The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1893-07-26
VOL. 1. NO. 13.

counsel for the defense to the snecif;c
polnJs touched on by the State. while
IN Jne cross-examination of the de-
lenuants' witnesses he permitted the
State s-Attorney to go into all man
ner OF subjects entirely foreign to
Ghe matters on which the witnesses
were examined in chief; also that
every ruling throughout the long
Irlal on any contested point was in
IavOr OF the State, and, further. that
page after page of the record con-
Galns lnsinuating remarks of the
Judge, made in the hearing of the
jury, and with the evident intent of
bringing the jury to his way of
Ihlnklng; that these speeches, COM
Ing from the court. were much more
Damaging than any, speeches from
Ine state s-Attorney could possibly
nave been; that the State's-Attornev
often took his cue from the Judges
remarks; that the Judges magazine
artlcle recently published, although
WrlIten nearly six years after the
trlai. is yet full of venom; that, pre-
tending to simply review the case. he
had TO drag into his article a letter
written by an excited woman to a
newspaper after the trial was over.
ana which therefore had nothing
whatever to do with the case and
was put into the article simply to
create pref udice against the woman.
as well as against the dead and the
llvlng; and that, not content with
Uhs, ne In the same article makes
an lnslnuatlng attack on one of the
lawyers Tor the defense, not for any,
Unlng done at the trial, but because
more than year after the trial.
When some OF the defendants had
oeen hanged, he ventured to express
few kind if erroneous sentiments
over the graves of his dead clients,
WhOm ne at least believed to be in
nocent. 1t is urged that such feroc-
lty or SubServiency is without
parallel in all history; that even JEFF
fries, in England, contented himself
with hanging his victims and did not
stop to berate them after they we're
dead. These charges are of a person
al character and, while they seem to
be sustained by the record of the
trial and papers before me, tend to
show that the trial was not fair. I do
not care to discuss this feature of
the case any further, because it is
not necessary. I am convinced that
it is clearly my duty to act in this
case Tor the reasons already given,
and [ therefore grant an absolute
pardon to Samuel Fie1den, Oscar
Neebe, and Michael SchWab this 26t,h
day of June, 1893.
JOHN P. ALTGELD.
Gov. of Illinois.
The daily press, from the Atlantic
to the Pacific, unite, with hardly any
exception, in an overwhelming howl
against governor Altgeld, and predict
that he has ended his political career.
Possibly this is true. But no man
can read this review of the testi-
mOny, and not admit that the whole
trial was a horrible travesty of JUS
tice; and if Gov. Altgeld has dug his
political grave by denouncing it, then
it is more honorable for him to die
than to live. The conviction of the
eight defendants was triumph of
the money-power, through the in
strumentality of corrupt and SER
vile press; which wrought up the
public mind to state of fanatical
fury. And the same power is now
trying to destroy Gov. Altgeld for his
noble defense of law, order and JUS
tice; and it will destroy any man who
refuses to be it's servant. There is
no remedy but for the whole people
to unite in defense of fair play and
their rights as free men.
Unfair.
A populist editor who has on sew
eral occasions exhibited a very can
tankerous spirit towards this paper,
which nothing has been done by us
to justify, wants to know why we
printed, recently, picture of Judge
Willis of St. Paul. We might very
properly reply that it is none of his
business. But we will be more court
eous, and say, that we expect to pub
lish the portraits of hundred pro-
minent gentlemen in our columns
during the next two years, and we
are not so bigoted as to confine our
favOrS to peoples party men alone.
Whenever we can find man, in the
state,-be he democrat or republi-
can,-who takes the peoples part in
the present crisis, we shall do all we
can to honor him. AS to Judge
Willis he received large vote in the
peoples party convention of 1892 for
the nomination for judge of the SUI
preme court, and his sympathy with
liberal principles is we'll understood
all over the state. He was the au-
thor of the "eight hour for the mu-
nicipal work. rule, which now pre-
walls in St. Paul; and for that alone
he deserves, not only a picture in
the REPRESENTATIVE, but statue
on Summit avenue; and we are sorry
to see champion of the laboring
men sneering at and trying to injure
him. But if brother Edwards thinks
our columns have been contamin-
ated by the picture of a democratic