Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1885-04-24
THE RAILR0AD'PAGETRIAL
VALUABLE VERBATIM TESTIMONY
And "A Review of some Points i'm the Case,
by an Occasional OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
ular Report of the Trial-The Evil
dence of Experts.

RUTLAND, VT, April IA few days
ago the Rutland Herald made great ado
about letter of your correspondent from
this village, giving few of the inside facts
about the Page trial 1t was so clearly a
case of buster that your correspondent
thought it unworthy his attention. But
to let the public understand the, situation
of affairs here, it may be we'll for me to
recur to it now. The public has a right
to know that the Herald is in the hands
of the Clements, who are virtually parties
in the case. They control the Herald alb
soutely, and to make sure that the paper
would carefully reflect the Clement side
of the case during the trial they
placed relative i'll charge of its
columns short time before the
the case opened. He occupies a position
in the Office wholly new in Vermont jour
naliSm and such mantle Herald hay
ing already an experienced and compe-
tent editor-is needed there about as
much as n cat needs two tails-and his
services are about as valuable as the ser
vices of the cats extra caudal appendage
would be. Yet he has undisputed sway
and edits everything that is printed
from the pettiest item of town cores
pondence to the leading editorials and the
Page trial
The Herald assumed for the occasion
great show of virtuouS Indignation at the
idea that any newspaper or correspondent
should dare to look ut the trial through
any other than its iaundced eyes
1t screamed like an old woman
because your correspondent show
ed up in its true light the persecution
OF Gov. Page by his sworn enemies. The
Herald at the same time took occasion to
commend its own report, stating that 1t
gave the news of the trial fully and i'm
partially" Those who attend The trial
aud 40 Il - car 4-il
see the insincerity and inacuracy of this
statement. The Herald deceives nobody
who has the opportunity OF hearing the
trial, but to the great majority of its
readers It conveys false IMPRESSION OF
the trial by claiming to print Il verbatim
report, when it prints only Il small part of
the account, garbled in the interest OF the
Clements
For instance on April Q, out of seventy
six legal cap pages of testimony the Her
aid published only nineteen, emitting many
material points that bore against the
plaintiffs. For example, whenever Mr.
Haven was questioned regarding the
overissue of stock he refused to answer on
the ground that he would criminate
himself. This. it would seem, was of i'm
portance enough, if anything was, to call
for verbatim reporting, but the Herald
SmoOthed over and omitted enough to
keep the ordinary reader from catching
the point.
Last saturdays Herald furnished a still
more conspicuous instance of unfairness.
There has been brisk fight over the at
tempt of the Clements to get Gov. Pages
full bank account into the case, and they
have howled and shouted that they had
no opportunity to get ut the account at
all. The following testimony, which !
extract verbatim from the StcnOgrapher's
report (Which the Herald omitted entirely,
because it showed the defendants true
position in regard to his private bank ac
HAY plap1lN "a
Herald's reports are
Mr. Burnett-lt comes as we appre
bend, exactly down to this that the pri-
vate bank account of Gov Page through
series of years, his private transactions
and transactions connected with other
corporations III which there have passed
through sums of money of the Rutland
railroad or through which sums of that
money had passed-whether that makes
it competent to put in the whole of that
account That is ali there is OF this ques-
ton.
Judge Veazey-As | understand, the
rule is well settled everywhere that where
an agent mikes his private account with
his agent business, the whole account is
always subject to investigation in the
trial of the matter pertaining to his
agency. | think that is laid down in all
the elementary works to that effect.
Where he mixes the accounts himself
then the whole of ii must become subject
to investigation, if necessary
Mr.. Burnett-We do not think that rule
applies here at all that instead of being
mixed this was simply an item passing
through this account and landing IN its
proper place and that it is perfectly suS-
Ceptable of identification and following.
Judge Neazey-That is quite likely but
in order to find out what those items were
you have to investigate the account.
Mr. Burnett-Cnd Undoubtedly But we
think your Honor has not understood our
n rat ~
From the beginning we have said to the
gentlemen-I have heard Col. Walker say
distinctly at the outset: We concede TO
your experts every facility to investigate
this account, and the only objection we
make is that the gentleman who is Gov.
Pages bitterest enemy and with whom
he has other special litigation shall not
nose into that account to get data or ma
terial. We don't know that he will, but
we insist that he should not be permitted
the right to be present and see that Il
transcript should not be taken. Finally
we yielded that And now for IA week
this gentleman, Mr. Davy, with an asso-
ciate expert of theirs, has been ut that ac-
count without control. And we have not
the slightest objection to the fullest eX-
animation of anything that can have any
possible bearing upon railroad money.
Now we insist that that is fair. Ordinar-
lily ii they wanted to get that account in
not get the deposition of the bank officer,
or if he refused to tender the books for
examination, they wonld be put to their
suit in equity to get IA discovery If they
had picked out a transcript, having plenty
of time and opportunity we would have
been ready to meet that transcript. This
all grows out of their effort to get Gov.
Pages account spread upon the record
here. Further conversation between the
counsel as TO access to the books of plain
tiff.
Extract from testimony of Israel Davy
on cross examination by Mr. Burnett:
O. You stated that these books were
brought out of the vault into the front
Office about two weeks ago. A. Yes sir.
q. At whose request, and for what pur-
pose : A. They were brought out partly
to make room for the books of the Mer-
chants National bank, and partly for the
accommodation of any one who came to
look up matters in regard to this case.
G. Who did look themup? A. | have
dom Ia ,,f,,