, under the lead of J. Sterling Morton, had made a strong fight for the delegation. Mr. Morton was a man of fine intelligence, an independent mind, and a good student of economics. He had for years been connected with the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, and was for a gold standard and free trade. Mr. Morton's faction had secured the credentials as the regular delegates from Nebraska. Whether they were elected I will not discuss, for I know nothing about that, and, like most of the delegates at that convention, I did not care. I was for the free-silver faction--not so much because I had any great confidence in its importance, but because it represented the disinherited, who had come to command my sympathy and my help.
When Mr. Bryan came to the Chicago convention in 1896 he was little known, outside Nebraska. He had gained some distinction in Congress, but was a young man and not a national figure. Without a doubt he came to the convention expecting to be nominated for President, but no one else thought of him as such a possibility.
The Committee on Credentials rejected the claim of Bryan and his delegation. He carried the contest to the convention, and took the platform to present his claim. In a few moments he had the attention of the great audience of twenty or twenty-five thousand that crowded the hall. He had a strong voice, well adapted to a large assemblage. He had complete control of himself and knew just what he wanted to say. Doubtless he had gone over it many times in his home on the prairies of Nebraska. Then, and always, he was a master of technique; he knew exactly how to hold an audience in the hollow of his hand, as it were. His voice, his personality, his knowledge of mob psychology, his aptness for forming rhythmical sentences left him without a rival in the field.
Platforms are not the proper forums for spreading doubts. The miscellaneous audience wants to listen to a man who knows. How he knows is of no concern to them. Such an audience wishes to be told, and especially wants to be told what it already believes. Mr. Bryan told the Democratic convention of 1896 in Chicago what he believed. Not only did he tell them that, but he told them what they believed, and what they wanted to believe, and wished to have come true. I have enjoyed a great many addresses, some of which I have delivered myself, but I never listened to one that affected and moved an audience as did that. Men and women cheered and laughed and cried. They listened with desires and hopes, and finally with absolute confidence and trust. Here was a political Messiah who was to lift the burdens that the oppressed had borne so long. When he had finished his speech, amidst the greatest ovation that I had ever witnessed, there was no longer any doubt as to the name of the nominee. Mr. Bryan was nominated for President; but he did not get the votes of the gold Democrats from the East, and he did not get the vote of the truest and bravest of them all, John P. Altgeld. This was not because he wanted the nomination himself; he was born in Germany, and was not eligible for the Presidency of the United States. I sat close to Mr. Altgeld while Mr. Bryan made his speech. He did not applaud, or shout, or throw his hat into the air. He listened to every word. His sad blue eyes seemed to look beyond the convention hall upon the cities and fields and prairies, and backwards through history that has recorded the vain struggles of man, and forward into the unopened book of the future, shut fast in the hands of Fate and shadowed with the cruelty, injustice, and tyranny of the past. The next day I was with him, and we discussed the convention, and Mr. Bryan's speech. He turned to me with his weary face and quizzical smile and said, "It takes more than speeches to win real victories. Applause lasts but a little while. The road to justice is not a path of glory; it is stony and long and lonely, filled with pain and martyrdom." He added, "I have been thinking over Bryan's speech. What did he say, anyhow?"
Governor Altgeld was then a candidate for governor for a second term; he was anxious for me to run for Congress, and I was offered the nomination. I reluctantly agreed to take it. The district was overwhelmingly Democratic, and I felt sure that with Bryan for President and Altgeld for governor there would be no doubt of my election. The Republican candidate was a clerk in a railroad office who had never taken any interest in politics and was not known outside his small circle of friends. I gave most of my time to speaking during the campaign, but gave no attention to my district; there I made no addresses and solicited no votes. I felt sure of my election; I knew that the whole ticket would follow the vote of Bryan and Altgeld, who, of course, were the leading figures in the Illinois campaign. As the weeks wore on, it became obvious that the Republicans were conspiring and using money as never before. But no one questioned my election. I knew that if I was not elected no other Democrat would be, in that section of Illinois.
In the last days of the campaign an enormous fund was raised and spent in the centres of population, including Chicago. Within two days many of the Democratic leaders were reached and the organization disrupted. As a consequence, Chicago and Illinois went overwhelmingly for McKinley. When the returns were counted I found that both Bryan and Altgeld had lost my district and the whole ticket was defeated. My opponent was elected by about one hundred votes. Even one day in my district amongst my friends would have assured my election, but I cared too little for the position and felt too sure. So I gave all of my time to what seemed doubtful States.
I really felt relief when I learned of my defeat. I did not want to be in political life. I realized what sacrifices of independence went with office-seeking, and in every way felt that I could not afford to go to Congress. So I turned my attention exclusively to law.
For the next few years I was constantly in court, trying all sorts of cases that fall to the general practitioner, including many labor cases, both civil and criminal, and representing the unions in a number of arbitrations, a line of work that appealed to my emotions and ideas, and that was full of interest and color. Governor Altgeld came back to Chicago, but for a time took no personal interest in political affairs.
I often wonder what would have happened to me had I gone to Congress. Perhaps I would have spent the rest of my life in the pursuit of political place and power, and would have surrendered my convictions for a political career. I never gave up my interest in the affairs of government, but always acted independently of party ties or affiliations. Through it all I have urged young men to pursue the same course, without being sure which way is best. This can be determined by only the strongest emotions that move the individual and by what, for lack of a better term, we call chance and fate, or fatality.
Mr. Bryan carried most of the States west of the Mississippi River, and the solid South. He received more votes than McKinley. He placed himself at the head of the Democratic party, and for many years thereafter wrote the political platform and dictated the candidate. The candidate was generally himself. On the whole, during most of his career he remained true to the cause of the people, as he understood political and social questions. But his vision was narrow. He was much more certain of the correctness of his views than a student or scholar can possibly be. He never cared to read, much less study; he knew, without investigation or thought. To him, the most insignificant affairs of life were controlled by Providence, and he was sure that he had been chosen for a special work. No matter how often he was beaten, he had the same confidence that the Lord was on his side.
In the Spanish-American War, Bryan raised a regiment of soldiers in Nebraska, and, of course, placed himself at its head, received the title of Colonel, and marched blithely off to fight the Spaniards on the question of their dominion over Cuba. At the same time he jumped from Chautauqua to Chautauqua and lectured to immense audiences on "The Prince of Peace." Perhaps he saw no inconsistencies in these activities; but in this he was not unlike many others. I have never found any one who could not explain and justify conflicting attitudes, if he wanted to act in various ways.
In the meantime we defeated the Spaniards, and, incidentally, captured the Philippine Islands. In 1900 Bryan was again nominated for the Presidency, and made the campaign on the issue of giving the Philippines their independence. I thoroughly believed as he did, and gave my best endeavor to help him win; but he was defeated by a larger majority than before. In 1904 he was not nominated, but in 1908 he again turned the Democratic party to him. Evidently he had then determined to ignore dangerous problems, and applied his attention to a fight to require government guarantee of bank deposits, and the election of United States senators by direct vote of the people. His committee gave most of its time to handing out a little pamphlet containing his Chautauqua address, entitled "The Prince of Peace." This he considered was a strong document, especially in view of the fact that his opponent, Judge Taft, was a Unitarian.
Shortly before the campaign was opened Mr. Bryan came to Chicago. He asked me to meet him at his hotel, and, of course, I obeyed the summons. He said he hoped I would do some speaking for the ticket in the campaign. I asked him what he wanted me to talk about. He replied, "The guaranteeing of bank deposits by the government." I answered that my trouble had always been in getting money into the bank and not in checking it out. He then suggested, "The election of United States senators by direct vote," to which I replied that so long as we have senators it made little difference to me how they were elected.
That year I took a vacation instead of making campaign speeches. I felt that I had followed Bryan long enough. But it seemed to have been decreed that I was to see him once more, which came about in a rather strange manner in 1923.
In Ashtabula, Ohio, Judge Richards had given me the little book, "Our Penal Code and Its Victims," by John P. Altgeld. I had never heard the name before, but had read the book because of the friend who put it into my hands; up to that time I had the conventional view of crime and criminals. In a vague way I believed that a criminal was somewhat different from other men. He was evil and malignant, because he deliberately chose that way of life. I never had reflected that his composition and environment had any share in his conduct.
This book, written by John P. Altgeld, then a Chicago judge, set forth how laws and their administration were largely responsible for the criminal. It made a deep impression on my mind, and on arriving in Chicago the first man that I deliberately sought was Judge Altgeld. He seemed surprised that a man in Ohio had read his book. He told me that he had published and circulated it at his own expense, and very few had ever heard of it. Naturally he was pleased that it had fallen into my hands, and that I had liked it. He asked me a great many questions about myself, and invited me to call again. So I saw him from time to time, and he seemed to take an interest in my affairs and expressed a wish to help me if the opportunity should occur. Later, I discovered that he had been very active in the election of DeWitt C. Cregier for mayor, and that he had urged him to appoint me as assistant corporation counsel, when the change of politics had forced the former incumbent out of office. This indicated that he had recognized me as one of his disciples and followers.
Judge Altgeld had come to America when about six years of age. He was independent and aggressive, and believed in justice as he understood the word. He soon showed his sympathy for the labor movement, and through a fusion of trade-unionists and Democrats was elected to the bench. As a judge he was efficient and assertive and always in sympathy with the underdog. He was likewise a very ambitious man. He had good business sense and was always ready to take a chance. In the course of a few years he had accumulated about half a million dollars through dealings in real estate.
Judge Altgeld was on the bench in 1886 when the famous anarchist case was tried in Chicago. This case grew out of a movement for a general labor strike in May of 1886. A meeting was called for the night of May 4th by an anarchist group in the Haymarket Square, a wide area on the west side of Chicago. A permit was granted by the city, allowing the meeting to take place. When the 1st of May had passed, with many threats of disturbance, some of the citizens were fearing greater trouble, so the mayor, Carter Harrison, Sr., went to the square and listened to what the speakers said. The talks were made from a wagon brought to serve as a platform. The night was unpleasant, so only a small crowd assembled. It began to rain and more than half the audience left the street. Sam Fielding, an Englishman, once a Methodist revivalist, was speaking. The mayor told the policeman that the meeting was all right, and then he started for home.
No sooner had the mayor disappeared than a company of policemen marched up to the wagon and commanded the meeting to disperse. Fielding replied that they were about to go home anyhow. Thereupon a bomb was thrown from an alley into the Square, which landed in the midst of the policemen, killing seven and injuring about fifty. Immediately the city was aroused, and a man-hunt followed. Eight men were indicted for murder: Parsons, Spies, Fischer, Engel, Lingg, Fielding, Schwab, and Neebe. Previous to this meeting in the Haymarket, a number of halls and assembly rooms had been raided and closed. There was evidence that three of the group, Fischer, Engel and Lingg, had agreed that if the police attempted to search halls or break up gatherings they would use force to defend their rights to assemble. Also there was evidence that Lingg had made the bomb that exploded at the Haymarket.
Fielding, Parsons, Schwab and Spies were scarcely acquainted with Engel, Fischer and Lingg. Spies was the editor of the Arbeiter Zeitung, a radical daily paper to which Parsons often contributed. Schwab was an editorial writer on the paper. Parsons was a printer on the Chicago Daily News, and a frequent speaker at radical meetings; and Neebe was connected with the circulating department of the Arbeiter Zeitung; the paper was an old-time German sheet, very radical in its tendencies, which had been published in Chicago for eleven years before, and even after, this event. Its editorial writers and contributors often printed inflammatory articles on general subjects, but were never interfered with by the postal authorities. It was not seriously claimed that Parsons, Spies, Fielding, Schwab, or Neebe knew anything whatever about any contemplated violence at the meeting in the Haymarket Square.
The court permitted files of the Arbeiter Zeitung and The Alarm, a paper published by Parsons, to be read in evidence, and allowed the speeches of Parsons in Chicago and various other cities in the United States to go into the record; and speeches by Fielding at different meetings, with the editorials of Schwab, were offered at the trial. The judge instructed the jury that if they believed, from the evidence, that these speeches and articles contributed toward the throwing of the bomb they were justified in finding the defendants guilty of murder.
At the time of the trial the country was aflame, and the jury was shamelessly packed to procure conviction. The jury returned a verdict sentencing Neebe to fifteen years in the penitentiary, and all the others to death. This sentence was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the State, and the day of execution was fixed. In the meantime thousands of citizens protested that the verdict was unjust. Among these were many members and ex-members of the bench, a number of the best-known lawyers, some of them representing railroad corporations and other great interests; and several bankers, including the president of the First National Bank of Chicago, Lyman J. Gage. Petitions for clemency poured in from all parts of the earth.
Richard J. Oglesby was then governor of Illinois. He was a former general in the Civil War and had been prominent in politics for many years. After giving consideration to all the petitions he commuted the sentences of Fielding and Schwab to imprisonment for life, but Parsons, Spies, Engel and Fischer were hanged; and Lingg, a boy about twenty-one, managed to get a percussion cap of some sort which he put into his mouth, exploded it, and thus tore his head to pieces.
While many judges of the sitting court petitioned and worked for clemency, Altgeld remained silent. He did quietly send money and clothing to the families of the men during their trial and their sojourn in jail.
The anarchists were executed November 11th, 1887. From the time of their death constant efforts were carried on for the pardon of those who were confined in prison. For some years William Penn Nixon, editor-in-chief of The Chicago Inter-Ocean, was chairman of the amnesty committee that carried on the campaign. These petitioners grew into the tens of thousands and included men of all classes of Chicago and the whole United States. It was but a very few years after the executions until the bar in general throughout the State, and elsewhere, came to believe that the conviction was brought about through malice and hatred, and that the trial was unfair and the judgment of the court unsound, and that the opinion of the court was a standing menace to the liberty of the citizen.
John P. Altgeld was elected governor in 1892. His friends and the public in general always considered him radical. He was a humane, kindly man, and no one doubted his courage. It was commonly believed, and often stated, that if he were elected he would pardon the anarchists. Most of those who had been working for their release thought that the pardon would be his first official act. I was one of that number and told him so. He replied that it would not be; that many affairs of state demanded his prior attention. He said that when he could spare the time he would go over the case and do what he thought was right, but he must take his own time in this matter.
Often after that I urged him to act, but he always eluded the suggestion. Finally I felt impatient and worried, and wondered if we could have been deceived in Altgeld. All of his friends realized that he had never held any anarchistic or even especially socialistic views. We knew that he was upright, liberal, honest, humane, and had thought that was enough, but I now believed that the time had come for a last talk with him about pardons in the anarchist case.
I went to him, confiding that his friends were growing doubtful and restless and disappointed, and that it should be done at once. I told him that every one expected it, that it had been generally asked for by all the people, that it would not even create hostility toward him, and that I and others could see no excuse for waiting. Mr. Altgeld turned to me deliberately and calmly said:
"Go tell your friends that when I am ready I will act. I don't know how I will act, but I will do what I think is right." Then turning to me he added: "We have been friends for a long time. You seem impatient; of course I know how you feel; I don't want to offend you or lose your friendship, but this responsibility is mine, and I shall shoulder it. I have not yet examined the record. I have no opinion about it. It is a big job. When I do examine it I will do what I believe to be right, no matter what that is. But don't deceive yourself: If I conclude to pardon those men it will not meet with the approval that you expect; let me tell you that from that day I will be a dead man."
I knew the governor's attitude toward me. He knew the depth of my devotion to him, and he knew how absolutely I believed in that pardon. I was sure that he would have told me his intention if he would have told it to any man. I was certain that he did not know then what he would do. I reported to my friends that it was useless to bother him again. All we could do was to wait.
About six weeks later the news came in the daily papers. It had been so long delayed that it came like a stroke of lightning, it seemed so abrupt and unexpected. He issued his pardon message. And what a message it was. It left no one in doubt as to how he felt. Immediately throughout the world a flood of vituperation and gall was poured out upon Altgeld's head. Of course very few knew anything about the facts, and fewer cared anything about them. Governor Altgeld was in the way of the forces that control the world, and he must be destroyed.
The main objection was launched against the part of the message that criticised the trial judge. This criticism was caustic and severe. The public thundered as though it were treason to censure a judge; but of course it is as admissible and necessary to criticise a judge as any other public servant, and it is largely criticism that has any tendency to keep officials interested in meeting situations. It should be done with the wish to be fair, but I have found a limited number who ever tried to be just where they have any personal feeling in a case. In the mountain of protest heaped on the devoted head of John P. Altgeld no one ever undertook to show that his reasons were not good or his judgment unsound. As it was, he had no power to grant clemency to the dead. He could not have pardoned Schwab and Fielding if Governor Richard J. Oglesby, a Republican and conservative, had not saved their lives. It is perfectly plain that he would not have saved them if he had not been satisfied that there was not sufficient evidence to connect them with the killing.
I have always felt sure that in the pardoning of the men Governor Altgeld would not have been true to his office and himself had he failed to act. But I feel that Governor Altgeld was wrong in laying all the blame to Judge Gary, the trial judge. Undoubtedly his rulings were biased and unfair, but where is the man who, under the lashing of the crowd, is not biased and unfair? If Judge Gary erred, the Supreme Court was still more to blame; it required one whole volume of the Supreme Court reports for explanations and excuses to justify the judgment of the trial court, and to palliate and excuse the verdict of the jury; and their decision came a year after the trial, and there were seven judges who might have divided the responsibility. To severely blame Judge Gary meant blaming a judge for not being one in ten thousand, and few men can be that and live.
If only Governor Altgeld had consulted some one I believe the great mass of the criticism directed against him would have been spared. He needed but to marshal the influential men from all ranks that had petitioned for the pardon; he needed but to point out that Governor Oglesby had saved their lives, and to call the attention of his censors to the fierce and bitter passions that reigned supreme at the time of the trial. But Altgeld never shirked responsibility. He accepted, and seemed almost to court the opposition of the world. I never ventured to tell him that he should have or might have performed his act in any other manner. And now he and all his family have long since passed to dust, and only his work and the memory remain. Many a time I have said that posterity would vindicate him. But it will not; a man's record, rightly or wrongly, is settled as he goes along. Posterity has affairs of its own to look after.
I went to the State Capitol as often as I could after the pardon was granted. The great building seemed lonely and abandoned. The governor's suite of rooms were barren and deserted. He was almost always alone. Still there was at least one man, brave and true, and understanding, who found no day too short and no night too dark to serve the man he loved. This was George A. Schilling, the secretary of labor. Mr. Schilling was about the first man I met when I came to Chicago, and he has been a close friend ever since. He is still living, at the age of eighty-one.
I used to go to the governor's quarter and sit and look at him in silence, just to be with him. He was never a great talker. Few really thoughtful people are voluble. Altgeld never gossiped; he never spoke of trifling things, and on the platform he almost never told a story. Yet, now and then, he would do that atrocious thing, but fortunately the stories never seemed to belong to the man or fit the time or place.
A speaker asks an audience to come and listen to his views, and they have done him the honor to come. Out of the whole span of life they have but an hour or two in which they can be together to consider the matter in hand. Life and such hours are too important and scarce to be wasted on the mere repetition of stories, most of which could be, and probably have been, read or heard before. Instead of yielding to idle conversation it might profit one to cultivate silence and contemplation. After all, every one virtually spends most of the time alone, or wishing he could be alone.
Altgeld was essentially a lonely man. And those were appallingly lonely days after the pardoning of the anarchists. The public let loose its vials of wrath and malice on his devoted head. But he did not wince and never complained. He could not tolerate sympathy. He felt that it was an assumption of superiority and the suggestion of defeat. The brave man goes straight ahead. He moves silently but with the force of the glacier or fate itself. His heart may be torn and bleeding, but it never shows in his face, and he is too proud to explain even when he knows that a word would make things right. Altgeld never moaned or cried in his agony, but went straight onward down his appointed path though he knew that it led to doom.
The second time Altgeld ran for office was some two years after the pardon message. By that time his friends were rallying around him, and even the time-server and hypocrite once more sat on his doorstep, asking for alms. The vote he received was not less than the rest of the ticket; in many places it was more. The newspapers, the profiteers, the money-mongers, and the pharisees, fought him bitterly; but in the humble dwelling-places of the poor, in the factories and mills, among the failures, the misfits and despised, he was worshipped almost as a god. For the maimed and beaten, the sightless and voiceless, he was eyes and ears, and a flaming tongue crying in the wilderness for kindness and humanity and understanding.
During his period of prosperity Altgeld had erected a building sixteen stories high; one of the most expensive and elaborate of the time. It was one of the first of the "sky-scrapers" within what is now "the Loop" in Chicago. He had put into this building all his assets, around six or seven hundred thousand dollars; and had encumbered it by a mortgage of two millions or more. He was always charitable and generous, and saw and did things in a big way. When he became governor and went to Springfield, Ill., the capital of the State, he was not able to give much time to his financial affairs. When he pardoned the anarchists many of his best tenants of the big "Unity" left the building, and it was refilled by young lawyers, radicals and idealists, many of whom could not pay their rent. Any one not able to pay office rent moved to the Unity Building. So Altgeld was obliged to default in his interest, and the bondholders showed him no mercy. In fact, they wanted him to fail. It would be a fine lesson in showing the punishment of evil and the triumph of virtue.
At that time Charles T. Yerkes was in control and practically the owner of the surface lines and one of the elevated roads of Chicago. He was formerly a resident of Philadelphia. He acquired the street-car property soon after reaching Chicago. Also he had succeeded in getting control of the city gas company, and was regarded with doubt and suspicion by the established financial men of Chicago. The laws of Illinois did not permit a street-car franchise to be issued for a longer term than thirty years. During Altgeld's administration, and after the pardoning of the anarchists, Mr. Yerkes applied to the legislature of the State for a law extending the franchises to fifty years, and permitting future grants for that length of time. All the newspapers of Chicago opposed him. It might not be amiss to remark that recently, in 1930, the same papers and interests that defeated Yerkes' fifty-year franchise voted the Traction Company a perpetual one. Thus the world moves forward. Mr. Yerkes was a man of iron will, and as bold as any buckaneer who ever sailed the financial seas. He and his family have long been dead, or I might not like to make these very moderate statements of fact. For all sentient organisms feel pain, and I always have tried to avoid causing it.
The State legislature was none too good. I have never known the representatives to be any different excepting at a time of some great moral crusade, and then they were always worse. They were worse, because the reformer is lacking in humaneness. He is cold and hard and self-righteous. He does not suffer and does not pity. Suffering for or with others means putting oneself in the place of the other fellow, and the reformer has not the imagination for this. Pity means an imagination so sensitive that one suffers what and when others suffer. You are cold when your fellow man is cold, and hungry when he is hungry, and you are inside the jail when the doors close on him.
Of course Mr. Yerkes had competent lawyers, as all rich people have. He employed the best and most skilful lobbyists to work for his bill. He managed to get control of the House and the Senate, the bills were passed, and up to the governor for veto or approval. Every one wondered what Altgeld would do. No one ever doubted his integrity, but his enemies hated him the more for that. Altgeld owed nothing to the forces that were against Mr. Yerkes. The campaign had made him virtually a bankrupt. The Unity Building, his pride, had been mortgaged for two million dollars, the interest was long in default, and, by the terms of the mortgage, the principal was due. All that was necessary was to file a bill of foreclosure and appoint a receiver, and then that part of the fruits of his labors and luck would vanish. Every one knew that Altgeld could easily get the money to pay the mortgage, or any other sum that he would be willing to take. He would not need to ask for it; only take it. He did not pass the bill; it was a legislative enactment; all that was required was to withhold a veto and let it become a law. I knew all of Altgeld's most trusted friends; we often discussed the matter among ourselves. So far as was known, he never asked advice of any one, and I, at least, never volunteered any.
The days went by and the suspense increased. Altgeld sat silent and pensive, gazing out beyond the petty affairs of men. He could even have vetoed the bill in a perfunctory way, and enough votes could have been gathered to pass it over his head. That would have done as well, and his record would have been consistent and clear. But Altgeld never did anything in a perfunctory way. At the last moment he sent his veto message to the legislature. It was a state document that could not be answered or avoided. No member of the Senate or the House could afterward support the bill without every one knowing the reason why.
After the veto was sent in an effort was made to pass it over his head, but this failed. In a short time the Unity Building passed out of Altgeld's control. He was about fifty-four years old at that time. In 1896, after his defeat for re-election for the governorship, he returned to Chicago. He seemed dazed and lifeless for a time. He said he was too old to begin a new career, that he had lived his life, and must stand by the record as it was. He once told me that he would be content to crawl under a sidewalk and die, if need be; all stricken animals have that desire. He did not want to go back to the bar to practice law; he had come to rather despise that profession; he felt that its strongest men sold themselves to destroy people, to perpetuate and intensify the poverty of the oppressed, and enlarge their burdens.
He sat in his office, day after day, receiving visits from the poor, the dreamers, the unadjusted and unadjustable, who were not only of Chicago but from all parts of the land. For several years the pathetic idealists, with their haunted and far-away gaze, came to his office, as the devout anchorite would visit a shrine. And it was a shrine. Hidden away in the consciousness of every man, whether he knows it or not, is some shrine where he burns incense and does homage.
We managed, at one time, to arouse Altgeld sufficiently to enter the race for mayor as an independent candidate. His petitions were circulated and he was placed on the ticket. He felt that the Democratic party was returning to its old idols and leaving the people in the lurch; for there is in every man and every organization a strong urge to leave the hard path of duty and self-sacrifice and return to the flesh-pots whose savory odor always lures with its promise of the pleasanter things in life.
"Altgeld for Mayor" was a slogan that gathered from the highways and byways the old guard that had frantically followed him and Bryan to defeat. Day after day his headquarters were crowded with weird-looking idealists and worshippers--the poorly clad, the ill-fed, the unemployed, the visionaries gazing off toward the rainbow espying something farther on than the very stars themselves. Governor Altgeld spoke at great meetings all over the city. Never were political quarters more crowded, never were audiences more enthusiastic. I remember one meeting in a large hall or armory that ran for twenty-four hours, and the "Amens" were as vigorous at the end as at the start.
Revealed religion is not the only magic that awakens zeal and devotion; or, perhaps our personal allegiance and political creed was a sort of religion of its own kind. Whatever one may think, it was a sort of zeal, the same sort of gazing into the future, the same sublimation of self into a strong emotion and a distant dream. But our great crowds were deceptive. For the same footsore and weary would travel from one end of the city to another and attend meetings night after night. The gospel was ever new each time the devoted heard it. Altgeld cared nothing for being mayor; he simply wanted to place the control of the city with the people; where he believed it belonged. He was too ethereal-minded to know that "the people" are also a myth, the figment of an illusion, a spectral cohort that only eyes of faith can see. When the votes were counted he was beaten. Altgeld was disappointed. He dwelt in the clouds; and this was some consolation for all the devotion that he wasted on an unwilling world.
After this he was often asked to give addresses in various cities. Wherever he went the auditoriums were crowded. The poor eagerly drank of his words of wisdom, and these are everywhere in great numbers. Aside from the poor, there was always a large proportion of students, lawyers, scientists, who appreciated what he had to say, and knew that he was right. He really belonged to the aristocracy of intellect. He wrote two fairly good books. His little volume, "Oratory," is the best that I have ever seen of its class. Usually a speaker is better off if he never reads books on this subject, especially one who has anything to say, for most speakers put the manner of talking above substance; and while the manner is of considerable importance the content is really of the first concern.
After Mr. Altgeld's property had disappeared I finally persuaded him to come into my office and resume the practice of law, although he felt that he could never be of any value in this field, either to clients or the cause that would always claim his allegiance. In spite of his fears he was able to take up that activity almost as if he had never been absent from the bar, and no doubt would have made a success of it if he had lived. But he died within six months after that last venture.
One new great emotion came into his life toward the end. This was the Boer War. All his friends were for the Boers. Although I had never been an enemy of England, I felt that this war waged by them was without excuse. Then, too, it presented the picture of a great nation trampling a small one into the earth. Both Altgeld and I held a large number of meetings for the purpose of awakening the sympathy of our country for the Boers.
On the 12th day of March, 1902, Governor Altgeld went down to Joliet, about forty miles from Chicago. For many years his heart had not been good. He had never seemed strong. Before going to Joliet he had been in court all day and was very tired that night; as I remember it, he had eaten no lunch; he went into the dining car and ate a hearty meal. He went directly from the train into a crowded hall and immediately began his plea for the Boers. He had gone but a little way when he was seized with an acute attack of indigestion. He fell and was removed from the stage; and for several hours his frail body was wracked with vomiting and pain. About midnight he was dead. I was called up, by long-distance, that night, and the next morning went to Joliet, attended to everything and brought him back in his casket.
He lay in state in the Public Library Building. All day long the people filed past and lavished their loving looks upon their great and brave champion, John P. Altgeld. It was the same throng that had so often hung upon his courageous words from many a forum; the same inarticulate mass for whose cause he had given his voice and his life. Men and women with sad faces and tearful eyes gazed into the now still white face of their friend as though all hope would be buried in his grave.
For the funeral, two invitations were sent to clergymen, supposed to be liberal-minded, asking them to conduct the farewell ceremony, but both found reasons for not being able to come. So Miss Jane Addams, of Hull House, a woman of rare ideals and intelligence, was asked to speak. Governor Altgeld had long admired Miss Addams, and was often a visitor at Hull House, and she had always understood and appreciated the fearlessness and unselfishness of the man. Her words were simple and sensible, such as she always uses. I also had the rare privilege of saying a few words of the many that welled from my heart, overflowing with admiration and affection and pain for a lost idol. Then we laid him in his grave.
His death was in keeping with his life. Had he been able to choose, he could not have made it more fitting to the man that he was. He died while speaking for the weak and oppressed who were struggling for liberty. He died as he had lived, fighting for freedom.
Whether it is good form or not, I have inserted in an appendix my heartfelt tribute to my dead friend, spoken at his grave, on March 14th, 1902.
The great city was lonely and dreary after Altgeld's death. The radicals had lost their leader, and there was no one in sight that could take his place. The battles of Altgeld, the writings of Henry George, the Socialist campaign, and the general civic movements had combined to bring the question of municipal ownership to the front. This problem had been greatly aided by the persistent effort of Mr. Yerkes to get the fifty-year franchise through the legislature, and the veto by the beloved Altgeld. In order to accomplish municipal ownership it would be necessary to get a bill through the legislature, and coming so soon after the attempt of Mr. Yerkes to pass his extension act, the reformers supported the campaign authorizing municipal ownership.
However, the reformers and what was left of the Altgeld forces never could agree. There was a profound cleavage between us as to the meaning of the word "reform." To some it meant closing the theatres and saloons on Sunday. To us it meant nothing of that kind. Under the conditions, as they were, we organized a Voters' League and put up candidates for the legislature in various districts. The League insisted that I should run from my district, but I did not want the position. It meant a serious loss of business, which I could not afford. It also meant dickering and trading, anxiety and trouble, without substantial result. However, it was as hard for me to say "No" as it always has been, so I consented to run.
Our method of electing the members of the legislature in Illinois requires three members from each district. As a rule, the majority party would nominate two, and the minority one. Under this arrangement each voter virtually casts three ballots. He can vote for three candidates, or cast two votes for one and cast the third for another, or, he can plump all three votes to one man. So long as I had promised to run I hoped to go about it an easier way. I had always been on good personal terms with the leaders of my district. My quarrels never were with men. So I assumed that the Democrats would put me on the ticket if I told them that I was willing to go. But by this time the friends of the corporations were aroused. I made the request to be placed on the ticket and was told that they were sorry, but I was too late. I told them that I thought I would go to the legislature anyhow; so I filed a petition to run as an independent, and organized a campaign committee, stating that I would pay for the halls in the campaign, but would use no more money nor make any promises. In all my talks I told the voters that I did not want the office; I told them why I was running, and that it was their fight just as much as mine. I notified them that if elected I would not ask for a job for any one or bestow any favors that I would not grant if I were not a member. As I recall it, I received more votes than all the others combined. At least I was elected by an overwhelming majority.
While I was carrying on the campaign, the anthracite coal strike was agitating the people of Pennsylvania, and, in fact, the whole country. The strike began in the spring or early summer of the year 1902. That section of the State furnished all the hard coal used by the United States. It is an immense industry, extending over a large territory and employing many thousands of miners. John Mitchell was then the president of the United Miners. He was a man of strong will, fine judgment, and great energy. The summer wore on with no signs of a truce. Both the mine owners and the strikers determined to fight to a finish.
At that time Theodore Roosevelt was President of the United States. Both sides made various appeals for his aid, but without success. The miners offered to arbitrate the case and let the President choose the board. The mine owners declined, declaring that it was no concern of the President's, which it probably was not. So the weeks went by. A coal famine was in sight, and the whole country, especially the East, was filled with fear. It seemed as if not only would people have no fuel for their homes, but, still more important, business would be seriously crippled, and, in many instances, bankruptcy would result. Once more the public and the press were calling upon the President to interfere. The mine owners were growing alarmed. They feared public opinion, which was rising fast. The miners, by that time, were not anxious for the President to take a hand; they felt that victory was in sight.
In this juncture President Roosevelt called both sides to come to the White House. He proposed arbitration, promising that if it was left to him to choose the board he would endeavor to have both sides fairly treated and every interest represented. But the miners were not anxious to arbitrate. They felt that the strike was won, as it doubtless was. But no one can overlook the great value of public opinion in one of these industrial contests. As a rule, the employers have much the best chance to get public opinion as they are generally closely linked with the press. But in the coal strike many influential papers were with the miners. However, Mr. Mitchell and his associates felt that they could not refuse arbitration. So it was agreed that the President should appoint the board, which he proceeded to do.
I had never in any way been connected with the United Mine Workers, but after the board was appointed Mr. Mitchell asked me to undertake the case, and I was very glad to be in this conflict. I had been in various arbitrations before; I had found arbitration more satisfactory than courts; there are seldom the same feelings of hatred that accompany a court proceeding at law. An arbitration is flexible and informal. Assuming that the board is fair, it is seeking to do justice and not looking to find violations of statutes. Then there are always some members on the board who know something about the matters involved, while a court is supposed not to know. In fact, a judge must not know, even if he does know. And then, in court every important issue may be thrown to the wind on account of the most senseless law or a crotchet of a judge.
The terms of the arbitration and the powers of the board were very broad. They were to have full leeway to find out the facts and make such orders as to them seemed right and fair. I had never had any relations with mining; I had not even dug coal. I proceeded at once to Wilkesbarre, where I was met by many of my clients and James Lanahan and the O'Neil brothers, who were associated with me in the case. These lawyers had once worked in the mines and were familiar with all the terminology as well as the method of the work, and were likewise well-equipped lawyers. I immediately got permission from one of the managers of one of the mines to make a thorough inspection, and then began the work.
Organizing the data for an arbitration of this importance is not an easy task, but in two or three weeks we felt that we were fairly prepared. Both sides had a corps of bookkeepers and expert accountants, and the board provided men of their own to see that no mistakes entered consciously or unconsciously into the situation. The mine owners were handicapped by too many lawyers. A large number of corporations and individuals were involved, and most of them came into court. Of course many of the lawyers were of the first rank, but few of them had ever had any experience in labor arbitrations, or knew much about the common man and his needs and desires.
The hearings were commenced in Scranton and then adjourned to Philadelphia. The case covered some two months of steady work. Almost every imaginable question arose. The matter concerned working conditions, living conditions, education, accidents, cost of food and clothing, rents, in fact, everything that enters into living and toiling. The lawyers seemed to vie with each other in courtesy and consideration. In the entire hearing there was scarcely an unkind word or sharp look by court or counsel. The arguments were closely followed by as many as could be packed into the court room in Philadelphia, and by the press generally throughout the country. Among the other matters considered was the question of making some permanent improved working conditions and methods of settling disputes to avoid strikes and lockouts.
The board took the time thoroughly to consider the case, delivered a lengthy opinion, and granted a substantial raise of wages, better conditions and shorter hours of labor, and found in favor of a plan offered for working conditions for the future. This plan was the outcome of discussion and consideration by both parties, and it was so well weighed and arranged that it kept peace in the anthracite regions for twenty-five years. I believe this was the first agreement reached for settling industrial disputes without resorting to brute force on both sides. Since then it has formed the basis for many other such agreements.
It was generally conceded that labor gained greatly by this arbitration. As soon as the method of the settlement under President Roosevelt had been arrived at the strike was called off and the mines were opened. It was agreed that when the decision was rendered the rate fixed by the board should cover all coal mined during the hearing. Under this decision the miners received several million dollars in back pay, besides gaining security, peace, better hours, and improved working conditions. The opinion scolded the miners for some acts of violence during the strike, but they did not much mind this so long as they won the main points for which they petitioned. Trade unionists are used to being scolded. All men know that a million people cannot live at the point of want without some acts of violence.
While I was still in the East I was visited by emissaries, friends and newspaper representatives from Chicago regarding the coming mayoralty campaign there. The old Altgeld forces were anxious for me to run. Many of the regular Democrats were for me and were certain that I would be given the nomination if I would consent to accept it. I did not want to run. I would not have wanted the position if it could have been had without a contest. I did not believe that any one could faithfully perform his duties as mayor and keep his friends. I had been in the City Hall connected with Mayor Cregier long enough to know and pity the hordes of hungry office-seekers clamoring for jobs. Some would go to the mayor's home in the morning before he could get away, and they were still arriving after he had left the office in the evening; and all day the rooms and halls outside the main office were crowded, all on the same errand, most of them with families at home, many of them in actual want. I knew that no one could run the business of Chicago as it should be run without closing his door and his heart at the same time to these appeals. I knew that the city was in debt, and spent at least twice as much for services as they were worth, and at the same time had to disappoint countless applicants.
This is the case with every city and State and national administration that I know anything about. This is politics. I believed that I could not help, and doubted if I could withstand the appeals of the needy who already looked on me as their friend. I knew that it is out of the question to have honest, economical government while a few are inordinately rich and the great mass of men are poor. In fact, it is to be doubted if anything really worth while can be done until there is a fairer distribution of wealth.
Then, too, I had just been elected to the legislature. It had been in session several weeks and I had not been able to take my seat on account of the miners' case, which I could not leave. It was hard to refuse my friends and supporters, but I was obliged to choose, and--I did not run. Many were grievously disappointed, but I could see it no other way.
The legislature had been in session two or three weeks when I arrived in Springfield to begin the duties that were new to me. I was acquainted with many of the members there, especially those from Chicago. It did not take long to learn how they worked; or, at least, did what they called work. Next to the courts, more time is fooled away at great expense in legislative bodies than anywhere else that I know anything about.
Every session was opened with prayer, and then a large part of the assembly proceeded to look around to find some one to hold up. This, also, is politics. There was the usual number of bills to unjustly tax railroads, telegraph companies, and other corporations. Many of the companies expected to see me supporting those bills, and many of the members believed that I would "fall for" them. But I knew that they were the usual bills introduced to make the corporations pay money for their defeat. I invariably fought them, and urged the corporations not to spend money for the tribute. I soon discovered that no independent man who fights for what he thinks is right can succeed in legislation. He can kill bad bills by a vigorous fight and publicity, but he can get nothing passed.
I tried to put through one bill. The law authorizing a recovery for deaths caused by negligence was old; it fixed a limit of recovery at five thousand dollars. This amount, considered in connection with the increased cost of living, was a travesty on justice. I introduced a bill to remove the limitation of the amount of recovery, leaving it in the hands of the jury. When I offered the bill the grafters came around me and pledged their support; but I knew better. I had never intended to leave the amount open. Soon I learned that members of the legislature had visited corporations to get money to defeat the bill; they had urged that I was dangerous, that I was against corporations, that there was a chance that the bill would pass. I waited until they had time to organize their opposition. I knew many lawyers and others connected with corporations, so I went to see some of these friends in the employ of the interests and told them what I knew about certain members' conduct in relation to the bill, and that if they wanted to spend the money to defeat it, well and good: I should make no investigation nor stir up any scandal, and believed that I could win anyhow. But still, I explained, I never believed in a bill that left the amount of recovery open. If through some negligence the wealthiest man in Chicago should be killed I was not interested in having his heirs get a million dollars on account of the loss of his service. I was only interested in employees and other workers, and even if the bill was unlimited the courts would not, and should not, permit a large verdict to stand where the financial loss to the family was not great. So, if they preferred to let my bill go unhampered I would be glad to amend it, fixing a limit of ten thousand dollars instead of five. They at once conceded that the present limit was too low; they agreed to call off the opposition. I amended the bill and got it through by a practically unanimous vote. Since then the cost of living has so greatly increased that the amount should again be raised, but no one has taken up the fight.
I was able to render a good deal of help in aid of the Municipal Ownership bill and the Child Labor law. But as the orthodox reformers were supporting both the bills they probably would have gone through without my help. I know I can safely say that in my service in the legislature I neither supported nor opposed any bill for political reasons or for any other reason excepting that I believed that a bill should or should not pass.
Often when I went down to the assembly room I would find an array of letters and telegrams on my desk. Looking at the grist I could say without opening them, "Now, here's another bill that I must help kill; I knew that no bill in behalf of the people could muster so many friends." Invariably I found that I was right. Frequently the member back of the bill had himself urged that these messages be sent. It is remarkable how many men will ask the legislature to do or not do certain things because of their personal interests or the interests of their class.
I remember one bill that all the politicians determined to defeat. The penitentiaries had been in the habit of leasing out the inmates to contractors, who, of course, exploited them in a cruel way. Finally a law was passed forbidding the leasing of the labor of prisoners. It was not long before it was observed that large numbers of men were lying idle in institutions, which required locking them into cells during the day. This was severe torture to the prisoners and a foolish waste of time. To cure this condition a bill was introduced providing for the manufacture of certain products in prisons. Immediately a lobby appeared on the floor largely made up of officials and members of the unions interested in the production of the goods that were to be made in the penitentiaries. It was not hard to get the aid of the politicians to support the request of the unions. They took it for granted that I would be with them without a request, but they finally asked me to assist in defeating the bill. I replied that as the bill then stood I felt that I should vote for it. Most of them were amazed. I set forth that the prisoners, for their own sakes, must have something to do, calling to their minds that practically no one but working people were in prisons and it was inhuman to keep them idle and locked in their cells during the day. I advised them to go back to Chicago and submit the question to the Chicago Federation of Labor, and if they would pick out the kind of work that should be undertaken in prisons I would stand for their bill if it was anything like a feasible proposition. Otherwise I should vote for the pending bill. They never were able to agree as to what sort of work should be done, so we were obliged to determine it ourselves.
Among the bills that I always tried to kill, and generally with good success, were laws increasing penalties and creating new crimes. Congress and every State legislature are always beset with this sort of legislation. Judges and State's attorneys constantly cudgel their brains to think of new things to punish, and severer penalties to inflict on others. Reform associations are likewise active in this regard. And many citizens who think that they have been unjustly dealt with, or have witnessed something that provoked their anger are always seeking to send some one to jail; so that I am satisfied that at least half the men in prison to-day are there for crimes that did not exist thirty years ago--violations of the Volstead Act, confidence games, conspiracy and offenses against many other statutes comparatively new.
The use of the conspiracy charge, in catching an endless number of victims and in creating penalties that have grown in number at a rapid rate, is increasing more and more each day. It took England more than a hundred years to abolish it, even after she began to agitate for its repeal. This crime began in the star chamber courts, where the defendant was not present in the trial, and was used to compass the death of some of the best and greatest men England ever had. It is a serious reflection on America that this worn-out piece of tyranny should find a home in our country.
Among the many new offenses that have found many victims is the confidence game. No one knows the meaning of "confidence game." It was fixed for transactions that were not quite honest but did not rise to the dignity of crime. Now this vague and flexible charge has its victims by the thousands in the prisons of the United States. No wonder that crime increases in America when men sit up nights contriving new accusations for sentencing others to jails. No matter how long the criminal code may be, it cannot apply to every dishonest act that may be committed.
I had the gratification of seldom failing to stop any proposed increase in the length of the criminal code or the terms of sentences for its victims. But my service in Springfield was a serious interference with my own business. Chicago and Springfield, the capital of the State, are two hundred miles apart, and if one attempts to attend to matters of the legislature as he should he might as well close his office and go there to live. Still, I have always been glad that I had the experience, and though I may not have accomplished much for the State, I have considered that the education I got was worth while to me.
In Springfield, and elsewhere, I have had the opportunity to observe the work of many reform organizations, and as a rule I have never liked them. All people are individually ambitious and anxious to be in the limelight and office, and one of the favorite methods is to join a reform organization. This brings prominence plus respectability. What I object to is the hardness that seems a part of reform. These bodies constantly seek to cause trouble for some one; many of their members are interested in Sunday laws, in fighting drink, in stopping the small gambling games that are the enjoyments of the poor, in regulating personal conduct, in their small, pestiferous, nagging manner that makes life a burden. Most of this class of people confound sin with pleasure; they think the world should be gloomy and sad, and pleasure should be postponed till kingdom come. This class of people do their utmost to bring about trouble and to kill joy. For my part, I agree with Omar Khayyam:
"O, take the cash, and let the credit go."
The Puritans were reformers when they hanged people for witchcraft and prohibited theatres, when in Congress they censured George Washington and LaFayette for taking part in a theatrical performance at Valley Forge, when they passed the Volstead Act, which crucifies millions of people for claiming the simple right to drink what they please. This class of Puritans are meddlesome and nosey and contemptible.
I am sure that there are many aldermen, members of the legislature, members of Congress, and others in places of power who take money contrary to law for doing things that they either should not have done or should have done without reward. Men of affairs in our big cities know scores of these men who grow wealthy in this way. All sorts of people who are interested have given them money for vacating streets and alleyways, for granting franchises, locating improvements, for all sorts of favors, for reducing taxes, for passing certain legislation, and much more. The one who does not know that this is true is ignorant of affairs. Most men who are well informed know the men and corporations who have passed out the money, and about how much was paid. They know that many of those who get the money grow immensely rich, and are members of the best clubs and the smartest social sets and churches. And very few seem to care. It has been the system of civilization in every age and land; it will continue to be the story so long as men love wealth above honor and their fellow men.
Even though this is true, as every man knows, I like the men who have taken the money and given it better than many of the reformers, and I believe that most people do; for they have not such an abiding belief in jails; they do not really enjoy other peoples' sufferings; they do not gloat over hounding people with cruel laws; they are not strong for vengeance and are not inherently vicious and hard; they are not sadists, who delight in making others feel pain. But, I never liked either the reformers or grafters, at that.
I have spent a large part of my life defending men charged with crime. I have done this for those who paid me, and for those who gave me nothing, and often have spent my own money to provide for the defense. I have never let the lack of money stand in the way of helping people in trouble. I am sure that I have given at least half of my time and services to this kind of work without any financial reward. I have had the satisfaction of saving many from degradation and shame, and have almost always found them worthy. My only regret is that I have not been able to do more. It has often fallen to my lot to try to get bail for unfortunates languishing in jail and waiting for trial. I have never asked a reformer to sign a bond. I am too intelligent even to try to induce him. I have preferred to go to an alderman, an alderman that the reform organization opposes; or I would go to some one who has sympathy and feeling; some one who knows what trouble means; some one who has had experience, if possible, and, if not, one who has vision and some imagination.
As a rule the politician is a "good fellow" who is generous, kind and liberal. Many a one is ready to help a constituent who is in hard luck. It is not uncommon for any of them to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, and bury the dead. In a world that is none too generous at best these qualities are highly important and worth finding. Correct values are not easily arrived at. In fact, there is no possible way to determine what values are the most or the least worth while. I know the ones that seem most desirable to me, but I do not expect all the world to agree with my view.
My term in the legislature gave me an opportunity for reading, as I usually remained in Springfield all the week, and was not engaged in log-rolling; crossword puzzles had not then been invented. I never was bothered by fear of offending constituents. They had elected me. I had not asked them to vote for me; I had made no promises, and I did not want a second term. And I must say they respected my attitude. I conscientiously tried to serve all the people of my State, and from my standpoint I succeeded.
In 1903 I married Miss Ruby Hamerstrom. Since that time it has fallen to my lot to figure in a succession of rather unusual cases in various parts of the United States which have requited my concentrated efforts, so that she has accompanied me in all these out-of-town undertakings, as well as in all my travels in Europe, Egypt, Palestine, and elsewhere; and in recent years, during my debating and lecturing tours, my health and strength have been none too good, so that she has travelled with me most of that time, relieving me of all responsibility and exertion in arranging for everything in the way of transportation and hotel accommodations, baggage, communications, engagements, and the countless inevitable details. I really could not have made these journeys without her assistance and constant care.
In 1906 I was called upon by the Western Federation of Miners to defend Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone under an indictment charging them with the murder of ex-Governor Frank Steunenberg, of Idaho. This case had a most dramatic setting and attracted wide interest throughout America.
The Western Federation of Miners was one of the militant labor unions of the country. It included most of the metalliferous workers in the mines of the West. Their general offices were in Denver, Colo., which State was then one of the largest producers of gold and silver in the United States. The president of the organization was Charles H. Moyer, and the general secretary was William D. Haywood. Moyer was a man of great force of character, brave and determined. His life had been devoted to mining and the interests of the union. Mr. Haywood was a pronounced radical, an important member of the Socialist party at that time. He was a wide reader of books, especially on trades-unions and other economic subjects, and an excellent organizer. A strike had been called early in 1906, reaching into all the mines and smelters of the West. A great number of men were involved in the strike. In some sections the mine owners at once began filling the vacated places with non-union workers. It was the usual story which has been told so often in labor controversies the world over.
It is doubtful if there ever was a strike in America, unless in the anthracite region, where the feeling was so bitter as in this case. In Colorado, especially, the contest verged on civil war. Early in the strike Colorado was put under martial law, and State and Federal troops were summoned and utilized by the owners of the mills and mines. These measures were then taken under the claim of the need to protect property and life, especially property.
It is not my purpose to enter the field of controversy, but only to sketch the background of the drama. The courts have often held that a strike in itself is violence, and that there never was a peaceful strike; probably this is an extreme statement, even in law, but most strikes have been accompanied by more or less violence, not alone by the strikers but also by agents, detectives, and other workers in the employ of the owners, and by outsiders whose sympathies were enlisted on one side or the other of these individual contests. In any settled community, with the easy and lurid publicity of our age, large masses of union men lose their jobs. These places are taken by non-union men who are almost universally called "scabs" by all the workers and their sympathizers. Often the substitutes are simply poor men who need the work and have a hard time to live. Many of them make this kind of labor their calling; and this class receive much more pay than the union men. They are usually strong, quarrelsome, reckless, and as a rule have no ties that restrain their conduct. They are called strike breakers. They have no ideals, and can always be had from detective offices which are engaged in connection with strikes. The strikers also often use violence.
Mirabeau said that you cannot make a revolution out of rosewater. Neither can you conduct a great strike by singing hymns. Women are often as active as the men, and even more interested. It is a serious matter for a workman to lay down his tools and join the ranks of the unemployed. It often means want and privation for himself and wife and children; perhaps a father and mother, too, are depending upon him. It sometimes means danger, and jail, and even death. It takes courage and devotion, and these are rare qualities in the world. It is strange that in these conflicts the whole community is divided, just as in war or religion. Those who are charged with violating the law in behalf of or against strikers are really not criminals. They are not working for merely selfish ends; whether on the right side or the wrong side, they are idealists working for a cause. All such crimes should be classed by any thinking people as political crimes. There is no more semblance to crime in matters involving industrial wars than in the hideous killings in the World War.
During the strike a railroad station near Victor, Colo., was dynamited, and some thirty men were killed. This happened about three o'clock in the morning, when the so-called "scabs" were leaving work. Other explosions occurred in different mines. Efforts were made to derail trains and to interfere with persons and property.
On the other hand, the mine owners and operators made full use of soldiers and private detectives. Many men were beaten; a considerable number were thrown into jail and denied bail or the right of habeas corpus. Moyer and Haywood were both among that number. The situation in the West was, as I have stated, virtually a case of civil war, on a somewhat modified scale. Colorado was not the only State involved. Utah, Nevada, Montana and Idaho had rich mines that came under the same class as Colorado. In addition to this, the smelter interests were very strong. Butte was the centre of this industry, and the United Mine Workers were in full control of their men.
Idaho had rich mines in the Cœur d'Alene district, and, in the beginning of the strike, Frank Steunenberg was governor of the State. He was elected as a trade-unionist. He was a printer, carried a union card, and got the union vote. When the strike came on he declared martial law; and thus the strikers viewed him as one who had received the votes of the union members and then deserted them and joined the enemy when they were fighting for their existence. Governor Steunenberg's term expired while the strike was on; he then left Boise City, the capital, and went back to his home in Caldwell, a small village about thirty miles from Boise.
One night about eight o'clock the little town of Caldwell was startled by a loud report that indicated an explosion of some sort. People ran from their houses into the street, and it was discovered that Governor Steunenberg had been killed by a bomb fixed at his gate in a manner that caused it to explode as he opened the gate; it was evidently placed and timed for his home-coming. A cordon was immediately thrown around the town, and no person was permitted to leave. Harry Orchard was later arrested. He had been staying at the hotel for several days, and seemed to have no business in the village. His room was searched. His valise contained some dynamite, some wire, and perhaps other things that indicated that possibly he might be the man that was wanted. He was traced back to Denver, and it appeared that he had been active in the strikes at Cripple Creek; sometimes on one side, apparently, and sometimes on the other. He had no visible means of support, and could give no reason for being in Idaho. He was locked up and subjected to the keeping of James McPartland, the manager of the Pinkerton Detective Agency in Denver. As the coils tightened around Orchard, he made a confession to Officer McPartland and the attorneys in charge of the case. He claimed that Moyer and Haywood had given him the money to come to Idaho and kill Steunenberg, and that George Pettibone was connected with the plot.
George Pettibone was not active in the union, though he had formerly worked in the mines in the Cœur d'Alene, and had been prominent in the organization. Years before, he had been connected with a strike in Idaho and had been blacklisted, for the owners had regarded him as one of the main men in the miners' organization. He was a man with a resourceful intellect, was something of a chemist, and seemed able to do almost anything that he set his mind to work at. He was witty, pleasant, and kindly; all his neighbors liked him, and all the children ran to him when he came in sight. For several years he had kept a little store in Denver. He had retired from the miners but was always interested in their affairs and was an enthusiastic supporter of the trades-union cause. He was well acquainted with Moyer and Haywood, he kept up a membership in the union and was always on that side.
In many ways Pettibone was a unique and interesting man. He was always jolly and friendly with every one he met. He never seemed serious. He could give information on almost any subject, and was ready to do a good turn for any one. He was supposed by the mine owners to be a desperate fellow. Everything that indicated special planning was believed to be his work. In one of the early lock-out difficulties in Cœur d'Alene he had been very active, and I used to hear some of his enemies tell of his exploits. The Cœur d'Alene is one of the most picturesque spots in America, and is situated in northern Idaho. It is deeply wooded with pine trees all over the region, the mountains rise abruptly, the valleys between are narrow and winding. A large smelter nestled in a pocket of this natural beauty, its power furnished by a stream that came from farther away and higher up and was carried down through a carefully constructed flume into and through the mill. When the strike came on, a high fence was built all round this property, and wires attached to batteries were arranged on the fence. The non-union workers kept inside the wall, and the place was closely guarded against the enemy outside. The miners not only worked under protection but boarded and slept there as well.
Some one evidently climbed the mountain and experimented with blocks of wood until he estimated just how long it took for a block to land in the mill. Some dynamite was placed in a block which was attached to a clock and put into the stream; it seemed to land at the appointed time, and the top of the mill, as some of them reported, went up like an umbrella. I do not know anything about the casualties, but believe there was no loss of life. It occurred twenty years before Steunenberg was killed; but the detectives and agents always claimed that Pettibone made the contrivance, and in those days he was driven out of the region.
A policeman on the beat in Denver told me another story about Pettibone. He said that Pettibone came to see him about ten days before Thanksgiving and invited the policeman to come to his house to dinner, saying that he had a fine turkey in the cellar that he was fattening for "the feed." The day before it was to be served up for Thanksgiving, Pettibone again hunted up the policeman and asked him to come over and kill the turkey, as he positively could not do it himself. Could both of these stories be true? I think they could. The history of man shows his devotion to various causes. If he believes strongly enough that he is right, or that the cause is important to life or salvation, then he justifies the means in view of the end. No one marvels at this in time of war.
Kindly, honorable, and loving men doubtless blew up the Lusitania and committed unspeakable horrors on both sides in the Great War. John Calvin built a fire around Servetus and burned him to ashes for the crime of heresy, and the Christian men and women insist on poisoning liquor that is sent broadcast through the land so that any one who drinks it will die in agony. Only fanatics could do any of these things. When any one believes a thing too strongly the means are forgotten in reaching the end. But cruel as these actions seem to be, none have the semblance of crimes.
Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone were indicted for the murder of Steunenberg, though Moyer and Haywood were in Colorado when the tragedy occurred, and therefore could not legally be taken to Idaho for trial, because they were not in Idaho at that time, and were not fugitives from the State. Harry Orchard was also charged with the crime, and Jack Simpson, prominent member of the board of the United Mine Workers. But Jack Simpson had made his escape immediately upon the arrest of the others.
All the news in connection with the affair was kept strongly guarded so that no one should know the movements of the State officials. Late one night some strangers appeared unheralded in Denver. Certain persons were assigned to each one of the defendants, and promptly took them by force without legal process, each carrying out his part of the job. They all met near the depot, where a car was held in waiting. The prisoners were put aboard and the car taken rapidly away without stopping until far beyond the confines of Colorado. They were taken on to Idaho and locked in the jail.
The question of kidnapping was carried to the Supreme Court of the United States, which said that, while the taking was illegal, the defendants were in Idaho, and the court would not inquire into how they arrived in that jurisdiction.
I did not go to Idaho until after the case of kidnapping had been passed on by the Supreme Court of the United States. There was nothing to do then but fight the case in the Idaho courts. Associated in the case were Edmund Richardson, of Denver; Edgar Wilson and John Nugent, of Boise; and Fred Miller, of Spokane. Immediately we arrived in Boise we set to work at preparing the case. During this time many stories came of witnesses in Denver and Cripple Creek and other parts of Colorado who could give all sorts of valuable testimony. As the case was not to be reached too promptly, I took two weeks off, spending most of the time investigating rumors coming from Cripple Creek, Goldfield, and Victor. But the number of irresponsible stories that come to a lawyer in the preparation of a press-agented case is almost beyond belief. Men and women seek to tell marvellous tales by way of making themselves important. Many at once take sides. Then there are those who do not like some one who is on the other side of the trial. People are impelled by all sorts of motives and ambitions; most of their tales have no kind of foundation, and from among the dozens that were interviewed only two or three were finally taken to Idaho to give testimony in the case.
Soon after the arrest of Harry Orchard various people were sent for by the State, among them one Steve Adams, who was then living in Idaho. Adams was supposed to have a good deal of information concerning what had happened. He was brought in and quizzed, and finally made what was called a confession. We were not permitted to see Adams, as would have been allowed in many States, but we learned that he had been visited by an uncle who lived in Oregon. This uncle had been a farmer and a race-horse man, hailing from Kentucky, following these occupations in various parts of the West, and winding up on a large ranch in Oregon.
So we went to see this uncle, Mr. Lillard. He at once assured us that Steve had been frightened; that he had no money for defense, was afraid that he could get no counsel, and would be hanged; so he made the statement on the offer that his life should be saved. As soon as he made the confession he was taken to the penitentiary, where he and his wife were given a little house within the walls. The uncle told us that Steve had wanted to see us and that if we would defend him the uncle was sure that he would plead "not guilty," as, in fact, he knew nothing about the affair, anyhow. We told the uncle that if Steve should send for us, and tell us that he wanted us to defend him, we would do it as faithfully for him as for the rest.
Soon after this the State found out what Steve Adams intended to do. So they removed him from the penitentiary, at night, and took him to the Cœur d'Alene district in northern Idaho. He was locked up in the city of Wallace, the county seat of that region. In Wallace he was indicted on the charge of having killed a young man named Tyler who was jumping the claim of a settler, a friend of Adams. This had happened six or seven years before and no one had known anything about how the unfortunate claim-jumper had met his death, or that Adams was in Idaho at the time, until the State found a witness after the indictment in the Steunenberg case. So they took an officer to a lonely grave in the forest, opened it and found human bones. There was no relative known except the victim's mother, who lived in a lonely spot in the woods. They took the contents of the grave to the mother, who identified some pieces of clothing which she said had been worn by her son.
In the meantime, Governor James H. Hawley, one of the attorneys prosecuting Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone, came to Wallace, had his name entered for the prosecution, and had the case in Boise continued. It seemed evident to us that the State representatives were anxious to get a conviction of Steve Adams so that, in order to save his life, he would turn state's evidence and testify against Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone. Thereupon, my associates and I entered our names as attorneys for the defense of Steve Adams in the case at Wallace, and at once began preparations for the trial.
We felt it necessary to take a long trip through the forest to investigate the scene of the alleged killing, and to find any witnesses who might know anything about the affair. It soon became clear that quite a number of homesteaders knew about the disappearance of the claim-jumper, but had never made it a topic of conversation in Idaho, and no officers or private citizens had made any investigation to learn what had become of the missing man. It was assumed by all the woodsmen that the dead man was a claim-jumper, and therefore an undesirable and unwelcome resident in a new section, and under those circumstances it was useless and unnecessary to search.
The trial was to take place in Wallace, the county seat of Shoshone County; we got together a number of investigators and hastily prepared as best we could for the approaching case. The purpose of the State was plain. They wanted Steve Adams to help them in the prosecution of Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone, and they wanted to be able to offer him the highest inducement that could move a man--his life--in return for his services. And we, of course, were anxious to keep them from being able to make the offer.
The whole region of northern Idaho had a natural beauty and charm that one rarely finds wherever he may go.
Wallace, Idaho, is a town of about thirty-five hundred people. It lies in a basin surrounded by mountains, walled in on all sides with steep slopes of firs and flowers, and funiculars and flumes. Wallace is the hub of one of the richest mining territories in the world. Its mines produce mainly copper and zinc and lead. Twenty years earlier Wallace and its surroundings boasted large forests of fine timber, but it had been converted into lumber, and this, with its mines, had brought wealth to that section and its people; or, at any rate, to some of its people.
The little town took great interest in the trial of Steve Adams. They knew that it was merely a curtain-raiser to the real tragic drama of life about to follow at Boise. And it was one of the important scenes, at that. The country in which Wallace was located had been settled by homesteaders, the sort that, following Daniel Boone, had slowly made their way from Virginia through Tennessee and Kentucky on to the farthest limit of the unexplored world in Texas. The majority of them were men skilled in woodcraft and the handling of a gun.
The laws of the United States provided that one could file a claim for one hundred and sixty acres, and by building a shelter and living in it for three years the occupant became the owner of the land. All of the homesteaders were poor; many of them were obliged to go to work elsewhere through a portion of the year and bring back provisions enough to last through the deep snows of winter when they were pent up in their shacks.
As a rule, residence was never any too well established, but the government officers were apt to be considerate in helping the homesteader make his proof. On the heels of the homesteaders came the claim-jumpers, as is always the case in such sections. They would take possession of a hut and its little clearing when the original settler was away, and then file a contesting claim. These men in the human world are brothers of the cuckoo of the bird realm. Such interlopers are never popular in any part of the earth.
At about the time the killing occurred, Steve Adams had been spending several weeks with some of his friends in the big forests up in the mountains. He liked to hunt and fish, and this section was then one of the few remaining spots where game and fish were more plentiful than human beings.
As has been stated, in some way the attorneys or officers for the State found the lonely grave in the forest, and unearthed the bones and decayed clothing which they took to the dead man's mother. When she had examined some of these moldering rags, they carefully dressed the mother in widow's weeds and parked her in the courtroom day after day during the trial of the case. Probably never before had any one been convicted for killing a claim-jumper in that part of the State. Perhaps nowhere else. Jumping claims was an extra hazardous business in the dense forests of those coveted Cœur d'Alene of picturesque northern Idaho, and one entered this occupation at his own risk.
It was none too easy to get a jury. The natural instincts of the natives were for the homestead owner and against the claim-jumper. There was land enough up there for every man to file a claim of his own. All that could be gained by jumping another's claim was the cheap home and sparse clearing in the lonely woods.
On the side of the defense was added to our list of lawyers, Mr. John Wourms, who lived in Wallace and was an old-time member of the Miners' Union, and a fighter for their cause; though already far on the road toward respectability because of his able work for the mine owners, he became our friend and gave us his aid. There is neither time nor space for going into the details of the trial, but it was about as interesting and remarkable as any case in which I have figured. The great trackless wilderness where the scene was laid along the St. John River, the primitive, unlettered dwellers from the untrodden green woodlands, the claim-jumper trying to take the property of the pioneer, the courtroom filled every day with woodsmen and miners, with here and there a woman in her finery, made up a colorful scene. And amidst it all, the old mother brought out of the distant solitude dressed in her "weeds" eying the bones and tattered clothing of her resurrected son. Through it all were shadow pictures of Robin Hood and the greenwood tree, and Daniel Boone with his long rifle and buckskin jacket blazing the trail for a new civilization.
Except for the fact, which every one knew, that this fight was a skirmish staged by the prosecution to affect the case in Boise, the defense would have had an easy time in Wallace. But every one seemed to think of Steve Adams as a part of the Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone case, and that fight was different. When the jury retired it soon became plain that they would not agree. After the men had been kept out two or three days, they reported to the court that they were hopelessly deadlocked, and the judge dismissed them from further service.
At Wallace, and later on at Boise, Steve's uncle was present at every session. He was one of those characters known as "a courtroom fan." He never missed a chance to hear a case, or listen to a well-known speaker. He also enjoyed the distinction of being the "next friend" of the defendant. All told, he got a great deal of pleasure out of it even though it gave him much concern.
After the disagreement in the Wallace case we were notified that the State would proceed with the trial at Boise. We sought to have Steve given bail, but the judge refused, as courts are prone to do. So we left Steve in jail in Wallace, under the careful protection of our friend, John Wourms, and set off for Boise.
After a time we learned that Steve had disappeared from the jail and we felt sure that the State knew where he was. Later he turned up in his hostelry in the penitentiary grounds at Boise.
Until entering this case I had never been in Boise. I had read of it, and knew that it was far away out West. I had pictured it to myself, but I never found an unfamiliar person or place that proved to be anything like my mental picture. Boise was approached from the east through hundreds of miles of dreary, dusty desert with no living thing in sight but gophers and sage-brush. During the trip one deliberates whether to keep the car-window tightly closed and die for want of air or raise it ever so little and be suffocated with the clouds of powdered alkali. I always did both, one after the other. Through the whole region of desert waste, a long strip of green wound and twisted its tortuous way in loops and zigzags across the desolate plain. This is the Snake River, named from the animal which Adam had in mind when he named Eve's tempter. As we neared Boise the scene changed. The fields were fresh and green, the orchards were luxuriant, the town resplendent with lawns and flowers, shrubs and trees; the houses were neat and up-to-date. The Snake River had been intersected with dikes, which irrigated the barren wilderness and made it a beautiful garden-spot. The landscape was most pleasing, and out beyond, a circle of mountains enclosed the little city; so that after the long, wearisome journey Boise seemed like a bright green gem in a setting of blue. It is the capital of the State, with attractive public and private buildings, and a good library. Except for the hard work, intense worry and suffering, and the bitter opposition, it was a pleasant place to visit. Boise had a pride in its town and people and culture, and could rightly be called the Athens of the sage-brush.
Getting back to the metropolis of Idaho was a great relief after the long stay in Wallace. Boise was much larger and the living conditions were better. And it was warmer, in the winter and early spring. I never did like cold weather, and therefore have spent most of my life where it has been hard to keep warm. Then, too, I was anxious to get to work on the main case. The "best people" were lined up on the other side and none too friendly toward the attorneys for the defense. Bur we had already become rather well acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Edgar Wilson. Mr. Wilson was the first Congressman from Idaho, one of the earliest settlers of the State, and one of the most respected. Then, and afterward, the Wilsons were our loyal friends, and did a great deal to make life more tolerable in Idaho; and later on, in Los Angeles, they proved as staunch and devoted as any friends that ever came into our lives. Mr. Wilson has been dead for ten years, but Mrs. Wilson is the same kindly, attractive woman that she was at first sight.
The great mystery in the whole case was the coming testimony of Harry Orchard. When there is no way to get a line on the evidence of a hostile witness, one must assume that it will be even more damaging than can reasonably be imagined. We tried to get some inkling of what his story was to be, but could find no law that could give us any opening or relief. It was dangerous to meet the testimony of such a witness with no information about what his evidence would be, with the arena of the combat where the fight was to take place about fifteen hundred miles away from the main setting of the drama in Colorado. But, while we could not see him, an opportunity was soon furnished us to get his story.
A few days before the case came up for trial we picked up the paper, and there was Harry Orchard and his story all over the front page. It seemed that the various newspaper representatives from everywhere in the country had been called in to hear Harry Orchard tell his tale. The "news" was lurid enough to satisfy the cravings of any reader. This was sent broadcast and published in all the leading papers of the United States, at least. Immediately we detailed men to run down the events and incidents that he related, and by the time we had impanelled the jury we had fairly and carefully examined every statement made by him. Luckily for us, many of these claims were contradicted by the facts that we afterward adduced.
The document was a revelation of Harry Orchard's mind, and put him down as easily the greatest retail killer that the world had ever known. Then we looked for the motive that might have caused him to kill Steunenberg. We learned that Orchard had worked in the Cœur d'Alene mines in northern Idaho in the year 1899, and then, together with Ed Boyce, former president of the United Mine Workers, and Henry Day and his brother, and Al Hutton, a locomotive engineer, and one or two others, had located the Hercules mine, which at that time was merely a prospect. Orchard and some of the others had worked the mine while Hutton stuck to his locomotive engine and put his earnings into the prospect. The Day brothers and Ed Boyce worked in other capacities to earn money for developing the vein, and one or two of the Day sisters had taught school for a number of years and put their savings in the common pot.
As luck would have it, the Hercules turned out to be one of the richest deposits ever discovered, ultimately becoming worth many millions of dollars. Harry Orchard, as I remember it, had about a tenth interest in the property. He was actively interested in the strike of 1899 in the Cœur d'Alene--as those mountains and valleys were spoken of. Steunenberg was the governor, and called out the militia at the behest of the mine and smelter company. Orchard was obliged to dispose of his interest in the Hercules prospect and flee from the State. Of course, it was of little value at that time.
Incidentally, this case, as well as others, represents an illustration of fate and chance, and the futility of human plans. Had Orchard not been forced to flee from Idaho he would not have sacrificed his stock in the Hercules mine. Within a few years he would have been a multi-millionaire. He would, doubtless, have developed into a wealthy and respectable citizen, and a member of the Mine Owners Association. Orchard is a man of considerable natural ability, and, with opportunity, could have, and no doubt would have become, like all his associates of the Hercules mine, an outstanding figure in the affairs of the Northwest.
All the proceedings and events concerning the case were fully reported by the press, especially in Idaho, Washington, and Colorado, and had general publicity through the other newspapers of the land. The little city of Boise was not then very well equipped with hotels and lesser accommodations for the people streaming in. There were newspaper and magazine representatives, witnesses, tourists, laymen, and lawyers--people from all parts of the mining sections, and from hither and yon.
The siege in Wallace had been very wearing, living accommodations were poor, the climate rainy and cold. The worry and hard constant work with the rest of the discomforts began to affect my health. I was giving myself over to the work day and night as entirely and completely as the human system could admit. It was apparent that the cases in Boise were to be even more strenuous than the experience in Wallace.
Mrs. Darrow had come West with me, so we took a cottage on the edge of the town, where I was able to detach myself occasionally from the tension and congestion of people, and go back between spurts with new zeal to the responsibilities pressing upon me.
The prosecution was in charge of Owen M. Van Duyn, the district attorney, who was assisted by James Hawley, an old typical pioneer lawyer of the West, a man of ability, long a resident of the State, and had for many years been connected with most of the important litigation of Idaho. He had held various political offices, and soon after the trial was elected governor. Honorable William E. Borah was the third member of that staff. When I say that he was third, I do not mean in relation to importance. Mr. Borah had for twenty years been one of the leading lawyers of the State and, shortly before the trial commenced, was elected to the United States Senate, but did not take his seat until after the case was finished. Mr. Borah, then as now, was very popular throughout Idaho. He was a hard worker, astute, and in every respect an able adversary. He was always wary and cautious and thoroughly familiar with his case. As is generally true, most of the influential and wealthier members of the community were with the prosecution. The working class, the miners and the poor were for our side. The unknown quantity was the farmer, or rancher--the men of the pastures and plains out West, breeders and herders of animals, and producers of food for both animals and men. They were intelligent and independent, and altogether unlike the granger of the East. The Western ranchers are of the pioneer class, used to hardships, adaptable to life, alert to new ideas, more or less restless and discontented, and not always successful. Most of the jurors came from this element.
Before Orchard's statement we were not able to get much advance information concerning the side of the State. Our experience told us that no doubt the case would be tried on the lines of conspiracy--the modern and ancient drag-net for compassing the imprisonment and death of men whom the ruling class does not like. Sometimes, however, a member of this class gets caught in the net. We knew that conspiracy cases are not unlike the French procedure, where any one seems able to come forward and say what he thinks, express himself freely, and give his opinion on any subject that moves his mind. In case the attorney for the accused objects to any evidence on the ground that it is hearsay and the events and statements occurred outside the presence and hearing of the defendant, the prosecuting attorney rises and says that he will undertake to connect up the proof later in the trial. Thereupon the court promptly and mechanically and subserviently decides that the evidence may be admitted, and, unless later on it is connected up, it will be stricken out. Few judges are psychologists, or they would realize that nothing can be stricken out of a human consciousness after being once let in. Judges seem to be quite unaware that it is a hard task to put anything into the average mind, and, once in, an impossible one to take it out. The way the defendant is connected up later is to have the man who turns state's evidence swear that everything the witness claimed transpired with the knowledge, express or implied, of the defendant, or with somebody brought into the conspiracy through a chain back to the defendant. If, after days or weeks or months of taking testimony, the judge decides that some item was not connected up, he coolly tells the jury that they are to ignore this, that, and the other thing, probably without at all explaining his meaning of "ignore." The jury is so instructed, regardless of the fact that no one is able to know all the specific things that enter into his opinion, or take away, from an opinion already formed, any of the special facts, circumstances, guesses, or prejudices that go into its making.
An opinion is a state of mind arrived at from everything seen and heard during the trial. It is a composite thing; imagine a juror reaching into his mind and separating one item out of the mass and then seeing what is the state of his mind. This is one of the many ways in which individual freedom has been destroyed, by the favorite new method of conspiracy, supposed to have been abolished with the thumb-screws and the racks.
We did not believe that there was any direct evidence against any of the defendants, barring such statements as Harry Orchard might make. And no opportunity had been granted the attorneys for the defense to see or examine Harry. He was confined and guarded in the penitentiary just outside Boise. He was kept as carefully under lock and key as if he had been the most precious jewel that ever decked a crown.
I have always been sorry for Harry Orchard. Believing, as I do, that human endeavors are as nothing in the presence of the eternal forces which move the universe and its every particle, I can see what Harry Orchard might have been instead of a convict sentenced to a life term in the prison in Idaho. Harry Orchard, like all other men, was the product of the forces that control everything that exists. It is idle to think that he had anything to do with the origin of himself and his destiny. To say that he was, or might have been, master of his fate is saying that he was, or should have been, stronger than the inevitable processes of the universe, which every one must know would be absurd as to Harry Orchard and every other mortal that has ever lived and toiled and suffered and died.
When the case was called for trial at last, the courtroom was crowded with prospective jurors, witnesses, newspaper reporters, magazine representatives, and visitors, from all parts of the land, especially from the mining sections of the West. Empanelling the jury was a long and difficult process. Almost every one was familiar with the case; they had heard about it, read about it, talked about it, and of course generally had formed an opinion. Many were excused because they did not believe in capital punishment. Some were disqualified by artful questions of the prosecution in relation to circumstantial evidence.
Not only in that case but always in criminal cases, if the State does not want a juror he is asked if he believes in circumstantial evidence and if he would convict on that kind of evidence alone, if the evidence should be convincing. Lawyers ask the question, and judges permit it, although both know that the evidence is not wholly circumstantial, and the question has no relevancy to the case. In this the courts deliberately help the State to convict.
As is usual, there were many who did not want to serve, and also, as usual, there were many men called for jury service who did want to sit; some, no doubt because it was a well-known case, and others because they wanted to aid one side or the other. After several weeks a jury was finally accepted. Most of the members were ranchers, and, on the whole, they were rather outstanding, independent men. To be sure we had no members of the Miners' Union and no one who was a miner. The prosecution succeeded in qualifying one Mr. Robertson, with whom Steunenberg had made his home.
During the trial, which lasted for several months, the courthouse was filled with people, and the crowd extended into the corridors and adjoining rooms. The building stood in the middle of the square covered with grass and trees. There was always a line waiting to get inside, and an overflow scattered over the lawn hoping to hear or see something of interest in the celebrated case.
Every trial has its high spots and hours and days of special importance. There were many witnesses called for the State, and as many, or more, for the defense. In any long trial most of the testimony is soon forgotten, even by the lawyers, but there are always some witnesses who make a lasting impression on the listeners, as is the way in affairs in general through life.
Every one knew that the State's case largely depended upon Harry Orchard. Few had ever seen him, and every one wondered what sort of man he was. Most of those who attended the trial had read his story given to the press by the prosecution, which was repeated in Mr. Hawley's forcible opening statement to the jury. This served only to increase the curiosity to see and hear the man. Soon after the opening of the evidence there was an unusual commotion in the outside hall and along the aisle down the centre of the courthouse. We looked back and saw a line of deputy sheriffs making their way toward the judge's desk. In the midst of them was a short, stout man with a red face. At once we realized that this was Harry Orchard. He was brought into the courtroom under heavy guard and conducted to the witness box. A visible and audible sensation swept over the spectators. At last they were looking at the man who had seemed to boast of his many crimes.
Soon the room was hushed into silence, and under the questioning of Mr. Hawley, Harry Orchard began his story. And what a story it was: He was a party to the blowing up of the little railroad station at the Victor Mine in Colorado where some thirty men were killed. He had also tried to dynamite the mine while the men were at work. He had laid his plans and made his preparations to dynamite the Idanha Hotel, the leading hostelry in Boise City, at a time when it was filled with guests. He explained that he had prepared an infernal machine which he intended to put under the bed of one of the inmates at about midnight and then leave the hotel before the explosion; but some accident intervened that caused him to go out of the hotel before he had a chance to place the machine.
He had gone to San Francisco to "bump off" a man once connected with the mining interests who had been active in fighting the miners in a former strike. He located his victim, who lived in the top floor of an apartment house with his wife and young child. He had made himself familiar with the back stairway and found out what time the milkman left the supply at the door in the early morning, and then planted the machine so that it would explode when some member of the family opened the door to take in the milk. The dynamite exploded according to schedule. The building was practically destroyed, although no lives were lost. The intended victim owned the building and sued the gas company for causing the destruction, receiving a large verdict, which was sustained by the Supreme Court. Before the money had been delivered Orchard had given testimony; the gas company sought to reopen the case, but the Supreme Court held against it, and the money was paid.
Orchard told in detail of an attempt to kill the governor of Colorado at his home in Denver, and how the attempt was frustrated by the barking of a dog in the yard around the residence. Also he had fixed a bomb in a vacant lot in Denver which a certain member of the Supreme Court was in the habit of walking across every morning. But the judge chanced to go around the other way that morning, so the bomb that had been left and arranged was set off by some one else who passed that way, and he was killed by the explosion.
Having lost his interest in the Hercules mine, Orchard went to Wallace, and while there visited Mr. Paulson, one of his former partners, now grown very wealthy. Paulson treated him kindly and invited him to a Christmas dinner. So Orchard bought a few toys for the Paulsons' little child and played with him on the floor, and while a guest in this happy home planned to kidnap the baby and hold it for a ransom; but this plan, too, somehow was defeated. Various other plans were made for killing other victims, some failing and some succeeding.
To close his testimony, Harry Orchard was asked by Mr. Hawley if the name he had used so long was his real name or an assumed one. He replied that it was not his real name, and, in answer to further questions, gave his real name, the place of his childhood, the name of his wife and his daughter, a girl then in her teens, both then living in a far-away place. It would serve no purpose to repeat the information here. In my closing address to the jury I made the most of this gratuitous statement of Orchard's to give credit to his story; I called attention to the countless men in prisons who live out their lives in blank despair and those who die on the scaffold refusing to reveal their names so that their disgrace shall not attach to fathers and mothers, wives and children and others who are left behind.
Orchard's story was long and detailed. Evidently it was carefully thought out and arranged. In his entire examination and cross-examination he was cool and deliberate, and held himself fully in hand. He was a man with little or no schooling, but gifted with a rather superior mind and a remarkably cool head. To be sure, he had been able to give many weeks of preparation to his story, and to consider every question that might be asked on cross-examination. Orchard claimed that during his exploits he spent a good deal of his time in Denver at Pettibone's home, and that he had many conversations with Haywood and some with Moyer.
Mr. Richardson undertook the cross-examination of Harry Orchard. He was thoroughly familiar with the case in all its details. He was a man of much force of character and full confidence in his own ability to accomplish whatever he set out to do. So, in a loud voice and antagonistic manner he re-examined Orchard for several days on every detail of his direct examination. Orchard remained perfectly cool and, like most witnesses, repeated on cross-examination the story already told. However, Mr. Richardson succeeded in laying the foundation for the impeachment of Orchard, by unbiased witnesses, regarding many statements made in direct examination. As a rule, it is futile to go over in cross-examination the testimony already given. But although Mr. Richardson was an able man, he was somewhat lacking in subtlety. From all the other witnesses called by the State there was no corroboration of any part of Orchard's story, excepting that he had been somewhat active in the strikes of the mine workers, and had been seen in the company of the defendants in Denver on several occasions during labor troubles. Orchard never was really very prominent in the union. He was friendly with a number of the agents and detectives in the service of the mine owners, and there were many doubts as to where he stood. But this condition, too, is not uncommon during strikes.
The whole trial was a vivid picture of industrial warfare such as was fairly common twenty-five years ago. In all these contests both sides put forth their best endeavors to win. Not only were the employers and miners in almost mortal combat, but all classes of society were divided into hostile camps. There were no disinterested people. There was no neutrality. Each side regarded a strike as warfare, and felt that every sort of means was justifiable in carrying it through. On the one side there was always a resort to courts, to the army and State militia, to the blacklist and boycott, to poverty and starvation, and strike breakers drilled for their calling with no respect for anything but to win. The closing of mines and mills often meant bankruptcy; much of the property was in lonely mountainous regions where it could not be preserved from depredation, disintegration, and waste. And the number of people involved in the unions and interested on the outside made it almost impossible to avoid violence. In industrial warfare the psychology is the same as in other warfare.
The trial of this case, like trials of all industrial conflicts, necessarily covered the widest possible field. There was practically no direct evidence against any of the defendants except the testimony of Harry Orchard. This was so tainted that the State attempted to bolster it up with evidence of every sort of conduct and violence, covering an area of six or seven States and more than two years of time. It was the task of the defense to rebut the evidence of the State and show that the defendants and the union were not responsible for the inevitable results that followed in such conflicts. It was also their task to show the efforts made by mine owners, detectives, allied organizations, scabs, and hostile citizens in the general disorder and social upheaval.
So this trial developed into a history of the strike, covering most of the mountainous sections of the West during that stretch of time. In this period nearly every person had the psychology toward his friends and his enemies that prevails in all other wars.
Mr. Haywood took the stand and flatly denied any connection with Orchard or knowledge of his movements. Orchard was simply one man of thousands in the strike, and was suspected of connections with the other side. His association with their agents and detectives gave a foundation for this opinion. Most of the witnesses on both sides were not much shaken by cross-examination, and when the evidence was all in the jurymen were virtually compelled to act upon the evidence of Orchard, whose story, and powerful inducement to testify, made his evidence practically without value in the case.
I made the closing argument for the defense. This occupied about a day and a half, as court sessions go. The town was crowded with people from all quarters of the country. Only a small number of them could get into the courtroom, but it was summer time, and all the windows and doors were open, so that the crowds outside heard at least a part of what was said. The case covered a wide scope in time and space and events, as has been shown. Its setting was the great Rocky Mountain district of the West. Its actors were engaged in what was indeed a struggle for life. Society in general was divided into two conflicting camps. Every man and woman and every emotion entered into the combat. In all my experience I never had a better opportunity, and when I had finished I felt satisfied with the effort I had made.
Mr. Borah followed me in the closing argument for the State. His presentation of that side was forcible and scholarly. It was worked out with care and understanding. Few men that I ever met in a courtroom contribute so much industry, learning, and natural ability to a cause as Mr. Borah.
There was a marked contrast between the audiences during his argument and mine. While I was speaking the courtroom was packed and the lawn swarming with working men, socialists and radicals, with idealists and dreamers, from every section of America. They devoured every word spoken. Each felt that in this case his personal cause had its day in court, and a spokesman who understood his life and sympathized with his needs.
Mr. Borah finished his argument in an evening session on a Saturday night. The courtroom was packed with the elite of Boise and all the State. All of them were dressed as though attending a social event, which indeed it was. The common people had been given their opportunity in the afternoon. The courtroom had been thoroughly aired, if not fumigated, during the recess. The elect now had their turn. As I looked over the assembly I was reminded of Byron's description of the ball in Brussels on the eve of the battle of Waterloo:
"There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium's Capital had gathered then
Her beauty and her chivalry; and bright
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men."
The instructions of the court were lengthy, for the lawyers on both sides had asked for everything they could hope the judge would grant. The case was placed in the hands of the jury about ten o'clock that Saturday night, after a trial that had lasted nearly three months.
No lawyer interested in a case ever goes through a more trying period than the time when the jury is deliberating on the verdict. None of us expected that the jury would reach an early agreement. The case was one that lent itself to controversy. The trial had been long, and the feeling intense. Judge Fremont Wood, who tried the case, had been fair and judicial in his attitude, and the whole matter had been left to the jury, to determine the fate of Haywood.
After the instructions were read the defendant was taken back to jail, and we lawyers went to Mr. Edgar Wilson's office to wait. Finally Mr. Richardson announced that he would go home and go to bed. He said that he had performed his duty and could go to sleep as well as if he had never been in the case. But I could not sleep. With some of the other lawyers and a number of friends I walked up and down the streets. Everywhere little knots of men were standing at the corners discussing the case and prophesying what the jury would do. Gradually the watchers drifted away and returned to their homes. I knew that I could not rest, so some of my companions and I walked about through the night. During all the hours a light was burning up in the jury room. The jurors asked for no further instructions, and made no request to be allowed to go to bed. They were apparently discussing and voting the whole night long.
About seven o'clock in the morning we were notified that the jury had agreed. The judge was sent for, the news spread over the town, and at once the streets began to show signs of life. At eight o'clock the judge arrived, the lawyers were in their places, the courtroom was packed, and people were crowding into the courthouse yard. The verdict was handed to the clerk, the room grew still as death. Haywood was perhaps the calmest one there. No one seemed to breathe until they heard the words "Not guilty." Then the crowd rushed out to the streets. The newspaper men hurried off to the telegraph office. Suddenly the streets were swarming with people. It was Sunday, and no one had to go to work. Up and down the streets they surged, some excited, some rejoicing and smiling, others frowning and downcast. All the forenoon, and all day, the townspeople and the strangers made such a solid mass of humanity that for hours and hours it was practically impossible to make headway in any direction in the business section of Boise. We lawyers wedged ourselves through and went over to the jail. Haywood and Pettibone were happy and could not conceal their joy, and did not try to. Moyer was shaving. He said a word or two, and kept on shaving. He was as calm and cool as a glacier. One could imagine him acting that way if the universe was falling around him. He had schooled himself to take life as it came along, a frame of mind almost impossible for most men to achieve.
For a few days the attorneys for the State did not seem sure what they should do. They had chosen their strongest case and were defeated. I arranged with them that I might go back to Chicago for a while, and would be notified in time to return. Mr. Richardson announced his withdrawal from the case.
The verdict made a profound impression throughout the country. On the one hand it was met with bitter disappointment; on the other there was unrestrained joy.
I had been in Chicago only a short time when my associates wired me to return.
On my return to Boise I learned that the State had determined to make another effort to bring Steve Adams into their camp. They did not want to risk another trial in Wallace, so they took a change of venue to Rathdrum, Idaho, a small town near Spokane. They still hoped they might convict Adams before taking up the Moyer and Pettibone cases. Rathdrum is the county seat of a farming section. It had few miners or laboring men. We secured the services of the best-known lawyers there, Charles Heitman and Edwin McBee, old residents and men thoroughly acquainted with the country and every one in it; and of course we took along our good friend, John Wourms; of all the lawyers in that case, John Wourms and I are the only ones still alive.
The Haywood case had been a great tax on my strength and energy, and, to make my physical condition more precarious, I found myself suffering with the flu on my return to Boise. I had been back but a few days when I developed a violent pain in the left ear. The physician came to the opinion that I had received some infection and was in grave danger of its developing into a case of mastoiditis. I knew something of the treacherous nature of this trouble and endeavored to have the trial delayed, but without success. I realized that I was in no condition to go into the matter until I was sure of the nature of my malady. The pain rapidly grew intense. It became impossible to get any sleep without opiates. There was only one physician in Boise who made a specialty of the ear, Doctor Charles Hudgel. Unable to bear my agony I sent for him in the dead of night. I never met a finer man. He seemed like an anxious friend who was there to do his utmost, but nothing availed. I talked with him about an operation; he frankly said that the conditions must be carefully watched, and that I had better make ready to go suddenly, if necessary, to California or Chicago, for expert treatment, and that in the meantime I should not undertake another case.
I knew that he was right, but what could I do? Adams had turned his back on the State largely through his confidence in me. I had told him that I would try his case; it was set, and I could not leave him. If through my failure he should be put to death I could never forgive myself. I knew that I was seriously risking my own life to save his. No one but a lawyer can understand what a sense of responsibility one may feel toward a client. In this case I was daily warned of my danger, but I did not even consider leaving him, although there were other capable lawyers who had been in the case at Wallace. If Adams lost it meant his death, or his surrender to the State, which would further imperil the lives of Moyer and Pettibone.
Doctor Hudgel lanced the ear, hoping to drain it of any impurities that might be accumulating; but nothing appeared. It was decided to keep it from healing in case some relief might come from drainage, and the doctor regretfully helped me to go, furnishing me with an equipment for irrigating the open eardrum, with careful instructions to Mrs. Darrow about the detailed treatment and the sterilization of the instruments and the operation of the hypodermic outfit, still declaring that the symptoms were baffling.
In Rathdrum there was neither hospital nor nurse that could possibly be combined with the programme ahead. Thus we set off for Rathdrum, acquainting ourselves with our new cares and concerns, sterilizing and irrigating in the dining car at bedtime, and on a country-depot coal-stove the next day; and at last reached Spokane, where we hunted up a specialist, who made a thorough examination and gave the same opinion and advice as Doctor Hudgel--that it was not a case for an operation but should be watched and attended to immediately if it became definitely mastoiditis; and that from one to two weeks, or three at the outside, would determine the difficulty.
My nerves were very shaky from responsibility, hard work, pain and loss of sleep. The Spokane specialist said that I was risking my life by going into the case, that these infections generated fever, and, generally when not warded off with extreme care, proved fatal. I knew what was involved in risking life, and I felt that for Steve Adams above all others, under the circumstances, I must now take that chance with my own.
At Rathdrum I again tried to get a continuance, on an application to the court, but it was in vain. The judge thought that there were enough attorneys without me, which I could not deny.
We were in Rathdrum about two months. Two months of agony. In order to make ourselves as comfortable as possible we took accommodations with Mr. and Mrs. William Cleland in a one-story cottage near the courthouse. Mr. Cleland had the livery stable of the town. Our bedroom opened off the parlor. Over the door, as we entered, our eyes were arrested by a yarn motto in a carved rustic frame presenting in all the rose tints, "God Bless Our Home," and near the door stood an old-fashioned glowing base-burner that warmed both rooms; opposite us under an "enlargement" of the hostess was a flat-topped organ on which was a diamond-dust vase full of red paper carnations and a metronome glistening like gold. But brightest and best was the warm welcome and tender consideration extended by these people through all our travail in that little town. However long I live I shall never forget them.
I managed to keep my mind on the case during the day, but was completely exhausted by evening. There was scarcely a moment in court when I was not in pain. At night I would try to get some sleep with the aid of the hot rubber-bag which had to be reheated from hour to hour, and which was constantly and devotedly attended to by Mrs. Darrow. When the pain was unbearable, as it often was, we had to resort to the hypodermic, and in this way I got some rest. I could not possibly guess how many times Mrs. Darrow went to the kitchen with its coal stove to keep the kettle boiling, refill the bag, prepare the apparatus for injecting the codine, and then, irrigate the ear. When my memory roams over the West I try to skip Rathdrum. It was one continuous orgy of pain.
Much of the time the owners of the little home remained invisible, excepting at meals and as nods were exchanged in the kitchen, where they secreted themselves in order not to disturb me. But sometimes, when I seemed to be in less distress, the gentle mistress slipped into the parlor and practiced a "piece" that she was to play and sing at a special entertainment to be given by the ladies of The Eastern Star. It was a touching tale about a fair Indian maid whose lover had gone away and never returned. Over and over she sang the song to perfect a sort of wail over "sighing" and "dying" and a melancholy moan over "Red Wing--weeping her heart away." I am sure that if we had ever so slightly hinted that the mournful music or the motto or anything was not exactly as we wished, that devoted pair would never have forgiven themselves for overlooking any point in our favor. As I would doze off under the opiate I would hear "Red Wing, weeping her heart away" again, but when I opened my eyes a bit to see what it was all about and where we were, there would be no one but Mrs. Darrow, returning the bag at my neck and ear, but not a tear, apparently, excepting at the organ; so I would sink back to sleep, while the opiate soothed me, and on and on, through my restless slumbers I would be strangely aware of sobs and sighs softly poured into my aching ear, and would politely stifle the spasm because--there it was again, "Red Wing weeping--weeping her heart away--ay--y--". . . alas--
It seems quite possible that in my last moments, as I am falling into that final sleep, I may sense again those same mourning sounds still haunting my ear, and shall know that--there again, close, close to me, is that luckless little "Red Wing--weeping her heart away" . . . poor girl!
But so anxious were these good friends to let me have all the quiet and rest possible, that only two of the neighbors ever dropped in for a little visit around the dining-room table after supper. These were the undertaker and his wife, over for a little chat about some funeral, discussing which families would want carriages, and about how many.
My infection was no better, but I was becoming used to the hypodermic so that now it took more and more to put me to sleep. I believe that Mrs. Darrow suffered as much as I did over that treatment, although she filed the needle-points to the slimness of hairs with finest emery-paper; the instrument had to be boiled, the needle, and the tablespoon that held the needle while it was being sterilized, as well as the liquid and codine; the outfit assembled with sterilized gauze so that no fresh infection would be added to whatever it was that I already had; meanwhile I waited for what I so needed, and hoped would be, some relief; each session seeming more than any one should have to endure, though accomplished as swiftly as fingers could fly. And yet, no symptoms to indicate the nature of the trouble, although the ear was kept open, and the weeks had lengthened into months.
But I did manage to try the case. Rathdrum was a farming centre, and even in the Northwest lawyers understood about the conservatism, the regularity and safety of a farmer jury when some one is perhaps to be hanged. We did not like the prospect. It was still hard to get a jury. Every one had read the papers, all about the Boise trial, and about the Wallace case as well. But, at last, we found twelve men, mostly farmers, who said that they had no opinion, and could render an impartial verdict, no matter what the facts might be. Then we went to trial.
Again the mother sat in her mourning clothes furnished by the State for the trials. Again the bones, including the broken skull with the bullet-hole, were turned out on the table. Once more the doctor lovingly handled the skull and, pointing to the fracture, gave it as his scientific opinion that the deceased had come to his death by a shot piercing the skull. Again lawyers wearily put on witnesses and examined them and cross-examined them by the hour. Over again the story was related to the jury, impressing upon the twelve men their evident intelligence, the importance of the trial in the affairs of the universe, and urging them to be fair and honest though the heavens fall. And as before, at last, the jury went out to deliberate. Again several days dragged by during the supposed deep thought; and again they reported that the jury could not agree, and thereupon, like the first, they were discharged.
It was beginning to look as though no jury was destined to agree. This is often the case where a political or religious or economic question is involved. Whatever the claims presented, jurors instinctively recognize that the real issue is a cause, and are definitely with one or the other side. The prosecution gave up the conviction of Steve Adams. They reached the conclusion that he probably would not help their side. So they took him back to Boise and again installed him in the house in the prison yard. We tried the best we could to have him admitted to bail, but the court refused. After the trial of Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone was ended, an indictment was returned against Adams in Colorado, on some matter occurring during the strike, so he was taken back there; and there was acquitted of the charge.
At Rathdrum we were informed that the Pettibone case would next be placed on trial in Boise. I managed to coax the State to grant me a little time to attend to my infected ear. So we went to Portland for treatment with violet rays, which made no impression on my ailment. No specialist could tell whether I needed an operation, and none would risk the responsibility of guessing and acting, but would send me on to some one else. In Portland I was advised to go to Doctor Pischel, in San Francisco, a specialist of renown; so we repacked our equipment and took the train for the next experiment.
Doctor Pischel sent me to the St. Francis Hotel and put me under his observation and treatment for a week, at the end of which time he declared his inability to solve the mystery, but, like the rest, doubted that the mastoid was infected. And, like the rest, could only advise constant attention and watchfulness.
Then came a telegram that the Pettibone case was to be set for immediate trial. I sought by wire to get more time, but to no avail. Doctor Pischel thought it might be fatal to me if I went, but Pettibone thought it might be fatal to him if I stayed. So, despite the protests of the doctor and my wife, I boarded the train for the long ride to Boise. Mrs. Darrow spent the better part of the two days and nights going back and forth to the dining car for hot water and the application of the rubber bag, giving me hypodermics and irrigating the ear; and it seemed as if the journey would never end.
But in this world everything does end, no matter how long delayed. And so we did get to Boise at last, and I was taken to the St. Alphonsus Hospital there.
In the hospital I was treated with the utmost consideration. All there combined with anxious interest in giving me all possible care, and most of the inmates proved sympathetic toward our side of the case. Again Doctor Hudgel was faithful in his attendance and desire to help me, but was as much in the dark as ever. All that he felt sure of was that I would die if I went into the trial. At this stage of my prolonged misery I did not much care whether I lived or died, so I did not even consider withdrawing from the case. I was having a few extra bad days which gave the press something to report.
One morning a turn for the better seemed to have come so that I was propped up among the pillows a while for a change, when the door opened silently and a face looking surprised appeared, followed by a man advancing with a genial "Good-morning, I just received a telegram from a Chicago paper that I'd better show you," handing me the yellow slip, which read: "Darrow reported dying. Interview him." I replied that I wasn't really ready for such an interview; I had not yet picked out my "famous last words" but now I would try to think up some because it would be too bad to disappoint his editor, who was all set for a scoop. I promised to let him know first, as soon as the grim reaper started his job in earnest.
My good friend, Judge K. I. Perky, came and insisted that I should go to his well-arranged home. So I left the St. Alphonsus, and was given all the comforts under his hospitable roof that a man could possibly have. Before this, we had concluded to take Judge Perky into the case with us, and with his assistance I managed to go to the court and pick the jury. This was difficult on account of the former trial and long publicity. I had suffered so much and eaten so little that I looked as though I could not go through with the fresh undertaking, but I determined to stick as long as possible.
When the jury was completed, the prosecution made an opening statement, and I reserved our statement until their case was in. I cross-examined most of the witnesses. Orchard told his story once again as he had told it in the first trial. I did not ask him to tell it over on cross-examination. I had heard it twice and read it once before and my curiosity was fully satisfied. I asked him to elaborate in more detail some of his most terrible deeds. I had him carefully describe Paulson's little boy and their playing together on the floor, and to relate in detail how he went into the Idanha Hotel with the bomb in his hand; I asked him if he knew how many people were in the place, and how many were women and children. I asked him if he knew that the man in San Francisco, living in the top flat, had a little child, and if he had ever seen it. As I went along one could see the jury drawing from him in horror and disgust. I took him back to his far-away home, asking if he had corresponded with his wife and daughter; if he knew whether the girl had married, if she had received word about her father's acts and if he had ever considered how it would affect her and her life. I did not undertake to contradict him. I treated him with what seemed kindness and consideration and pity, and, unlike his attitude in the former case, he kept his eyes downcast; he no longer looked at the jury, and they avoided him. I felt quite certain that every one of the jury looked upon him with distrust, hatred, and contempt.
After Orchard's testimony, the State rested the case, and I told the court that I did not feel able to go on, and requested a continuance until the next morning, which was granted. I went straight home, and, like Pepys, "so to bed." My strength was gone. I knew that I could not hold out. The doctor examined me and feared it meant certain death if I did not go at once to California, where the winter climate would be favorable, and submit to an operation. Pettibone, too, insisted that I should stay no longer. I called in the counsel, and at my bedside we held a consultation, and my associates all insisted that I should go. From the appearance of the jury, and with their knowledge of the outcome of the Haywood case, I felt sure that they would not convict, and probably would acquit. I went over the case fully with my associates, giving them my advice about what to do. Finally I agreed to go, but not until I had made the opening statement to the jury. I felt that I had prepared for this, and of course the others had not.
The next morning I was taken to the courtroom. I was not able to stand. The court permitted me to make my statement seated in a chair. I was told that I looked like a ghost. I suppose I did. I am sure that I felt as a decent ghost ought to feel. It was with the greatest difficulty that I went over what we expected to prove. I had already told the court that I would be compelled to leave the case, and I informed the jury that I was to remain no longer. I presume that the whole situation was impressive. It was certainly tense and painful. I could not raise my voice above a low conversational tone. The jury gave the strictest attention and bent forward to catch every word. Then we asked for an adjournment till morning, promising that the case would then go ahead without further delay. And thereupon I went back to my friend Mr. Perky's home.
The doctor and some of the lawyers came to see me and we discussed our favorite topics, the case and my health. I did not need to learn from the doctor how I was; I knew that there was small chance of lasting through the sixty-hour train-trip to Los Angeles. The doctor admitted that he could not possibly even guess what was the matter; that I had every symptom of mastoiditis excepting the most important ones, temperature and swelling, of which I had not a trace.
I ordered accommodations in the Pullman that was to be taken out from Boise some time in the night for the long journey across the plains. The winter was coming on; I had always abominated cold weather, but never before so much as then, when my vitality was low. It seemed to me that I could not leave the case, but I knew that I could not go back to court even if I remained in Boise. Los Angeles looked beautiful from Boise. I had been there, and remembered its sunshine and warmth, its flowers and palms, and believed that there I might recover. Strange it is how mortals cling to life. I had few illusions or delusions left, and had no fear of death, but automatically wanted to hang onto life and worry and pain. I had been living for a long time and had formed the habit. It was what Schopenhauer called "the will to live."
Doctor Hudgel came for a final visit, to give us our instructions, to make sure that we were taking everything that might be needed on the way. This was more than twenty years ago. I did not see him for a long, long time. We exchanged holiday cards, and at long intervals letters passed between us, and I always hoped that something would bring my good friend to Chicago. Meantime, last year I was induced to engage in a series of debates that took me back over the Northwest and into some of the old haunts, including Boise City, as it was called when we were there. One of the gratifications of that trip was meeting a number of my former favorites, and among those who welcomed us to Boise were Doctor and Mrs. Charles Hudgel. The doctor, who had once been so good for a sick ear, was now decidedly "good for sore eyes," and we all reviewed our past, present, and future interests over dinner at the hotel there.
When I landed at Boise City, of Boise Basin, in the long ago, about the first person I met was William Cavenaugh. His face was as round as the full moon, and it beamed with a broad smile as he came toward me extending his hand. He was a stonecutter employed on a building that I was passing, and had thrown down his tools to come down and give me a warm handclasp and rejoice over my arrival in the town. He explained that he came from Chicago, and although we had never before met, he knew me well and was for me, which I considered flattering. In the succeeding months I grew to know him well and learned to love him.
"Billy"--as every one called him--did not care for the future or past. He lived only for the present. His chief urge seemed to be to scatter as much sunshine and brightness into the lives of his friends as he could contribute. From the time I arrived in Boise he seemed to be always doing all he possibly could for my entertainment and comfort, especially through my illness. He had a stone-cutter's large muscle, and would come to my room and give me alcohol rubs, and his merry laugh and cheerful smile often drove away the gloom and seemed to allay the pain.
We had been escorted by friends to the Pullman car that was waiting at the station for the through-train trip to the Coast, when suddenly Billy, all smiles, swung into sight with a huge valise that he was waving. When I asked him if he was going somewhere he answered that he was going to Los Angeles with me. This was a great surprise, and a pleasant one. He said he could not bear to have me miss my rub before trying to get to sleep, and--he hated to be left behind in Boise, away from me.
The trip was long and taxing, but with Billy's tireless efforts and Mrs. Darrow's irrigations in the ear and hypodermics in the arm I got to Los Angeles, and went directly to the huge California Hospital. There I was received by my friend, Doctor John Haynes, who had arranged to take charge of my case, and had assured me that he would find experts who would at once determine the ailment and proceed accordingly.
There was an immediate gathering of specialists, the most careful overhauling and testing and diagnosing, at the end of which they all, exactly like the others, declared themselves baffled and puzzled, and agreed that it would be necessary to further observe and experiment. Meantime, the agony had not lessened, and I got no rest excepting through artificial aid.
After a week spent in the hospital in this routine, with no signs of a solution, we moved to a small apartment on the hill, where the physicians continued watching the case for a number of weeks. There they announced that it might be a case of nerves--badly overwrought nerves--and that the pain might be largely imaginary. They explained that there were such cases. I knew that, and suggested that in such event I ought to send for a Christian Science healer. But they did not seem to favor the plan. I thought it all over carefully, and, as we were getting nowhere with the mystery, I getting no relief and the doctors unable to guess my malady anything but a nervous disorder, I saw no reason for further speculation and decided that I had better go home to Chicago. This they seemed to deem a suitable plan. No doubt they had wearied of hearing my moans and groans; so I had Billy take me to the railroad station and help me arrange for tickets and Pullman accommodations for eleven o'clock that night, and we went back up the hill into the sunshine. And Billy gave me a hot bath and another brisk alcohol rub; these, and his faith in my somehow recovering and his fine sympathy and ceaseless cheer, gave me a certain relief.
Also, by way of encouraging me to go on, I had received word from Boise that soon after my departure the jury had brought in a verdict finding Pettibone "not guilty." After I left, the attorneys for the defense concluded to offer no evidence and waive argument, which I am sure was the right move, because they won.
I had no more than returned from the ticket office than I felt a new sensation back of my ear, and certainly it was swelling, as the entire area back of my ear was visibly enlarging. So we at once telephoned the physicians, who declared that I must be taken to the hospital at once for an operation the first thing next morning. We were all apprehensive of what might be discovered, and of the result, because of my long illness and loss of strength, but there was nothing else to do.
The next day a really serious condition was discovered and removed. It was called a freak case of mastoiditis, having dragged through five to six months in reaching that stage where externally it could be recognized. But I made a splendid recovery, and it made life seem better worth while to be again free from pain.
This illness and recovery gave me another example of the controlling power of fate in the affairs of life. I had been suffering intensely for six months. A part of that time I had been so far away from medical attendance that if the infection had grown virulent I could not have reached aid in time to save my life. I went to Los Angeles, was there a month under observation, and then, believing that no crisis was near at hand, with the doctors' approval procured transportation for home and in three hours would have been on the way. Had the swelling begun after I had boarded the train it would have been three days before I could have reached my destination and medical attendance. Long before then the cyst would have broken and I would have been dead. I cannot know why fate has put off the end until a later day, or when that day will come, but I do know, in the language of the court, that I got "a continuance."
In the meantime, however, while in Los Angeles, Pettibone arrived at the hospital for treatment. He had occupied a cell into which the sun had never penetrated, and while waiting to be found "not guilty" had acquired the "stir disease"--the prison name for consumption--from which he had to die, soon after.
Meanwhile, the State of Idaho dismissed the case against Moyer, which had been saved for the last, because the evidence against him had always been considered very slight.
The whole period, from the time I left Chicago until my return, was about two years. The union had been put to such enormous expense that at the end of their trials their treasury was seriously impaired; indeed, the union was practically without funds. I was content to take much less than my contract entitled me to, although I knew that they would pay it all if I would let them. I felt that I should do what I could to help them regain their old strength and prestige, which they finally did under the leadership of Mr. Moyer, who is still their president.
I had travelled so much for my health, spent so much time and used so much money for hospitals, physicians, and all sorts of inevitable expenses, that when I reached home I not only had nothing left but was in debt. I was not able to pay all my bills. It was more than a year before these were liquidated, and my good friend, Doctor Haynes, waited until the very last.
In the spring of 1911 the newspapers all over the country carried a startling story reporting that the Los Angeles Times Building had been dynamited and that twenty-one workmen in various capacities had perished in the ruins.
It was generally believed that the dynamiting resulted from the action of some one interested in the labor unions. The reason that the deed was laid at their door was because The Times newspaper was owned by Harrison Gray Otis, who had for many years been fighting the unions. And at the time of the catastrophe, the Los Angeles unions were engaged in a general strike to make that city a closed town, and The Times was leading the fight to continue the open shop. The Times was a non-union paper and none of its employees were connected with any labor organizations.
An investigation was immediately begun to find out the cause of the explosion, which soon disclosed a large hole in an alley that ran from the street into the building. One of the pressrooms was located under the alley. It soon became evident that the building had not been destroyed by an explosion, but that, in some way, a fire had been started and the inflammable material inside the alley and the building had been ignited, spreading the flames almost instantaneously through the plant. The unfortunate victims were found close to an iron door which had been used as an exit. This door, at the time, was so closed that it could not be opened. The nineteen men had reached the door and had suffocated in the effort to escape.
A catastrophe like this naturally aroused a deep wave of sorrow and also resentment against any person or persons who might be responsible for the act. At once a thorough search for its origin was set in motion. The non-union forces in southern California had for a long time been organized to fight the unions, who had not been able to organize Los Angeles. The investigation developed that a few days before the disaster three men had gone to a quarry near San Francisco where dynamite was used in blasting; they had sailed across the bay in a small boat, had taken some dynamite and gone away. Later on, dynamite was found in the vault of a building in Indianapolis, where some of the offices of the building were occupied by the headquarters of the Structural Iron-Workers, resulting in the discovery of the dynamite already referred to, stored in a safe-deposit box which had been taken out in the name of Joseph J. McNamara, the secretary of the organization. Very soon thereafter some dynamite was found in a barn in Indianapolis; this barn was owned, or rented, by a teamster named Jones, who had leased it to Joseph J. McNamara.
James B. McNamara, a brother, was a member of the Typographical Union. He had long been an ardent trade unionist, and an active member in his local. It was discovered that for several months he had been living in San Francisco. Soon after the arrests, Ortie McManigal turned state's evidence and made what purported to be a full confession in the case. The Structural Iron-Workers organization was affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, so the Federation undertook the defense of the case.
Mr. Gompers, with several other members of the executive board of the American Federation of Labor, came to see me and asked me to assume the defense. I urged them to get some one else. Of course I realized that the men should be defended, but I felt that I had done my share of fighting. It was not easy to combat the powerful forces of society in the courts, as I had been doing for many years, and I was now weary of battling against public opinion. I believed in trades-unionism, and knew the need of labor organizations. I believed that without them the industrial workmen were helpless. I fully comprehended that no single workman had any chance if he went alone to an employer to ask for higher wages or better conditions. He was at once told that if he did not like his job he should go somewhere else. One employee of a great railroad system or any controlling combination had no chance to bargain. The company offered the wages and terms that it saw fit, and told him to take it or go away. If a workman clamored for better wages or improved conditions he was discharged. This did not mean that industrial employers were not as good as other men, but only that in a contest every advantage was on their side; the employer could put the workmen out of business, but the workmen could not injure the company. But, if a union could go in a body, and collectively make demands of the employer, the situation was more nearly equalized. Then, if the employer or a company did not accept and act upon the demand, the workmen could quit work in a body; to have any independence, or any power to bargain, the workmen were forced to act together.
This question seems to be better understood to-day, but it took centuries of hardship and sacrifice and industrial war to bring this about. I have known many men on both sides, but cannot say that any in either faction, as individuals, are better or worse than the others; but, with an open shop, the employer has all the advantage, as every one knows. All this was plain to me; but I had fought through so many conflicts that I felt the need of rest from such strenuous work. Besides, it had been only three years since I came out of the Idaho cases, with their two years of strain and labor, together with all the anguish that I had endured and survived.
The very name of Los Angeles was associated with so much misery and suffering that the thought of going back to that place and its painful memories seemed like forebodings that I could not quiet. So that, all told, the outlook was most uninviting. But the representatives of the Federation of Labor were so urgent that at last I could not refuse. How many times thereafter I wished that I had insisted upon some one younger and stronger and more anxious for the task. But I could not turn back. It seemed destined that I should take that path. It simply had to be. Hard as it was to give them my "Yes," it would have been harder to say "No."
And, even after counting all the cost of that tremendous experience, I am glad that I went. But it was with heavy hearts that Mrs. Darrow and I drove to the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad Station and boarded the train for Los Angeles.
On arriving in California I was met by more than the usual number of newspaper reporters, and men and women otherwise interested in the situation. I at once employed LeCompte Davis, one of the leading trial lawyers of Los Angeles, and Joseph Scott, an attorney of wide acquaintance and good standing. Job Harriman, a well-known Socialist of ability, was already interested in the case, and Judge Cyrus F. McNutt, a former member of the Supreme Court of Indiana, a man well learned in law, was also engaged. Judge McNutt was a man of unusual ability, and was thoroughly sympathetic toward the laboring class.
We rented a whole floor in one of the large office buildings, organized a force of investigators to go to all the different parts of the United States where it was claimed that dynamiting had occurred during building operations, and to gather evidence in relation to what happened in those cities, and what was its relation to The Times Building also. We hastily gathered a force for getting as full information as possible concerning political and religious affiliations and other points of view of those on the long list from which prospective jurors were to be drawn. In all these matters I was, to be sure, largely guided by the judgment and knowledge of the local counsel, who were familiar with the city and its people. The investigation of possible jurors was placed in the hands of Bert Franklin, a Los Angeles detective, who had at one time been connected with the city or county administration, and had done a good deal of work of this kind. I had brought with me from Chicago, John Harrington, long an investigator for the Chicago City Railway; he had spent years in arranging, sifting and marshalling facts in the damage suits of the surface lines of that city; and also I engaged Captain Tyrrell, an old-time detective, who had served in the preceding district attorney's office for many years. Each of these two managed his own department, and the money used and disbursed was given by me to each in charge for his separate handling, for service and expenses.
I went to the jail and for the first time met my clients. I found both men pleasant, prepossessing and, of course, glad to see me and the rest of the lawyers. All the preparation had to be done as rapidly as possible, for there was no time to lose; and so the work was left practically to those in charge, who made their reports to us, while we lawyers concentrated upon familiarizing ourselves with the law applicable in the case, especially the law of conspiracy. This always looms large in any labor case. Under the constant stretching of the conspiracy laws we could see that evidence showing any unlawful use of dynamite anywhere in the United States would be held competent under the statement of the prosecuting attorneys that they expected to connect it up with the defendants, or with some one else who would be linked up with the defendants.
I rented a very pleasant home close to the down-town district; so many people were clamoring to see me, bringing me all sorts of stories to be looked into, that there was little chance to be alone, day or night. It was but a brief time before the anxiety and tension began to tell on me. My health had been none too good since the departure from that city after the operation for mastoiditis.
Slowly we began to bring some order and system out of the chaos that overhung the case. I was conscious of the bitterness that always surrounds that kind of contest. Without any question, my clients were believers in a cause which, from their point of view, demanded all their efforts, and justified whatever sacrifice they could make. The employers also believed in a cause, and habitually resorted to boycotts that inflicted suffering on men, women and children; men who in the ordinary affairs of life were considerate and charitable were bitter partisans in matters pertaining to labor. I was aware that for more than a decade members now united in an organization for the protection of each other had looked with hatred and contempt at their fellow workmen who would not join the labor union. I was familiar with the old definition of "scab" that was announced many years ago in reply to President Eliot, of Harvard, and is as follows:
"The strike-breaker occupies in the industrial world a position precisely analogous to that of the renegade and traitor. He represents a type of man universally condemned in any other sphere of human activity. He sells himself for less than the thirty pieces of silver, but too often lacks the grace which caused Iscariot to go and hang himself. He commits the unpardonable sin of betraying his fellows. He purloins that to which he has no claim and is the one stumbling block in the path of the wage-earner. The attempt to make him respectable reflects discredit upon those engaged in it."
This is substantially the definition of the old English trades-unions, and has long been the attitude held toward non-union men by unions and their sympathizers.
I, for one, have never believed in violence, force or other cruelty. I hate pain and suffering for others as well as for myself. I had long been a non-resistant at heart, and had preached it as far as I could, but had learned that in the forces of life, clash and conflict were inevitable. My sympathy and experience had placed me on the side of those who had the hard tasks and the ill-conditions of life. Personally, I would go to any extent possible to prevent violence and disorder, but, when it came about, then I was for and with my side; for I sensed and learned the motives that moved men, and I believed that in the long sweep of time they were fighting for the amelioration and welfare of mankind. I knew that these endless conflicts had always been fraught with grief and distress, but Nature seems to provide no other way.
I had been in Los Angeles for more than three months, preparing the case, when the selecting of the jury began. This was, as usual, a difficult task. The case had been given such wide publicity, and feelings were so high on both sides, that it was practically impossible to find any one who had no opinion and seemed able to offer both sides a fair consideration of the case at hand.
Before I left Chicago I knew nothing about the facts. There were many rumors of dynamiting, and many others to the effect that the explosion was due to gas. The task for the lawyers of the defense was to see that the defendants were not condemned except on clear proof of guilt, and, if guilty at all, to get as small a penalty as possible--especially to save the lives of those on trial.
There were twenty-one separate indictments against each of the two defendants. The situation looked almost hopeless to me, for even though we might get a disagreement, or "Not guilty" in the first case, there were all the others, which would make endless trials possible. A strong feeling existed, not only in Los Angeles but throughout the rest of the country, and I knew that the State would never submit to defeat so long as there was any hope for them to win. Day after day men were brought into court to take a look at James B. McNamara, whose trial came first. It was apparent that this was for the purpose of identifying him as having been at various places where he had lived for several months, one of them in San Francisco, one where dynamite had been purchased, one in Los Angeles.
I have always hated capital punishment. To me it seems a cruel, brutal, useless barbarism. The killing of one individual by another always shows real or fancied excuse or reason. The cause, however poor, was enough to induce the act. But the killing of an individual by the State is deliberate, and is done without any personal grievance or feeling. It is the outcome of long premeditated hatred. It does not happen suddenly and without warning, without time for the emotions to cool and subside, but a day is fixed a long way ahead, and the victim is kept in continued, prolonged torture up to the moment of execution.
Oliver Wendell Holmes once said: "We are all sentenced to death for the crime of living." That is true, but we know nothing of the day or means of execution. The tragedy sometimes comes upon us with such swiftness that we do not even know what it is; or, it is the result of some illness which weakens the structure and gradually loosens the tendrils that hold us to life, and the doomed does not know that the end is at hand nor when it comes. It is over with before he realizes his danger or the approximate date of the operation.
For weeks I pondered how to save the lives of these clients, as did my associates in the case. The lawyer, if he has a deep sense of responsibility and warm sympathies, regards the human being in his hands in the same light that a physician views a patient in. Both try to relieve suffering, and no one would expect a physician to refuse to save the life of a patient, no matter who he might be. The lawyer's duty is just as binding; both try to allay pain and save life, although, in a sense, life cannot be saved, for the irrevocable doom hangs over us all from the time of birth; we can only put it off. And this is what I hoped to do in this case. The only way out that I could see was through a plea of guilty, with an agreement that the extreme penalty should be imprisonment for life. The question was, how to accomplish that hope. Publicity would have meant certain death.
I could not express my hopes and fears to many. To show the psychology of fear would be fatal to the case. A lawyer must walk hopefully with his client to almost certain doom, or he loses his last chance to save life. I first confided my feelings to LeCompte Davis and Lincoln Steffens. Both viewed the matter in the light in which it impressed me. But how to carry out my idea without letting our secret become common knowledge was important.
LeCompte Davis and John D. Fredericks, the State's attorney, were very good friends, and we felt that Davis might talk with Fredericks in perfect confidence, and that we might get one or two more opinions. Mr. Steffens and I went to San Diego and consulted Mr. E. W. Scripps, the well-known publisher of a large chain of newspapers. He was our friend, and a man of great ability. He felt as we did, that if a plea of guilty could be entered and the lives of the defendants be saved, it would be best for all concerned. Then I sent for Fremont Older, of San Francisco, strong, sturdy, intelligent, and gentle, and a wonderful friend; he was indeed like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. Judge Cyrus McNutt, of Los Angeles, was consulted, and urged me to try to bring about an agreement. There were others who might have been trusted, but we dared not take many into our confidence for fear that in some way the plan would leak out.
Up to this time I had said nothing to my clients. The one reason that made me most anxious to save their lives was my belief that there was never any intention to kill any one. The Times Building was not blown up; it was burned down by a fire started by an explosion of dynamite, which was put in the alley that led to the building. In the statement that was made by J. B. McNamara, at the demand of the State's attorney before the plea was entered, he said that he had placed a package containing dynamite in the alley, arranged the contraption for explosion, and went away. This was done to scare the employees of The Times and others working in non-union shops; what is now too generally done by racketeers, and called a "pine apple." Had it been the intention to destroy the building, or human life, the amount of dynamite would have been much larger, and it would have been placed inside the building. Unfortunately, the dynamite was deposited near some barrels standing in the alley that happened to contain ink, which was immediately converted into vapor by the explosion, and was scattered through the building, carrying the fire in every direction. Directly under the sidewalk where the dynamite was placed was a large press in operation, and the explosion did not even stop the press, although it blew a hole in the sidewalk above it. No one really claimed that there was any intention to take human life.
My recollection is that our first conference about changing the plea was held in the jail. Judge McNutt, LeCompte Davis, Lincoln Steffens, Fremont Older and I being present. James B. McNamara, the younger of the brothers, strenuously objected, but his brother, Joseph J. McNamara, was inclined to accept the proposition, which called for a life-term for the younger man, and ten years in the penitentiary for the older brother, who was to plead guilty to being a party to placing dynamite at the Llewellyn Brothers' mill. We went over the case very fully at this conference.
We pointed out the impossibility of winning, or even trying the case, the number of indictments, the strong feeling, and the evidence in the hands of the State. We had no evidence of any importance that we could offer, and we could not put the younger brother on the stand, for he would not be able to sustain himself on cross-examination, even should he attempt to deny the evidence of the State. All we could possibly do was to save Joseph J. McNamara, and get a life-sentence for his young brother, James B. McNamara. Gradually "J. B." began to see that we were right.
When Mr. Davis interviewed Mr. Fredericks about the plan, he received the suggestion quite favorably, but could not act without consulting with some of the others interested, and that would require word from the Erectors Association of Indianapolis. The negotiations dragged on for a number of days. Then, Mr. Fredericks reported that Mr. Drew, of the Erectors Association, was willing to accept the proposition, and it looked favorable so far as the others were concerned. We urged haste, for we feared that publicity would be ruinous. Finally, J. B. decided to accept, and the agreement was made subject to the action of the judge, who was likewise reported in favor of the plan.
We purposely drew out the examination of jurors several days after the negotiations were complete. The procedure was, however, fully agreed upon two or three days before another complication set in. When all the parties of the two sides felt certain that the case was to be disposed of immediately, the man who had been placed in charge of the examination of jurors, Bert Franklin, was arrested on the charge that he had handed a prospective juror four thousand dollars on one of the main streets of Los Angeles, as the juror was on his way to the courthouse. Franklin was arrested on the spot and taken to jail. He then protested his innocence and asked us to furnish bail, and so we put up a cash bond, whereupon he was released. In spite of what had happened, the State carried out the agreement to accept a plea of guilty for J. B. McNamara with a life-sentence, and a plea in a separate case by J. J. McNamara with a ten-year sentence. But the judge insisted upon giving Joseph J. McNamara a fifteen-year sentence instead of the one that had been agreed to by the State.
The announcement of the plea of guilty caused a profound sensation over the country. I had never made any statement as to the guilt or innocence of either of the defendants. I had never prophesied about the outcome of the case. I was aware that one of the strongest motives that would appeal to those concerned with the prosecution was the contest for mayor then going on in Los Angeles. Job Harriman, one of the attorneys for the defense, was the candidate on the Socialist ticket and was holding meetings with large and enthusiastic audiences. Naturally, the business elements of the city were against him; the labor unions, the Socialists, and the poor were strongly with him. Any one could easily see that a plea of guilty would lessen the popularity of the Socialist ticket and make sure the election of the regular Republican.
To a certain extent, the mayoralty campaign and the case went together, and while I had never been a Socialist I was more or less in accord with that view, and thoroughly sympathetic with the aims of the party. On account of Mr. Harriman, I was sorry to have the plea of guilty entered, but, on the other hand, the lives of my clients were at stake, and I had no right or inclination to consider anything but them. I could not tell Mr. Harriman; it would place him in the position of either deserting his party or letting one client go to almost certain death, which we could not do.
I, together with the men who shared my confidence, felt obliged to face the situation. I did not hesitate for a moment to choose the welfare of my clients. I never had any question about it. My duty was perfectly plain. Perhaps there are some who can imagine my position in this dilemma, which was not really a dilemma--I knew just what to do. By every emotion of my life, by the rule of my profession, by every human instinct, I was bound to act as I did, and consider my clients only, and I am glad that I did not stop to think of consequences. I have no desire to invite compassion or sympathy. My life is made up, and must stand as it is. But I was in a terrible crisis that I faced almost alone.
Twenty years intervene between that fatal time of tumult and stress and the calm and serenity of to-day which softens the remembrance of it all; but if perchance I allow myself to slip back the bolt, with which all mortals seek to lock away some of the sad and unpleasant memories of the past, at once my mind goes straight to the courtroom in Los Angeles on the evening of the plea of "Guilty." The room was more than usually crowded. The silence was profound and ominous. I asked my associate, LeCompte Davis, to change the plea from "Not guilty" to "Guilty." For a moment the people sat stunned. Then there was a mad rush of the reporters to the wires. It was late in the afternoon. Slowly the great room emptied. The faithful followers of the defense were among the last to go. These came to the trial, filling the room, to give us their support. At last I went out with the rest. It was growing dark. A few street lights were turned on. Many of our most loyal friends tore the McNamara buttons from their lapels and threw them in the street. My old friend, Billy Cavenaugh, came to my side. He was then a policeman, and still my friend. He was alarmed at the attitude of the crowd, grabbed my arm and said, "Come with me." I was not brave, but I looked him in the face and answered, "No, Billy, I shall go down the street with the crowd. I have walked with them to the courthouse when they cheered me, and I shall go back the way I came." There were some sullen faces, and threatening gestures, a few hard and cruel words, but little did these matter, little did I care. I could see only one road to take, and I never asked myself whether it led to happiness or doom.
I never put myself in the position of prophesying or protesting the innocence of a client. When asked by reporters and others to be specific I have always answered them honestly if I could, and in case I could not give the exact information desired have always said frankly that I could not discuss the matter.
A case of such importance always creates intense interest and arouses bitter feelings and powerful propaganda on both sides. Many friends of the defendants without permission had made wild and foolish statements that I had done my best to prevent. Amongst these were outbursts of disappointment over the turn things had taken, some going so far as to charge me with betrayal and cowardice in letting the case come to an end.
A short time after Franklin was arrested he was taken in hand by the State's attorney, and then charged with attempting to bribe two jurors, and according to his story afterward in court he was promised immunity on condition that he should testify that I was connected with the attempt to bribe the jurors. Also, it was stipulated that if he knew anything against any one else connected with the defense he need not tell about it.
Immediately after the arrest of Franklin, when many people were anxious to believe that I was connected with that matter, Mr. Steffens hastened to me to talk over the whole situation. He had for years been a high-class well-known writer, intelligent, solicitous, and a good friend of mine. He understood the industrial question as well as any man I ever knew. He did not believe in violence any more than I believed in it, but he was in full sympathy with the workman's cause; he knew the motives of men, and could see the greater issues which so often were misconstrued and clouded by individuals. In fact, it was due to his intelligence and tact, and his acquaintance with people on both sides, that the settlement was brought about. Mr. Steffens knew all the strong men back of the prosecution, and was busy urging a general amnesty and a better feeling in all sections between capital and labor, with which many of them were in full accord.
It was after the arrest of Franklin that he came to tell me about what he was trying to do, and suggested that if I had been in any way connected with the attempt to bribe a juror to let him include me, and any one else who might have known, in the amnesty.
Plainly and unequivocally I assured him that under no circumstances would I permit any one to ask anything for me or for any one else in my employ; that I had never, in all my practice, considered my own financial or personal interest on any private or public matter except the interest of my client, and never would; and that under no circumstances should he ask anything for me. I told him that if any one thought I had done anything in connection with the jury or any other matter he should be left free to prosecute.
In short time Franklin was taken before the grand jury, whereupon I was indicted for conspiracy to corrupt a juror, in two separate cases. The intense strain on my mind and feelings was undermining my health, and I did not feel the strength and enthusiasm necessary for the fight.
Nevertheless, I summoned my courage and braced myself for the ordeal. I had many fine friends in Los Angeles, in spite of everything, and from everywhere they came to my support, and their aid and tender support smoothed the way, to some extent at least. And Billy Cavenaugh was still there, with the same smiling face, the same hearty cheer, the same buoyancy and optimism as in the old days when he came with us from Boise and tried to help me by giving me as many alcohol rubs as possible. And there was my friend of many years, James Griffes, better known as Luke North, who wrote beautiful things that did not pay but were a delight to read, whose devotion dated back to our youth in Chicago, and who found no day too long and no night too dreary to work in my behalf. There was Lincoln Steffens, clever and kindly and understanding, my brave and constant friend; and there was my friend of a life-time, Fay Lewis, of Rockford, Ill., who left his business and came to Los Angeles and stayed by my side through the endless experience. And at all times there was Fremont Older, of San Francisco. And, by degrees, those who had faltered came back and rallied to my assistance all the stronger for having seemingly hesitated at first.
I made no complaints. I gave out no statements. I did not criticise or censure. I mustered my courage and went my way. Mrs. Darrow and I took a small apartment and kept house. The rent was fifty dollars a month, and that, together with our meals, carfares for me, and all incidentals never quite amounted to a hundred dollars a month. Those were difficult days, but I settled down to wait and fight, and schooled myself to be fairly indifferent to it all, whatever the result was to be. At the first I was dazed. I had sat beside the accused for many, many years, giving them all my comfort and aid in their dire misfortunes. I had made their cause my own. I had worked with them and suffered with them, and rejoiced in their triumphs, and despaired with them in their defeats. Now I was no longer a lawyer pleading another's cause. I was a defendant, fighting against fearful odds.
I feel confident that no reader will blame me if I do not unduly dwell on this part of my story. As I write, the old ghosts creep out of the dimming past and dance around me as if in glee, and I am anxious to drive them back and lock them up where I cannot see their haunting faces or hear their mocking jeers.
I employed Earl Rogers, Harry Dehme, Horace Appel, and Jerry Giesler in the case, and looked after every detail myself. And the case was prosecuted by John D. Fredericks, Joseph Ford, Arthur Keetch, and Asa Keyes. The first trial was begun on May 12, 1912, and lasted nearly three months. I told my own story, denying any knowledge of or connection with an attempt to bribe any juror, and was cross-examined for four days. I had no more trouble about answering every question put to me than I would have had in reciting the multiplication table. The important points of Franklin's statement were overwhelmingly disputed by many other witnesses besides myself. I made the closing argument in the case. I felt as much at ease and as indifferent over my fate as I would have been standing comfortably at a harmless fireside surrounded by loving friends. My argument occupied a day and a half. It was a good argument. I have listened to great arguments and have made many arguments myself, and consider that my judgment on this subject is sound.
The jury retired and were not more than ten minutes arriving at a verdict of "Not guilty." The courtroom was crowded. I was kept for hours receiving congratulations, and then went with friends to a restaurant, where I was found and deluged with messages already pouring in from all quarters of the United States. Now that the news had gone out, I received telegrams from people who had been silent until then. Most of the communications, however, were from loyal friends and champions, many of whom would gladly have gone through the torture in my place, and for my sake, if possible.
The State had of course tried its strongest case first. No one supposed that they would ever try the other. But they waited three months and then put the second one on call. I did not consider it seriously, for everything possible had been brought out in the first trial. No one regarded the second as serious, so far as I could learn.
On the first day of the second trial, Earl Rogers, who had been my leading lawyer in the first trial, was taken suddenly ill. He left the courtroom and was not able to return during the trial. I wanted to go on, so took his place myself, but this was not easy to do. It is all very well to object to evidence and so-called evidence where some one else is concerned, but it looks bad if one is the defendant and has to rise up and protest against letting something in. It is not easy to know what to do in a situation so sensitive as that. And from the beginning I felt certain that some of the jurors were hostile. There is a large element of chance in picking a jury. In fact, the trial of a case abounds in chance, like almost every other experience in life. Again I made the closing argument, and consciously took the chance of saying something in defense of the McNamaras and their real motives, which I felt that I should say.
Then, too, just before the case was called, some twenty-five defendants were placed on trial in Indianapolis, charged with a conspiracy to destroy buildings and other property by the use of dynamite. These indictments included the McNamaras and all matters covered by the Los Angeles cases. Practically all of these were convicted of conspiracy in the use of dynamite. This case was fully played up in Los Angeles, and my second case followed soon after. Every lawyer knows that where two or more indictments are returned against one defendant, the strongest is called first. There was no reason why the Indianapolis situation should affect my case, but I knew that it would, and it did.
The jury in this second case remained out several days, and then reported a disagreement, and were discharged. I had then been in Los Angeles nearly two years. For about a year I had been fighting for myself. I had no money left, and had already borrowed about twenty thousand dollars from friends in various parts of the country, mainly Chicago. I felt discouraged and disheartened. That night I received a telegram which read as follows: "St. Louis, Missouri. Clarence Darrow, Los Angeles, California: I hear that you have spent most of your life defending men for nothing and that you are now broke and facing another trial. I will let you have all the money you need for the case. Am now sending draft for one thousand dollars. Frederick D. Gardner." The name was utterly unknown to me. This came from a total stranger. My eyes filled with tears. This was twenty years ago, and as I recall this telegram and the signature the tears are in my eyes once more along with the rest of that agonizing past.
In a day or so a letter came containing the cheque for a thousand dollars from my unknown friend, Frederick D. Gardner, of St. Louis, and in the envelope was also a cheque from his wife for two hundred dollars. I used that money, but the case was soon afterward dismissed so that I did not need further help. There is a deep gulf between blank despair and the illusion of hope and comfort and confidence. Though the gulf between them is deep, often there is but a step across. I went home from the disagreement of the jury, sad and discouraged, but when I received the telegram from Mr. Gardner, and the letter, the sun shone bright again and the birds were singing in the trees.
Some time in 1910 a woman came to me in Chicago to consult me about a case. She was old and poorly clad and had the look of grim despair that haunts so many faces of the unfortunate. She told me that her son was in the Chicago jail and had just been convicted of murder, and the jury had given him a life term in the penitentiary. She told me that her son had no money, and that the court had appointed a lawyer to defend him; later the judge had denied a new trial, and in the meantime the lawyer had died.
I said I did not see how I could possibly undertake the case, as the chances were that nothing could be done in the Supreme Court, no matter who handled it. I explained that if the Supreme Court should grant a new trial I would be obliged to try it in the lower court, that there was no chance to get any pay for my work, and some money would be needed for costs; much as I would like to help her, I could not afford to go into it, and I told her so.
She went on to say that she had a little home that could be sold and would bring me something and I could have that for the costs and my fee. I answered that I did not see how I could go into the matter under any circumstances, but that if I did I would not let her sell her home. It was really out of the question. She made no complaint, but went away with the look of despair that comes into the eyes of so many who have learned that for them life offers no hope. The face of this woman haunted me the rest of the day, and would hardly let me sleep that night. I began to regret that I had not taken the case.
But the next morning she was in my office again. I looked at her and knew that I could not resist. I asked if she had the testimony, written out by the court reporter. She had it at home. I told her to bring it to me, and if I could see any chance of getting a new trial I would go into the case. I assured her that I would not take her little home, either for myself or costs. Anyhow, the amount would not have been enough to do me any good, and would only have prevented my feeling of pride in taking the case without a fee. When I examined the record I was satisfied that there should have been no conviction, and that I probably could get the case reversed.
The next day I went to the Chicago jail to take a look at my client. He was a large man, about thirty years old. His countenance was not prepossessing, but I had lived long enough not to take countenances too seriously, especially if I met them inside a prison. He was a man without education. He had spent his life as a common laborer, but he had some ideals and a good deal of ambition. With all the rest, he was an intense Socialist, and was constantly talking about it and trying to make converts. I had learned from reading the testimony that he had once served a short term in the penitentiary, for an attempted burglary. One conviction is generally all the evidence that is needed to justify a second one, and I felt sure that this was really the cause of this conviction. I asked him why he tried to burglarize the house. He replied that he had wanted to start a Socialist paper, and as he had no education he could never get the necessary money by working.
The case for which he was now in jail grew out of a quarrel with two policemen in a saloon; none of them were drunk, but all had been drinking. The policemen were "plain clothes" men wearing no uniform, and were in the saloon when Bissett entered. Both officers knew of his former conviction which, according to their view, justified addressing him in any way they wished. They all drew revolvers and began to shoot. Bissett was hit by two or three bullets, all taking effect in the abdomen, puncturing the large intestine. He was taken to a hospital to die. Unfortunately, as I then thought, he recovered from the wounds. One of the policemen was killed by a bullet through the heart, and the other, though shot, had recovered.
Bissett's revolver was found on the floor with the requisite number of empty shells to match the policemen's wounds. Bissett denied shooting, when he took the stand in the first trial, but the empty holster of the revolver, and the empty shells, made it clear that his statement was not true. Two other eyewitnesses were unable to say who shot first, but testified that both policemen and the defendant used their guns.
It was plain that the case should have been tried as one of self-defense, but his lawyer had seen fit to believe his client's first story, and Bissett had sworn that he did not shoot. I asked him why he denied it, and he answered that he was afraid to admit that he had shot, fearing that an admission, taken with his first conviction, would be fatal. I pointed out that his only chance was in telling the story as it really happened--that he did shoot, and was afraid to admit it in the first trial. It was evident that he had no motive for killing the policemen excepting fear of being killed himself. The policemen made no attempt to arrest him; and no charge was pending against him.
In due time the case was argued in the Supreme Court and was reversed and sent back for a new trial. Then, of course, there was nothing left for me to do but defend it.
George Bissett is not brought into this book on account of that case. It is enough to say that on the second trial he was promptly acquitted, as he should have been at first. I had seen George from time to time in the jail, and learned to understand him quite well. It was not easy to talk to him on any subject but Socialism. All the other prisoners had put him down as a "bug" on account of his interest in Socialism. Socialists are not often in jail except for believing in and practising free speech, and then generally for only a short time. And although George strongly insisted that if we had Socialism there would be no need for jails, he found few converts, especially amongst those who owned the jails.
When the trial was ended I took George over to my office to talk with him about what he should do in the future. I did not lecture him. I never believed that this did any good. I mentioned that he had evidently become almost a professional burglar, and asked him if he thought that it paid. I tried to make him see that no one ever really made much at any such trade, and I hoped he would find something else to work at.
He assured me that he did not expect to try anything of that sort again, but he was as anxious as ever to have a Socialist paper, and that he couldn't get a paper by working; that no one ever did. He thanked me most earnestly for what I had done for him, said he wanted to pay me, and would do it. I told him not to bother about me; that I did not want him to think about getting money to give to me, that the satisfaction of having freed him would be enough. I had learned to rather like him, just as we all learn to like most people when we really know them. And so he went away, and I did not hear of him again for three or four years.
But George and his troubles, and his ambition, sometimes came to my mind, and still he was only one more being in a sordid world. He had professed great appreciation and gratitude for what I had done to help him, and had promised to see me occasionally, to report how he was getting along. That he had not returned caused me no surprise. Very few take so much pains, and then, he might be dead, or in jail, or even managing his Socialist paper at last. He drifted out of my thoughts, which were filled with other events.
But it was written that I was to see George Bissett again. He came to me in Los Angeles in 1912. I was waiting for the trial of the indictment that had been brought against me charging me with a conspiracy to bribe a juror, as told in the last chapter. It was one of a long series of days when I was very sad and when my friends looked good. I was sitting in my private office; the clerk came and told me that a man was outside who wanted to see me; he said the man looked dirty, like a tramp. I asked him to show the man in, which he promptly did. I saw before me my old client, George Bissett. I arose, shook his hand and said, "George, you are a long way from home; what are you doing here?" He said he had heard that I was in trouble and thought that he might help me. I asked how he got there. He said he had come from Chicago, riding on freight-cars and on the bumpers. I asked where he was staying, and he gave me the address of a cheap lodging house. I said, "George, it was fine of you to come all this distance to help me, and I appreciate it more than I know how to tell you, but what did you think you could possibly do?"
"Well," he answered, "I have been here about a week and have been getting a line on Franklin"--the Los Angeles detective previously spoken of. I asked George what he had found out about Franklin. He said he had found out where he lived, had watched what time he went away in the mornings, had some dynamite, and was going to kill Franklin the next day when leaving his home. All along through my life I have had many warm demonstrations of friendship, but this was the first time any man had offered to kill some one for me. I looked at George, and thought of this rough, unlettered man riding two thousand miles on car tops and bumpers and in seriousness offering to risk his life out of gratitude for what I had done for him.
I did my best to show my appreciation of this most astounding proffer. I said, "But, George, you have no idea what you are about to do. For two years this city has been deeply stirred. The cases and events have been published in the newspapers all over the world; the State's attorney's office has every means at hand for running down every clue that might have any bearing on any of the cases, directly or indirectly connected with the destruction of the Los Angeles Times Building. Here you propose to kill the chief witness for the State against me--in broad daylight. You must be crazy to think that you could do it without being hanged."
"Yes, I've thought of all that," he responded, "but I owe my life to you, and I'm here to take the chance. I want to do it for you."
I did not answer immediately. I pondered, wondering how to save him from almost certain death, and at the same time have him know how thoroughly I understood his motives, and how deeply I estimated his loyalty and devotion. Both of us sat in silence for a few moments, and when I turned to him I could hardly talk, but I managed to say, "George, I presume other men have run great risks for those they have wanted to help, but no such thing has ever before come to me. You have a deep affection for me on account of what I once did to save you; but let us look at this question as it is. Suppose you could kill Franklin, and suppose that by that means I could be acquitted, and suppose that your life was taken for my sake, should I ever again have a moment's peace or happiness? Could I accept your life to save myself? I think I have never consciously done a cruel act in my life; I hate killing in any way; could I let another man be killed--even Franklin--without trying to save him? I fancy few men have made such an offer of self-sacrifice, George; nothing like it has ever happened to me. But it must not be done!"
It flashed into my mind that I must somehow make sure of it. I added, "But--I will give this a little more thought. I believe that I am in no danger here, really. I have reason to think that I shall have positive evidence within an hour that will make my acquittal a certainty. Let me have the name of the place where you are staying, and, if I am not assured very soon of the evidence that I expect, I will come and tell you. If I do not come, promise me that you will go back home. And, George--let me give you some money to pay your fare."
"No, no!" he insisted. "I will do what you say, and if I don't hear from you by to-night I'll go back, but I won't take any money of yours; I never pay railroad fare." There were tears in his eyes as I bade him good-by. My own feelings cannot be described.
For a time I sat motionless in my chair. I had known all sorts of men. I had so often found the good and the bad hopelessly mixed in almost all the people that I knew; I wondered if any human being really could pass judgment on another. I thought, too, of that verse I had so often used: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
Well, I did not need poor George's help, but it seemed to have been ordained that I should see him again, and this happened about five years later. This time I was sitting in my office in Chicago, as of old. The telephone rang; I picked up the receiver, and a harsh voice that had a familiar vibration asked if the caller was speaking to me. I said he was. He asked, "Do you know me?" I said I thought I knew, but was not sure. He said, "This is George." I knew, and asked, "Where are you?" He answered, "In the marshal's office in the Post Office Building." I said that I would be right over. It was my old friend, George Bissett. I shook his hand through the bars and asked the marshal to let him come outside for a talk with me, which he did. I said I was sorry to see him there, and asked him to tell me all about it. He informed me that he, with another fellow, who had turned state's evidence, was indicted for stealing some five hundred thousand dollars from a building that he broke into; it was formerly the post office, but was now used by the government as a storehouse. The building was in Minneapolis, and the marshal was holding him, waiting for requisition papers to take him back. I said, "I suppose they have a good case against you." He answered that they wouldn't have a case only they found the money in a trunk. I asked where they found the trunk. He said, "In my house." I asked, "Where were you?" He answered, drily, "Oh--I was there asleep."
I reflected, and said, "Well--it looks suspicious, at the best. I don't see anything ahead but a plea of 'Guilty.' Don't bother them to get a requisition, George; just go back quietly, and I will be there in a week or so and see what can be done." I expressed regret that he had gotten into this trouble. He answered, dolefully, "So'm I; I made a clean getaway, and was going to start that paper."
In about a week I was able to go and see George, and found him safe and sound in the jail. Before going to him I had dropped in to see the district attorney who had charge of the case. He was a high-minded, humane man whom I had known for many years--Mr. Janquish, an able lawyer, who lives in Duluth, who was appointed United States district attorney by Woodrow Wilson. I told him the whole story, omitting nothing, not forgetting to tell that George had served a term in the penitentiary. I explained that he had come back there through my advice, and I wanted to make the best terms possible, within reason, and enter a plea of "Guilty." He asked if the man had ever been in the penitentiary more than that one time, and I replied that so far as I knew he never had, and if there had been anything else it would have been brought to light in Chicago; but he could take his time to look into it if he wished. I inquired what was the lowest penalty the government allowed for burglary. He said, "Two years." Which he felt would be pretty low for this case. I agreed that perhaps it was, but that I never could judge how much or how little punishment any one deserved, or if they deserved any. He finally said that if I wanted to plead my client "Guilty" we would go over and see the judge and I could tell him the story; so we went right then.
The judge thought it a strange and interesting tale and asked the district attorney what was the lowest penalty he could give him; the district attorney replied, "Two years." The judge reasoned that on account of George not making trouble about extradition, and the money all having been recovered, he would consent to giving him two years. As I wanted to go back home that night, I asked the judge to have it disposed of that day at two o'clock, which he arranged. I went to the jail with this news. It was midsummer; the weather was hot; George was sweltering. He was a large man with an enormous jaw, that was none too good to look at. He was dressed like all the other prisoners in that weather, without coat, vest or collar. His shirt had done service for a long time, and the bosom was mottled with tobacco juice. I explained our good luck and hurried away, saying I would see him later. He was delighted, as might be expected.
At two o'clock I was in the courtroom. The judge and the district attorney were there, and George was brought in. I turned to speak to him. I was shocked. How could I have neglected to instruct him to shave and put on his "Sunday clothes"! He may not have had another suit, but I might have bought him a clean shirt and collar. How could I have been so stupid? A lawyer just out of school should have thought of that. Would the sight of my client affect the judge as it affected me?
The case was called and I arose, and with very few words plead my client "Guilty." I could see that the judge was inspecting George, looking at his great size, at his heavy jaw, at the stubble on his face, the tobacco juice on his dirty shirt; poor, collarless, loyal, sweaty George! I had muffed it; I knew it, but was helpless. The judge looked him over again, asked him to stand up, voiced a few remarks about the case, then said, very slowly, and haltingly, "I sentence you to the penitentiary for two years--and--" (taking another look at George) "and--six months."
I went out with George and told him that I blamed myself for not telling him to dress properly for the occasion. He said, "Yes, I know; but I had no other shirt, and I couldn't get a razor, or get word to you," and he looked forlorn, but resigned.
Later in the afternoon I went back to see the judge. Neither of us could repress a smile. I assured him that I did not blame him. In one way I was glad, as I had always insisted that the length of time fixed for a prisoner depended as much on his appearance as upon the offense, and on how the judge felt about it, and this proved it. I told him that the only unfair element about it was that he should have given me the extra six months instead of my unfortunate client.
I left George at the courthouse door and took the train back to Chicago. Two or three years later I saw his name in a newspaper, in the nature of an obituary. He had been shot and killed in an early morning hour in the street in Detroit, in a quarrel over a woman. I don't know the details, but he seemed to have loved not wisely but too well.
Often I have thought of George Bissett; of what possibilities there were in his strong nature and his wonderful devotion. I have sighed over the motives and ideals, ambitions and limitations that determined his course, and I have felt that life had not been fair to him. He should have had his Socialist paper. I have felt about him as I have felt about thousands of others, about all of those who tread the dark road to doom--that under decent and helpful environment, and with a fair chance and some education, he would have travelled the regular route, the one called the straight path, where the pilgrim looks neither to the right nor left, but travels with the majority, on and on and on to a flower-covered grave in a respectable churchyard instead of under a layer of gravel in a potter's field.
Finally Mrs. Darrow and I were once more in Chicago. By the calendar it had been but two years since we went away, but what a long time it was! It seemed a lifetime. So much had happened; so much of the stress and work and worry that time had been lost track of entirely; duration cannot be measured by the calendar or the clock.
I knew that I had many friends in Chicago, and I also realized that, while I had a few personal enemies, as all men have, still there were a great many people who had never approved of my position on important questions. It was natural to apprehend that some of these would feel satisfaction over my trouble, and would be pleased that my influence would perhaps be weakened. Much to my surprise I found friends where I did not expect them. One who has serious trouble always has two surprises: one over the friends who drop away, and another at the supposed strangers who stand by him in his hour of need. Perhaps this is due to the fact that we exalt our seeming friends, and do not justly estimate those who have looked askance, and whom we have not really known.
It is all well enough to say that a man is presumed innocent until he is proven guilty, but those who seriously make the statement know nothing about psychology. As a matter of fact, most persons who are accused are presumed guilty, and if a jury finds them not guilty it is thought a miscarriage of justice.
There was only one view that I was sure practically every one would agree on--that, whatever the facts might be, there had been no sordid or selfish motive connected with the affair. They would know that if the charge was true it was because of my devotion to a cause and my anxiety and concern over the fate of some one else. Most people did not remember or understand about the twenty-one indictments against each defendant, that to get a disagreement in each case, or even in ten, would be of no avail. People did not know the weakness of the State's testimony against me or the overwhelming contradictions of most of the important points in Franklin's statement. They did not know that Franklin was indicted; that they did not want any one but me. They did not realize that the effort to dispose of the McNamara case by a plea of guilty was admitted by the prosecution to have begun many days before the arrest of Franklin and that the agreement for the plan had been completed before that time.
Whatever my feelings, and whatever the attitude of the public, there was but one thing to do. I must go back to work. So I went to my office without delay. I made no statement, gave no explanations, I offered no excuse or extenuation. I said nothing about the matter unless some one asked me, and then I avoided their queries as much as I could. I went straight ahead as though nothing had interrupted my course, but I was conscious that something had taken place. I offered no occasion for snubbing me, if perchance any one might have been so inclined. If people wanted to see me, my door was open; if they did not care to come I never knew it. Every house has skeletons in its closets grinning and struggling to come out. It is doubtless better that they should be free and roaming in full light of day.
My prolonged absence from Chicago was enough in itself to destroy my business. I had to begin anew. But then, I was already known and had a wide acquaintance. I did not sit in my office only to wait for some one to bring me a good fee; any one who came inside my door was welcome; whether he had money or not was of small concern. Neither then nor at any other time in my life did I go after business. I simply took it as it came, and the criminal courts and the jails are always crowded with the poor.
The first case of any importance that came to me was an indictment of a negro named Isaac Bond. A professional nurse read an advertisement in a Chicago newspaper, asking for a nurse to go to a lonely village outside the city limits, and requested the applicant to call a certain telephone number for further information. A day or two after she answered the ad some one called at her home, and she left as quickly as possible to take charge of the case. She was next seen toward dusk walking along a country road with a tall negro. The following day she was found in a lonely spot in the country under a tree. Her body was almost naked and she was badly mutilated. Whoever killed her had evidently taken her watch. Her name was engraved on the inside. The day after the murder the watch was pawned at a shop in the negro district of the city. Strenuous efforts were then made to arrest a tall negro answering the description, and many suspects were brought in.
Several years before, Isaac Bond had been convicted of murder in southern Missouri, and had served a term of four years. During this time he was assigned to the governor's office, where he worked as a messenger most of the term. The killing occurred in a gambling house where Bond was an attendant. The victim was a white man, and Bond claimed that he shot to save his own life from an attack by the white man killed. When it is remembered that this happened in the South, the deceased being a white person, it is fairly evident that Bond shot in self-defense. While on a hunt for the slayer of the nurse, the bureau of detectives looked over all the pictures of ex-convicts in their files, and found Ike Bond. He was tall and black. The officers did not know where Ike was, so they gave the information to the press; his name, his picture and full description were published in the Sunday papers. At that time Bond was working in a saloon in Gary, a town about twenty-five miles from Chicago. His job was such as falls to the black people; he cleaned the spittoons and scrubbed the floors. Had he been the janitor of a church, the story might not have been the same, which should teach every man--but what's the use? I am not a moralizer, and it would do no good anyhow.
On Saturday night Ike Bond had come to Chicago and stopped at a boarding-house for colored folk, where he had been in the habit of staying whenever he came to the city. Before he left his bed that Sunday morning the landlady took the newspaper to him. Bond at once got up and dressed and went to the detective office, explaining that he had read the story and had come to give himself up if they wanted him. He told where he was that night in full detail. They locked him up, and some of his friends came to me. Of course he had no money. I personally went to Gary and interviewed the witnesses, who were such men as frequent a cheap saloon. Most of them were afraid to testify because they feared the police. Gary is in Indiana, and we could not force them to come. But a few did come, and testified that he was in the saloon that night, fixing the date by a political meeting and torchlight parade. Two men from the pawnshop testified as to the man that brought in the watch. They saw him for only a few moments, one of them thinking that Isaac Bond was the man, the other thinking that he was not. All there was to identify him as the fellow that was seen with the luckless girl was that he was tall and was a negro.
Most identifications are of little value unless a witness has been acquainted with the subject. It takes a close acquaintance when the meeting is casual, unless there is something specially noticeable about the person; if a man is black that is identification in itself, in most minds. But poor Ike was also tall. What more could one ask? Had the defendant been a white man under the same circumstances, the prosecutor would not have asked for a conviction on the evidence. The weirdness, the condition of the dead girl, the former conviction of Bond, served to give it considerable public attention. I made the best fight I could.
The jury argued all night, and in the early morning brought in a verdict giving Isaac Bond a life sentence. The killing of the nurse was so ghastly that nothing but the doubt saved his life.
Several years later I took his case to the pardon board, and am convinced that they thought I was right. One said that he was satisfied that I was, but they did not dare touch it unless the proof was complete as to who committed the act, because the killing was so brutal and revolting.
Ike came to be fully trusted around the penitentiary, and few, if any, who knew him believed him guilty. I felt sure that he had nothing to do with the killing of the unfortunate girl. Poor Ike lived in prison for almost ten years, always protesting his innocence to me and every one else he knew. Meantime, he contracted tuberculosis, and so he died of it.
It was not long before I again had enough to do, but it was four or fiveyears before I could save enough from the simplest living to pay the staunch friends who had raised something over twenty thousand dollars to carry me through my long fight. Many, many times I have asked myself carefully if I regretted my Los Angeles experience, and I believe that I can honestly say that I do not. I feel that I had the courage and sense to make use of the long torture that I went through. What we are is the result of all the past which moulds and modifies the being. I know that the sad, hard experience made me kindlier and more understanding and less critical of all who live. I am sure that it gave me a point of view that nothing else could bring. Olive Schreiner somewhere tells the story of an artist whose wonderful colors of sunset and sunrise attracted the admiration of all who saw them. No one could imagine where he got his colors, which were the marvel of all who saw his work. When he died and they undressed him to put on his grave clothes, they found an old, deep, ragged wound just above his heart. And still they wondered where he got the color with which he mixed his paint.
What one eats does not so much matter as how one assimilates his food. The effect of our experiences depends mainly upon how we are able to fit them into our lives. I reasoned that if I had gone out into the street and a car had run over me and cut off a leg I would find a way to adjust myself to the new situation. This method I have sought to apply to every experience that has entered my life. No doubt some might have done it better, but I have done the best I could to adjust myself to the inevitables that have happened to be my lot. No one likes to hear hard-luck stories. There are those that we never can meet without having to hear a new batch of trouble and tribulation, as if no one else knows what sorrow is. Between the chronic retailer of personal ill-luck and the cheerful idiots, I have never found much to choose.
During my difficulties I used to wonder what the future would have in store this side of the grave. It did not look bright. I reflected upon what had been my following in Chicago. I recalled the night before I left for Los Angeles, when I was the speaker at a great meeting in the largest hall that could be procured in Chicago, the Auditorium. I was speaking for the candidacy of a man for mayor that I felt should be elected. The building was packed, and crowds were turned away, and I received an ovation such as men seldom get. I used to wonder if ever again such a throng would come to listen to what I might have to say. In a little more than two years after my return such an occasion came once more, in the same big Auditorium. This was during the war. The enthusiasm was more than enough. I always fear that I am playing a part, or catering, when the approval is too general and evident, because most people do not think and, as Ibsen said, "the majority is always wrong." Nothing is easier or more contemptible than stirring the masses with commonplace ideas and trite expressions.
Since the address in the Auditorium I have never been able to accept anywhere near all the invitations to speak that have been extended in Chicago, to say nothing of the world outside. Probably few men in America have ever spoken to somany people or over so long a stretch of time. I am satisfied that I like to speak in public, and although speaking often is a hardship, and in my case too often leads to unfriendly criticism--for I never could see things as others do--still I am sure that if I were not called upon I should feel sad and disappointed.
Soon after the return to Chicago we met Mr. and Mrs. Frederick D. Gardner of St. Louis. Mrs. Darrow and I were invited to their house over a week-end, and were of course delighted with the visit. Since that day we have met them at various times and places, and have come to value their friendship above that of most men and women that I know. Since our first meeting, Mr. Gardner has been twice elected governor of the State of Missouri. I have always hoped he might be elected President of the United States. This is not because I want an office, for that is entirely out of my line. I would hardly take any position unless it was very, very important and worth while--something like a prohibition agent, for instance.
It was in the summer of 1914, while visiting with my son and his family in Estes Park, Colorado, in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, that the sudden news of the war in Europe startled my senses and awakened my interest. Means of communication were none too good, but I eagerly sought and consumed every word I could get on the subject, carefully studying the dispatches sent back and forth in furious haste between European capitals and diplomats and other heads. It appeared plain to me that Germany wanted the war and that all the other nations, excepting possibly Austria, did everything in their power to avoid it. When, in violation of their express treaty, Germany sent her great army into Belgium, I at once felt that the whole world should help drive her back to her own land.
Up to this time I had believed in pacifism. Not only because I never wanted to fight, but because I considered it a sound philosophical doctrine that should rule men and states. For many years I had been an ardent reader of Tolstoy, and regarded myself as one of his disciples. When Germany invaded Belgium I recovered from my pacifism in the twinkling of an eye. It came to me through my emotions, and it left me the same way. I discovered that pacifism is probably a good doctrine in time of peace, but of no value in war time. The reasons became perfectly clear to me, and all my reading and thinking and observation since have thoroughly confirmed my view. The doctrine of pacifism involves a philosophy of the emotions that move men, and the relative importance and power of the emotions as against reason; and this, I am satisfied, hardly admits of argument.
In all situations the emotions are the moving forces among men, and through them, of states and all society. Reason has very little to do with human action. Reason is simply a method of comparing and appraising; it is always used to justify what the emotions demand. How far the reason of man can be used to inhibit emotions may be a subject of debate, but it can go but a little way. The structure of man determines his course under certain circumstances. An impression occurs, the emotion is carried by a nerve to the brain. This is automatic; just as automatic as the response of the organism to the signal. In stepping on a pin, the impression is conveyed to the brain by an afferent nerve, and immediately an efferent nerve running to the foot causes certain muscles to raise the foot. When sensations that come into the organism produce a reaction that we call rage, men will fight. Perhaps, to a small extent, these reactions can be modified by habits, but when the reaction is strong enough the response is certain.
When I read of the German army marching through Belgium I had exactly the same reaction that I would experience if a big dog should attack a little one. It was obvious that Germany had for years been preparing for war until she was really over-trained, which brought about her defeat; otherwise she would have taken Paris within six months after the beginning of the war.
Whatever the cause, or whether I was right or wrong, my sympathies were at once with France and England and Russia. This was not due to dislike of the Germans. As a matter of fact, I had found them in America more tolerant and liberty-loving than any other of our people, and as a consequence I had many friends among them, most of whom I hope I retained.
For one who felt so strongly, the early days of the war were gloomy and depressing. Through the Middle West, almost every newspaper was for Germany, and a large majority of people were anxious for her success.
For months I felt that President Woodrow Wilson seemed unconcerned, if not friendly to Germany. I am now inclined to believe that he had the right attitude, and it was my extreme feeling that misled me into doubting him. Before the United States entered the war there was little that I could do beyond expressing my opinions freely on every opportunity and occasion.
Eventually, to my gratification, Mr. Wilson spoke in no uncertain terms. Often have I heard him criticised by my old-time friends and by his political enemies because he was too slow, and because he should not have brought our country into the war at any time, but I could see no inconsistency in his procedure. It is true that he was elected the second time on the issue that he had kept us out of the war, but it was also true that Germany had then promised not to sink the ships of neutral countries, and it was after Mr. Wilson's second election that Germany withdrew her promise and gave out that she would sink the ships of neutral nations without giving any further notice, and without giving a chance to save the lives of passengers and seamen. Up to that time, at least, it was against accepted rules of war, and whatever Germany's needs might have been, President Wilson could not have avoided bringing America into the war at the time when he acted.
When we were once in the contest, I gave nearly all my time to making speeches throughout the United States. It was the first occasion when I had known of a war that I believed in. But the fact that our side so soon seemed to grow popular in America gave me misgivings, and very early I began to suspect that Big Business was unanimously enlisted on account of the vast financial interests involved; but even so, I could not see how England could possibly have kept out, and, with England in, I felt that our entry became inevitable.
At no time did I declare my adoration for my country after the manner of the professional patriot. I always distrust those who make a business of loving their country. I knew that many men and women did not believe in the war, and that as a rule they were moved by higher ideals than most of those who supported it. I felt then, and still think, that they were wrong. Over and over I went to the government offices in Chicago to save some one from imprisonment that I knew was not hostile to the United States, but who was accused of disloyalty. In most cases I succeeded because the authorities knew that I was for the war and they could trust my honesty in the matter. Luckily, as I felt, I was not invited into any of the cases of the conscientious objectors. Most of them, for the time, realized the gulf between us. I discredited the stories told of outrages by the Germans, suspecting them of being manufactured to create public opinion, and I never hesitated to say so. Later on, when I visited the warring countries at the height of the conflict, I was confident that they were not true.
Reading and experience have taught me that when governments prepare for war the first unit they mobilize is the liars' brigade. One celebrated Eastern divine went up and down the land exhibiting moving-pictures of German atrocities. He must have known that they were faked; the audience must have believed that the Germans, just before cutting off the Belgian children's hands, called in the photographers to witness and kodak the deeds. I did not tell these tales in my speeches. Reports of the presence of mutilated Belgian children then living in Chicago were constantly coming to my ears. I always offered a hundred dollars if the informant would bring one to my office or take me to see one. No one ever came back for the reward. Inevitably almost every German in America was regarded with suspicion, even when members of their families were fighting with the Allies.
As were others, I was invited to visit the seat and scene of the war, which happened to be but a short time before the massacre so suddenly ended. There I was repeatedly told gruesome yarns that my experiences in court taught me must be false.
On one occasion, on a train in France, a number of men were on their way to visit battle scenes. Most of these wore uniforms, but none of them fought. The conversation turned upon atrocities, which I promptly declared myself unable to believe. At once I was loudly taken to task for not joining with the chorus. But one man, rather large and wearing a uniform, spoke up and said that I was right. He stated that he had been working with the Y. M. C. A. and other organizations since early in the war, and had never seen nor been able to verify one single claim concerning German atrocities. This man was a clergyman from Montreal. He added that before he left home a story was told him with great care and detail about some Canadian nurses who were in a hospital that was captured by Germans, and the soldiers cut off their hands. He was so much interested in this that he began an investigation; when finally he ran it down he found that it had come from a letter written by a nurse in France stating that her hands were sore. This information ended the debate on the train. I feel especially prompted to relate the incident because the man was a clergyman.
When I returned to the United States in September they were raising another "Liberty Loan." I ventured to say that I could not see the need of asking men who needed their money to subscribe to the Liberty Loan at that time--that the war would be over before Christmas. Other speakers and various people thought that this should not be said; they had "got the habit" and enjoyed the excitement. It so happened that the war ended before the time I had set. I always was ultra-conservative.
Soon after the war was ended some of my German friends amongst the Turn Vereins asked me to speak to them about what I saw while abroad. I had resented the feeling that had grown in America against Germans. Not that I blamed any one in particular; I never believed that man was a rational being, anyhow. I knew how easy it is to fear, and how hate follows fear. And, always inevitably the great mass goes along with the crowd, particularly if appealed to with a popular slogan. I was very glad to do anything possible to generate better feeling and comprehension after the bitter hatred during the war, so I told them what I had heard and seen and knew about the German atrocities, and never missed a chance to tell it since.
When the war was over, and so many orators found themselves out of employment, I was urged to help form an organization of those patriots who, like myself, were safe in America making speeches with a view to inducing young boys to fight. It didn't appeal to me. I sensed that most of the members of the organization would be looking for office after they were all organized, and many of them did not wait that long.
Almost every day some of my friends came along parading the titles of "Colonel" and "Major" and so forth, who had been nowhere near the war, as every one knew. Thereupon I suggested that no American should have a war title if he had been anywhere east of Washington, D. C., during the struggle.
Somehow the whole thing did not look so good to me after the war was over. I began to ask myself many questions. I had been roundly denounced by many of my pacifist and radical friends. All of these were like most people; they were positive that they were right. The question did not even admit of reasoning; I soon saw not only the futility of it all but the cost of it all; I knew the effect, direct and indirect, of the torrent of malice and evil that had been let loose upon the world.
After all, was it so plain that Germany was all to blame? I wished to be right in my own opinion. I always want facts, and a chance to act on my own judgment. If I was right, how came it that the majority was on my side? Especially that large part of the majority who had never had any idealism or any gift for putting themselves in the other fellow's place; so I set to work to re-examine the whole case.
I had never been a professional patriot. I liked my own country best only because I was born here and most of my relatives and friends live here, and because I understand the language; but I never looked upon it as "God's Country." I assumed that if there was a God, and he was intelligent and humane, he should be an internationalist, so long as he was responsible for all countries equally. It must be that I always have had an internationalist's mind, although I never considered living in any other land.
On the best investigation that I could make, after I reopened the question, it seemed that Germany had wanted the war and brought it on. But was this enough to justify the conclusion that Germany was wrong? At the most, it only proved that the Allies were right, if indeed it proved that. France was invaded and forced to fight. England could not see Germany conquer France and get control of the entrance to the channel, with a seaport virtually on the Atlantic Ocean. If Germany started the war, why did she start it? Causation runs through all the acts of men. There is a cause for all things, and by the same logic there is a cause for every cause.
Germany was growing rapidly. She was an ambitious, virile, and prosperous nation. She had no chance to develop further inside her own domain. She wanted a place for her people to spread. There was plenty of vacant space on earth, but England held the vantage point on every sea on the globe. Germany could not grow unless England and France made a chance for her. Germany had tried and was trying to find outlets and colonies, and she had been balked in every effort. She could not expand without fighting. At least, that was the way Germany saw it, and that need was the cause that caused the war. But what was the cause of the cause of the cause? England wished to own the seas, because to control the seas meant to control the lands. It is useless to go further into causation, but it could be pursued to infinity with perfect logic.
What does it prove? It shows simply that all of it was inevitable. It shows what is true in even wider fields, that no one can be justly blamed. Men are here on this earth for a few brief moments of eternity. All men and all people are seeking power and place. From the ages of Egypt to the England of today, there has been a constant succession of rulers of the world. Inevitably England will one day lose her prestige. Then will come America, to grow and decay as others have risen and fallen. No one has anything to do or say about it all, for back of all is Destiny that holds the reins. What is Destiny? In Algebra we let x equal the unknown quantity. In human affairs we call x Destiny.
The world could not pass through the welter of hate and destruction of life and property of the four years of war without bringing dire results. Indeed, the war well-nigh wiped out the best products of civilization. In America it brought an era of tyranny, brutality, and despotism that, for the time at least, undermined the foundations upon which our republic was laid.
No sooner had peace been declared than the same organization that had taken over the management of the war procured an Espionage Act, which forbade free discussion, either orally or in the press. This infamous law appeared almost simultaneously in Congress and in each of the several States of the Union. It was promptly passed under the name of Patriotism. The method of its appearance and the similarity of all its provisions in the various States showed its common origin. Men were arrested, indicted and convicted, and sent to prison, all over the United States, for daring to express their opinions by speech or press. Any so-called radicalism was unpatriotic because contrary to the views of the exploiting class.
Twelve members of the Communist party were indicted in Chicago, and I undertook to help carry on their defense. No act of any kind was proven against them. They had adopted a political platform which declared in favor of Communism. The case dragged out to a month. The State was allowed to bring into the evidence the Communist Manifesto of Russia. They were permitted to use evidence about riots in Seattle, Wash., and to present any act or event that had occurred in any part of the world that could be connected with any communistic movement, great or small. No intelligent man believes that old political structures die and new ones take their place without trouble, and often bloodshed. It took eight years of war to bring about the American Revolution. No new system is born without birth pains.
The twelve defendants may have been wise or foolish, but every one of them was an idealist who had committed no unlawful act. Every one was convicted. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court of Illinois, and that court affirmed the verdict. However, the chief justice of the court, Orrin Carter, wrote a vigorous dissenting opinion which breathed the spirit of the liberty of the individual. The governor, quoting from this opinion, then pardoned them before they spent a single day in prison. All over the country similar verdicts were rendered, and many men were sent to prison under this outrageous statute. In course of time it was repealed or died a natural death.
Wars always bring about a conservative reaction. They overwhelm and destroy patient and careful efforts to improve the condition of man. Nothing can be heard in the cannon's roar but the voice of might. All the safeguards laboriously built to preserve individual freedom and foster man's welfare are blown to pieces with shot and shell. In the presence of the wholesale slaughter of men the value of life is cheapened to the zero point. What is one life compared with the almost daily records of tens of thousands or more mowed down like so many blades of grass in a field? Building up a conception of the importance of life is a matter of slow growth and education; and the work of generations is shattered and laid waste by machine guns and gases on a larger scale than ever before. Great wars have been followed by an unusually large number of killings between private citizens and individuals. These killers have become accustomed to thinking in terms of slaying and death toward all opposition, and these have been followed in turn by the most outrageous legal penalties and a large increase in the number of executions by the state. It is perfectly clear that hate begets hate, force is met with force, and cruelty can become so common that its contemplation brings pleasure, when it should produce pain. This demoralization has never been more evident than in the United States since the end of the late war.
The main business of the world during the dark years of that monstrous conflict was the slaughtering of human beings. The next chief activity was money-making. Production was so necessary for the purpose of killing that it took into industry thousands who had never worked in ordinary times. It increased prices and wages beyond the wildest dreams. When the war was over, this movement was for a time kept in force by the momentum that it had gathered. Every sort of legislation was encouraged if it would raise prices or increase production or speculation. Every discussion of real problems or criticism of policies was frowned on, and even prosecuted by the worshippers of Mammon. With a few slight interruptions, business, or rather gambling, rode triumphantly over the land until the panic on the stock market in October and November of 1929. Then men and women who thought themselves wealthy saw their riches suddenly take flight.
This panic was much more than the collapse of the false and fictitious prices prevailing on the Stock Exchange. Since the beginning of the World War, which called into activity all the money power of the world, there was a constant increase of individual activity, especially in the United States. America indulged in a general orgy of selfishness and greed. Individuals forgot their old ideals and all the principles of political economy that had stood the test of years. A hundred and twenty million people of the richest and most prosperous nation in the world entered into a game of grab. The cry of efficiency drowned out the old American slogans of Liberty and Equality. The efficiency idea was coupled with progress, and both words were construed to mean the making of as many things as men and machines could possibly produce. With this went the effort of every one engaged in the crusade to raise the price of every article produced. The activity took no account of feeding, clothing and providing comfort for men and women, but only the nervous selfish interest of each one concerned in getting all he possibly could out of the general mass, and regardless of the public welfare. The result was the same as has been recorded in all lands and ages--enormous fortunes in the hands of the few, while the great majority were left dependent and poor and with no opportunity to protect themselves against disaster.
The enormous production and demonstration of wealth created a taste and desire for wealth among even men and women who were fairly content with their ways of life. These were seized with the prevailing disease. The stories of fabulous riches growing out of gambling in stocks, with the apparent increasing prices week after week and month after month, infected every one with the gambling madness. Even the poorest, who could possibly get any money, risked it in the market the same as they were wont to do in lotteries and other games of chance. The higher the prices soared the greater the number of stock transfers each day. Sober and conservative citizens practically gave up their small methods and means of earning a living in a wild attempt to get rich, as others had, without work.
The money lenders and usurers were busy. This was their harvest time. The banks of the country no longer loaned the money furnished by the government to business men at moderate rates. Instead of this, they sent it to New York to be loaned on the Stock Exchange at ten, twelve, and fifteen per cent.
It required no wizard or even genius to foresee the end. The collapse of the dream is now history. In spite of the fact that government officials tried everything in their power to lure the business men and the capitalists to risk their money, to stimulate circulation, and put new life into the dead, it was of no avail. When the pulmotor is taken to the sufferer it is almost invariably followed by the hearse. It was soon evident that the holdings and investments of the small and common man had been swept away. The effect on all business was practically automatic. It meant the loss and lack of employment, lower wages, less buying power, and general distress. The experience taught one lesson, that no one wants to learn: the ease of production, the folly of poverty in a world well able to furnish plenty for all, a world where abundance might and should prevail. But it has not taught the managers of industry, of business and politics, that the great problem of prosperity no longer depends on the production of wealth, but on its distribution. Without converting the world to any fantastic doctrines or distant dreams, a few men with the organizing ability of our Captains of Industry could easily and rapidly solve this problem if they could only be inspired with the desire to help their fellow man.
If any lesson is to be taught by the great war it should be the utter futility of that method of settling disputes. The loss of life and property was so enormous that it should seem that the first problem to be considered by the horrified world should be how to prevent future wars. This matter has had the attention of politicians for the last ten years, and men have hoped some scheme would be evolved to prevent nations from going to war. But all of these plans are based on the almost universal delusion that man is naturally a brute and that nothing but force can bring order. If man is so hopelessly brutal it would seem illogical to expect that one division of brutes should be trusted with keeping another mass of brutes in order. If the world learned anything from experience, it would have abandoned this plan long ago.
The truth is, that no section of the human race was ever entirely evil or wholly good; no part was ever all belligerent or absolutely peaceful. Man is not so constructed. Nations as well as individuals may be induced or trained toward war or peace. There never was a war that was not preceded by a cause or causes, of course. If nations persist in treating each other as enemies instead of friends, they will always find causes for wars. In ancient times, when separate tribes rarely saw or knew about each other, a stranger meant an enemy and a cause for war. The peoples of modern nations are bound together by trade and commerce, by railroads and steamships, by political and religious beliefs and customs, creating acquaintance and friendship, and to a certain extent destroying the old barriers that once antagonized alien states.
All this should establish new attitudes and adjustments between the various countries of the world; but even with modern tendencies and advantages states are continually creating causes for enmity against foreign powers; nations develop and encourage super-patriotism, and their members are taught that their particular country is the wisest and worthiest of all on earth. Trade is regarded as an evil instead of a source of improvement and culture and cooperation, and these madmen vie with each other to put up tariff walls to bar out foreign products, at the same time individually needing foreign markets for their own goods; they seek vantage points in every sea and land that they may control the commerce of the world, and put up restrictions as to immigration and intercourse. All this leads to building forts and battleships and standing armies, and a general display of pomp and power. Everything is done to promote foreign enmities and jealousies instead of fostering and extending the friendship that makes for the preservation of family and community.
A large part of the wealth of every country is wasted in armaments on land and sea. The jingoist and super-patriot make a business of cultivating rivalry and hatred, and thus generating wars. Force cannot keep men from hating, and hate is the forerunner of war. Compelling nations not to fight would mean the establishing of a central organization strong enough to destroy any two or three countries indicating opposition, and such an organization would be a menace to the freedom of the world. The idea of the League of Nations was born out of the throes of the world conflict, when men deemed war the greatest evil in the world. But this is not so; tyranny is a greater evil and a worse menace than war. If the rulers of the world once come to think that there can be no resistance to their tyranny, civilization and liberty will go down in chaos and despair.
Patrick Henry's great sentence, "Give me Liberty or give me Death!" was full of courage, idealism, and truth. Never has America had more reason for cherishing this spirit than to-day. When the world shall courageously and systematically undertake to remove the inducing causes of war we shall know that a real peace-movement has been born. In this behalf, every nation should use all its endeavors to do away with armaments on land and sea. If nations are to prosper and maintain their rights only through a show of force, then the large nations will overcome the smaller states, of course. The more money and energy that one nation expends on war, the more the others are compelled to spend, so that the movement ends in universal waste without accomplishing any good.
If nations preserve their individuality by physical strength only, then, whether with or without preparedness, might will survive. If all nations should disarm and still have war they might as well begin with bare hands and pitchforks and clubs as to start with the modern equipment for killing.
However, it is a mistake to believe that the autonomy of a country depends upon power alone. If this were the case, not over five or six nations in the world could sustain themselves. What we know as moral forces are even more important than guns and battleships. These forces would constantly grow stronger if nations relied upon them and cultivated them instead of the munitions of warfare. It may be that the world will never be at peace, and that liberty will never be secure in any land. If liberty and "peace on earth, good will to men" shall ever prevail it will be after forts and arsenals and hatreds have disappeared.
In the summer of 1924 I was called into the defense of the Loeb-Leopold case in Chicago. Few cases, if any, ever attracted such wide discussion and publicity; not only in America, but anywhere in the world. Two boys, named Richard Loeb, who was seventeen years old, and Nathan Leopold, eighteen years old, were indicted for murder. Both were sons of wealthy families, well known and highly respected in Chicago and elsewhere.
A young boy, named Robert Franks, fourteen years old, had disappeared on his way home from school. He did not return that night, and the parents were greatly alarmed over his absence. The next day the father received a letter saying that his son was safe and would be returned on the payment of a ransom of ten thousand dollars. The letter contained explicit directions as to how the money should be delivered. Mr. Franks was to put it in a package, stand on the rear platform of a certain train leaving Chicago about four o'clock that afternoon, and throw the money off at a lonely spot near a grain-elevator south of Englewood. Mr. Franks went to the bank for the money and was preparing to go to the train when the afternoon papers printed a story about the discovery of a dead boy lying naked in a culvert under a railroad crossing some twenty miles south of the city. Everything led to the belief that it was Robert Franks. The information was telephoned to the Franks home, and the father felt satisfied that the poor boy was his son, and he really was.
Before going to the place on the prairie where the money was to be delivered, both Loeb and Leopold saw the story in the papers, so, of course, they did not go after the money. The authorities immediately began an investigation. A number of suspects were brought in within a few days and put through strict grillings, as is usual in cases of murder. Two or three of these were seriously injured in their standing, and suffered notoriety and loss of positions from which they have never recovered, although wholly innocent of the charge.
In the inspection of the place and surroundings where the dead boy was discovered, a pair of eyeglasses was found. The oculist who sold them was traced, and he stated that he had never sold but two pairs just like that--one of these purchasers was now in Europe, so obviously he could not have been in any way connected with the crime; the other customer was a young man named Nathan Leopold. The Leopold home was near the Franks residence. These two families and the Loeb family had been neighbors and friends for years. Young Leopold was a graduate of the University of Chicago and was then in his second year of the law course in that university. He was to leave for Europe in a few days. This trip had been planned for some time. His father had given him the money for this summer vacation, and the tickets were purchased.
The eyeglasses having been sold to Nathan Leopold, the State's attorney sent for him and questioned him as to his whereabouts that night. Leopold answered everything that was asked, saying that on that night he and Loeb were automobiling in the parks and the country around Chicago, driving Leopold's car. No one in the State's attorney's office or anywhere else had the slightest idea that Leopold could possibly be involved in the case, but out of prudence it was thought best to hold him a short time for further investigation. The boy, after advising with his father and Mr. Benjamin Bachrach, consented to this, the two older men having not the faintest suspicion that young Leopold had anything whatever to do with the affair.
The next day the officers sent for Richard Loeb and asked him about that evening; he said he did not remember where he was, but thought that he and Leopold went driving, but could not tell where they went. It seemed to have been agreed that if anything happened and they were arrested within a week they should tell their pre-arranged story, as afterwards told by Leopold; but if arrested after that they were to say that they did not remember where they drove. As fate would have it, Nathan was arrested before the week was over, and Loeb after its expiration. Still, the officers did not lay any stress on the variance in their statements. Both boys were of wealthy families and always had plenty of money; no one could think of any possible motive for committing such a deed. It occurred to one of the officers, however, to send for Leopold's chauffeur and question him. The chauffeur said that Leopold's car was not used that night; that it was in the garage for repairs. This story was easily verified, and the boys were questioned further. In a day or two they broke down and confessed and told their story with all its ghastly details. The clothes were taken off the Franks boy so that identity might not be disclosed; some of them were placed in the lagoon in Jackson Park; some of them were buried; and some were burned. The boys were taken to all the places covered by their route, including the place where the clothes were buried, and their story was fully corroborated by what was found.
It seemed that Loeb had gotten it into his head that he could commit a perfect crime, which should involve kidnapping, murder, and ransom. He had unfolded his scheme to Leopold because he needed some one to help him plan and carry it out. For this plot Leopold had no liking whatever, but he had an exalted opinion of Loeb. Leopold was rather undersized; he could not excel in sports and games. Loeb was strong and athletic. He was good at baseball and football, and a general favorite with all who knew him. Both of them always had money. Loeb had two thousand dollars in cash, a number of Liberty Bonds whose coupons had not been cashed, and a standing order to draw money whenever he wanted it by asking the cashier at his father's office.
Several times there was trouble between the boys about going on with their plan. At one time their correspondence, offered in evidence, and published by the press, revealed that they nearly reached the point of open breach, and extreme violence.
When their plans were actually completed they arranged to get a car from a renting office, and Leopold, under another name, was to refer to Loeb, also under another name, as reference for the expense and safe return of the car. Loeb's assumed name was given as that of a resident of the Hotel Morrison, where he had rented a room and deposited a valise in which there happened to be a book drawn by him from the University of Chicago Library.
Before this they had written the ransom letter. This was addressed "Dear Sir," as they had no idea whose boy would be taken and to whom the letter would be mailed.
Around four o'clock one afternoon they got into the car, drove within a few squares of Loeb's home, along one of the best residence districts of Chicago, over to a private school that Loeb had formerly attended, arriving there just as the afternoon session was over and the boys were coming out. One after another was surveyed by the boys in the car until poor Robert Franks came along. He was invited into the car for a ride; he got into the front seat with Leopold, who was driving; and within ten minutes he was hit on the head by a chisel in the hands of Loeb, was stunned by the blow, and soon bled to death. All this happened in a thickly populated section of Chicago and close to the homes of all three of the boys.
The car was then driven slowly for twenty miles through the main streets and parts of the south side of the city, solidly built up and congested with automobiles going in all directions. It was summertime; the afternoons were long and evenings late. Leopold was a botanist and a lover of birds. He had often been in that far section gathering flowers and catching birds; he had a rare collection and was creating a museum for himself; he had mounted the birds with great skill, and many of them were very valuable. During these excursions he had become thoroughly familiar with that out-of-the-way locality and remembered the culvert under the railroad tracks, which could be reached only by an unfrequented road. When they got into that vicinity the sun had not yet disappeared, so they drove for an hour or two waiting for the twilight to fade into deeper darkness. Then they placed the boy in the culvert and drove away.
When they got back to town they took out the ransom letter and addressed it to Mr. Jacob Franks, the father of the boy that they had left out in the country. They then went to a restaurant, ate a hearty meal, and drove to Leopold's home. This residence was in a well-settled block next door to a large apartment building. The boy was killed in the rented car and it was soaked with blood, not only inside but also on the outside. They left the car standing in the street in front of the house while they went up to Leopold's room and discussed the events of the day until a late hour, when Loeb went home.
In the morning after the killing Loeb came back to Leopold's home. They took the car into the garage and washed it as best they could, but did not remove all the stains, as the evidence brought out. When the car was dry, Leopold took it back to the agency where he had hired it.
Loeb is a good-natured, friendly boy. I realize that most people will not be able to understand this, and perhaps will not believe it. Some may remember Daniel Webster's address to a jury in a murder case. He pictured the accused: his low brow, his murderous eye, his every feature loudly proclaimed him a fiend incarnate. One would suppose from Daniel Webster's foolish argument that the defendant would be recognized as a murderer wherever he went. A part of this tirade was published in the old school-reader, and we used to "speak" it on the last day of the term. We youngsters wondered why the Lord needed to put a mark on Cain's brow, for after reading Daniel Webster's recipe we could go out on the street and pick out killers everywhere, for all seemed to be marked. But Daniel Webster was not a psychologist; he was a politician and an orator, and that was enough for one man.
"Dicky" Loeb was not only a kindly looking boy but he was and is a kindly boy. He was never too busy to personally do a favor for any one that he chanced to know. There was no reason why he should be put into prison for life excepting for the strange and unfortunate circumstances that might not occur again in a thousand years.
Leopold had not the slightest instinct toward what we are pleased to call crime. He had, and has, the most brilliant intellect that I ever met in a boy. At eighteen he had acquired nine or ten languages; he was an advanced botanist; he was an authority on birds; he enjoyed good books. He was often invited to lecture before clubs and other assemblages; he was genial, kindly, and likable. His father was wealthy, and this son was his great pride. Every one prophesied an uncommon career for this gifted lad. He is now in prison for life for the most foolish, most motiveless, act that was ever conceived in a diseased brain by his boon companion.
Leopold had scarcely seen Robert Franks before the fatal day. Loeb had played tennis with him and they were good friends. Why, then, did these two boys commit this rash and horrible deed? I presume they know less about the reason than others who have studied the case and the boys as well. There are many things that human beings cannot understand, and of all the fathomless questions that confront and confuse men, the most baffling is the human mind. No one can tell what will be the outcome of any life. To quote Oscar Wilde:
"For none can tell to what Red Hell
His sightless soul may stray."
The terrible deed had been committed. The two boys were in the shadow of the gallows; their confession had been made; their families were in the depths of despair, and they came to me to assist the lawyers already employed. My feelings were much upset; I wanted to lend a hand, and I wanted to stay out of the case. The act was a shocking and bizarre performance; the public and press were almost solidly against them.
In a terrible crisis there is only one element more helpless than the poor, and that is the rich. I knew then, and I know now, that except for the wealth of the families a plea of guilty and a life sentence would have been accepted without a contest. I knew this, and I dreaded the fight.
No client of mine had ever been put to death, and I felt that it would almost, if not quite, kill me if it should ever happen. I have never been able to read a story of an execution. I always left town if possible on the day of a hanging. I am strongly--call it morbidly, who will--against killing. I felt that I would get a fair fee if I went into the case, but money never influenced my stand one way or the other. I knew of no good reason for refusing, but I was sixty-eight years old, and very weary. I had grown tired of standing in the lean and lonely front line facing the greatest enemy that ever confronted man--public opinion.
But, I went in, to do what I could for sanity and humanity against the wave of hatred and malice that, as ever, was masquerading under its usual nom de plume: "Justice."
We lawyers for Loeb and Leopold knew that it would be impossible to get much time for the preparation of the case. People who know nothing of Criminal Courts are always declaiming against the long delays. Truth is, when there is a public outcry against some defendant, all other business in the court is set aside for a criminal prosecution. The case must be tried at once while the haters are hating and hot on the trail.
Our attention is constantly called to the English and their way; but their newspapers are not permitted to publish details of crimes, or refer to the suspected authors, or otherwise to stir up the mob to anger against the defendant. In America, if the case is one of public interest, a campaign that reeks with venom is at once launched against the accused; columns of interviews and pictures are printed each day; what the defendant is alleged to have said is scattered in bold type all over the pages before the case is tried, and members of the family are followed about and forced to talk; all the neighbors and even casual acquaintances are interviewed, and the stories grow lurid and appalling. Newspaper sales shoot up beyond belief. Day by day efforts are made to get new versions so that the public will not by any means slacken their thoughts and feelings about the matter. Every prospective juror called into the box knows the case, and all its details, as presented by the press. He has all the bias of a partisan, and it is not possible for him to give the defendant a fair trial. Juror after juror is excused because of having an opinion. The lawyers for the defense are roundly criticised for the time they take, as though they should join the State and the mob and help get their clients hanged. Then the law must be changed; members of the legislature are politicians, and to them the voice of the people is the voice of God, so they must pass a new law authorizing a person to sit on a jury even if he already has an opinion but says he can set it aside.
Every one who thinks knows how common it is for men to set aside their views. Most men never have but one or two ideas, anyhow, and to these they hang like grim death. How often do people set aside their beliefs on politics, on religion, or any other question if in conflict with something they want to do? To set aside an opinion without evidence is not only psychologically impossible, but is physically absurd. Every man realizes that when he happens to be personally interested in some matter in court; whether the case be civil or criminal, on every question and point, he weighs what will be the attitude of the judge, and how it will affect the judge's mind. He feels the same about the jury. It is hard enough for the accused to get a fair hearing no matter how much caution is taken.
We knew that seldom had a case been handled like this one; and every one, far and near, had made up their minds what should be done. Naturally we wanted delay; all that we could possibly get. We needed it for preparing our case, but we needed it still more so that the passions of men might have a chance to cool. We were aware that there could be no defense except the mental condition of the boys. The statutes of Illinois provide that for murder in the first degree a sentence of death may be imposed, or one of imprisonment in the penitentiary for not less than fourteen years. And still, to this day the case is discussed as if the penalty was unheard of in the case of murder. From the beginning we never tried to do anything but save the lives of the two defendants; we did not even claim or try to prove that they were insane. We did believe and sought to show that their minds were not normal and never had been normal.
The statutes of Illinois provide that on a plea of guilty the court may hear evidence in mitigation or aggravation of the offense. I doubt if any judge anywhere in any civilized country ever failed to hear evidence or statements in mitigation or aggravation of an offense when he had to use his judgment as to the severity of the sentence to be imposed. With or without the statute, courts always find out what they can about the defendants before passing sentence.
Before any lawyer was employed the State had called into their counsel the best-known alienists in Chicago. This made it necessary for us to go outside the State of Illinois to find alienists to examine the defendants. About that time the National Association of Psychiatrists were holding their convention in Atlantic City. We at once delegated Mr. Walter Bachrach, one of the counsel for the defendants, to go to the convention and secure three or four of those of highest standing in their profession to come and make an investigation of the two boys. This was absolutely necessary. Thereupon we secured Doctor William Alanson White, Doctor William Healy and Doctor Bernard Gluck to come to make the examination.
Doctor White had for many years been superintendent of the United States Hospital for the Insane, in Washington, D. C., and had been long recognized as one of the leading authorities in the country. He has written more books on mental abnormalities, and the human mind in general, than any other man in America. Doctor William Healy was then, and is now, the psychiatrist of the Baker Foundation of Boston, organized by a judge with intelligence and a philanthropic spirit for the purpose of examining and reporting the delinquents that reached the Juvenile Court in Boston. Doctor Healy, years before, had helped in the establishing of the Juvenile Court in Chicago, and for a long time was in charge of the examination of the delinquents that were brought into its jurisdiction. He had written extensively on these subjects and was highly regarded and respected the world over. Doctor Bernard Gluck had for years been the alienist specialist appointed by the State of New York, having general charge and supervision of examining the inmates of prisons of the State. He was considered as unquestionably one of the most brilliant alienists in America.
These three physicians together with Doctor Bowen, of Boston, and Doctor Hurlburt, an able young alienist of Chicago, met in Chicago. Doctor Bowen was an expert whose business related to the careful and specific action of ductless glands, that now universally are believed to have so much of importance to do with human conduct. From the time of our entry into the case until the matter was called into court we were able to secure only a week's delay.
Two indictments were returned against each of the boys: one for murder and one for kidnapping. A few years before this a case of the kidnapping of a child in Illinois attracted a great deal of attention, indignation, and discussion, at which time, in obedience to the demand of the crowd, the legislature passed a law providing the same punishment for kidnapping as for murder. If they had used a grain of sense people would have foreseen that the statute would tend to the killing of every one kidnapped in order to destroy the evidence; murder could not add to the penalty if the offenders were caught. But the public and the legislature did not think so far.
Both the indictments against the boys were returned into court and were automatically placed on the docket of the chief justice, who, at the time, was the Honorable John Caverly. We spent considerable time deliberating as to what we should do. The feeling was so tense and the trial was so near that we felt we could not save the boys' lives with a jury. It seemed out of the question to find a single man who had not read all about the case and formed a definite opinion. Judge Caverly had formerly been a judge of the Municipal Court and had helped form the Juvenile Court, and we believed that he was kindly and discerning in his views of life. After thorough consideration we concluded that the best chance was on a plea of guilty. Only a few knew what was to be done--the boys and their parents, two or three relatives, and the attorneys in the case. A large and expectant crowd was eagerly awaiting the opening of the court. I arose, and in very few words that we had most carefully prepared, spoke of our anxiety in the matter, and the difficulty of getting a fair trial, and said that under the circumstances we had decided to plead guilty in both cases.
Of course the State and every one else were taken by surprise. The pleas were accepted and entered without objection or delay. What we most feared was that if the State had any conception of our plan they would bring up only one case at a time, saving a chance, if given a life-sentence, to bring up the second case and, as it were, catch us on the rebound. We were conscious of the risk we were taking and determined to take one chance instead of facing two.
When the pleas were entered the reporters made a wild rush for the door to broadcast the news, but it took some time for the audience to comprehend what was happening, and the surprise was very great. Finally the astonishment in the courtroom subsided and the people sat quiet and waited for the next step. As the State had not been expecting our move, a continuance was granted until the next day.
Never did I have a more hectic life in an equal length of time than through the weeks that elapsed during the hearing of the case and the time used by the judge for consideration and preparation of his opinion. There was little rest by day and but little sleep at night. Of course, long accounts were run every day in the press. On the hearing of the case some forty newspaper reporters from all the main cities of America and all the press associations presented themselves. The proceedings became front-page matter in every hamlet of the country, and were closely followed in all parts of the world. I seldom went to my office in those troublous days, and rarely read any of the letters that came in stacks. These were usually abusive and brutal to the highest degree.
The public seemed to think that we were committing a crime in defending two boys, who probably needed it as much as any two defendants ever on trial for their lives. The most senseless and the most unreasonable criticism was indulged in against the defendants and their attorneys because of the lengthy hearing of the case. It was often asserted that no such proceedings could have been possible anywhere else, and yet the whole process was perfectly regular and would have been so in any State or country where the court had any power to fix the degree of punishment. To be sure the time allowed to lawyers and witnesses was more or less in the control of the court, but the procedure was fixed by the law, and was entirely regular and usual.
While the defense protested that the State should not be permitted to show the details of the killing on a plea of guilty, the State contended that they had the right to show it as bearing upon the condition of mind of the defendants, and the aggravation or mitigation of the penalty. Whatever undue length of time was consumed was caused by the State, as we offered no evidence of any kind on the subject. On the other hand, the State put in all the evidence of the killing with the greatest minuteness and detail. None of these witnesses were cross-examined.
Week after week the trial dragged along. The courtroom, the corridors, and the streets outside were always thronged with those curious to get glimpses of what was going on. The court and every one and everything connected with the affair were strictly guarded as we went back and forth. The days were hard and strenuous, the evenings and nights were given over to consultations and discussions.
When the representatives of the State had consumed all the time they wished, we put on ten to fifteen witnesses, mainly schoolmates of the two boys, who testified to their strange actions and their belief that neither of them was normal. In spite of our desires, some of them went so far as to express the opinion that they were insane. We then called our alienists, who told fully about the condition of the boys, as they understood them. Both boys were decidedly deficient in emotions, as shown by physical tests.
The emotions are most important in keeping both young and old from the commission of unusual acts. To one in possession of normal emotional structure, the thought of any act seriously forbidden by custom, law, or normal feelings is automatically immediately revolting. No such revulsion comes to one of a certain defective nervous system. These boys, especially Loeb, had carried the phantasies usual in children into later youth. Loeb had read and studied detective stories since he was very young and had experimented a great deal as an amateur detective since childhood. The detective was always the hero of the stories that he read, and he conceived the idea that a perfect crime could be accomplished that would baffle for all time the real detectives and police. He had lived with this dream for years. When the story of the killing of Robert Franks was published broadcast he went from place to place with the detectives, telling them how he thought it might have happened, and who might be responsible for the deed. His theories came close to the facts, as they were ultimately disclosed. He bought every edition of the newspapers as the story came out and talked of nothing else. He reminded the detectives that the first stories had spoken of a telephone message being sent from somewhere in Englewood the morning after the disappearance and asked why they did not go to every telephone booth in Englewood and thus probably get a clue. The detectives took his advice, and it transpired that he had done the telephoning himself. He talked incessantly to his family about the affair, unfolding his theories as to the way it all came about. Both he and Leopold were incipient paranoiacs. The whole case disclosed no motive that could induce a sane mind and normal person to commit such a deed.
The intelligence of the public is pretty well shown by their attitude toward the defense o