Los Angeles herald., 1892-10-30
.M'LACHLAN ARGUES HIS CASE,
The District Attorneys Plea
for Reelection.
He Is Proud of His Record as a
Public Prosecutor.
Extracts from Speech Delivered by
Him at Long Beach Last Night
in Reply to Mr.. Dillon's
Arraignment.

| Arrangement
The celebrated speech delivered by
Mr.. III. 9. Dillon, at Downey, short
time ago, in which he paid his respects
to the present Republican county Off
cials in general, and to the district at
torney in particular, has called forth a
reply from Mr.. McLachlan. Following
are extracts from a speech delivered by
Mr.. McLachlan, at Long Beach, last
night:
II regret to be obliged to refer to mat
ters personal to myself. l deplore per
sonalities in any campaign. Two years
ago when ran for this office against the
Hon. M. e. G. Munday, the only refer
ence / made to him in that long cam
paign was that he was q gentleman, q
good lawyer, and, if elected, he would
make good district attorney, and
have yet to learn that Mr.. Munday ever
said anything less complimentary of me.
I am glad to say that during the fore
part OF this campaign it was invariably
my pleasure to refer to my present op-
ponent in similar manner, but I now
regret to say that, Mr.. Dillon, in order
to defeat me, has deemed it necessary to
make and publish certain statements
about me and my official record that are
in the highest degree misleading and
untrue-statements that | cannot allow
to go unanswered, for Mr.. Dillon SAYS |:
1 challenge them to refute a fact or
| figure contained therein
| Passing over the numerous filings and
insinuations against me personally, let
us examine how correctly he gives my
record with reference to
/ SPECIAL COUNSEL
having been employed to assist me in
the discharge of my duties. He says
that during the first year of my incum-
bency the county paid the sum of
$247S SO for special counsel to assist the
district attorney of this county, and in
genuously conveys the idea to the public
that this sum was paid to assist me. He
cites nine different items in proof of
this statement, while the record from
which these items were taken shows
that with single exception they were
for services rendered during my prede-
cessor's incumbency. Yet this gentle
man, who pretends to be giving my
record, tries to make the people believe
thatthese sums were paid to special coun-
sci to assist me, when he knows and the
record shows, that it was for services
rendered before became district attor-
ney, with the exception of the item of
$3.50 paid to R. B. Carpenter, for an
opinion rendered by him, at the request
of the state board of examiners, as to
the validity of $105,000 of the court
house bonds which this county was at
tempting to sell to the state. AS was
the legal representative of the county
seeking to sell these bonds the pur-
chaser naturally demanded the opinion
of an attorney who did not represent the
seller, and therefore, by the very nature
of this transaction, the district attorney
could not act in that matter, nor was
this in any manner assisting me in the
discharge of my duties, and no fair
minded lawyer, with the possible excep-
tion of Mr.. Dillon, will contend that it
was.
The record also shows that prior to
my incumbency thousands of dollars
were annually paid to eminent special
counsel for assistance in important
county cases, and that not dollar has
been paid to assist me in any way. Mr..
Dillon, in his truthful CD statement as
to the record, fails to include these spe-
cial counsel fees in the expenses of this
Office in former years, but attempts to
tack the $2478 96, above referred to, on
to the grand total of the expenses of the
first year of my administration, and
even then am unable to discover where
he gets the $4,000 that he heaps upon
my head, unless he has also charged up
to me the cost of the upper story of the
new court house, in which the new dis
trict attorneys Office is located.
INHERITED CASES.
Mr.. Dillon also says that I inherited
three cases against ex-Auditor Montana; !;
45 against Edelman and six against
Damron; also the Ell. Hammond defal-
cation case.
The record shows that I did not in
herit any cases against Mr.. Montana,
but that they were disposed of before 1
became district attorney, and just how
I am responsible for the disposition
made of those cases, it is impossible for
q person of ordinary intelligence to un-
derstand.
Again, the record shows that 26 of the
45 (Edelman) cases that he charges up
to me, were Disposed of prior to my in
cumbency. The same record which Mr..
Dillon pretends to give, but does not
give, shows that of the remaining 10
cases that did come down to me, three
of the strongest were tried before as
many different juries; that each of those
three juries failed to agree; that there
was evidence sufficient to convict Mr..
Edelman; that the presiding Judge at
one of these trials stated that there was
no evidence that crime had been COM
mitted, and directed the jury to acquit
the defendant.
Furthermore, Mr.. Dillon very conven-
iently omits to state what the record
also shows, that every dollar of the
money illegally obtained on these Edel-
man warrants was recovered and paid
into the county treasury during my ad-
ministration. This, however, was evil
IDENTIFY portion of the record that my
opponent did not desira the people to
know.
With reference to the Damron cases
he also fails to state what the record
shows, namely, that Damron was tried
three times; that the first jury, under
my predecessor management, acquitted
him, and that the two succeeding juries
failed to agree that the evidence was
sufficient to convict. He also fails to
state that I then took the precaution to
present the condition of all these (Edel-
man and Damron) cases to the board of
supervisors, and that that body, in view
of the enormous expense of each of the
three trials to the county, and the fact
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