The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1894-10-20

decision meant a degree Of hard work
and an amount of perseverance and self
denial that would be appalling to the
young men who plod along at the bench
of the mechanic or the desk of the clerk,
grumbling and dissatisfied with their
lot IN life. Tor these two had no means
and we're obliged to earn their mental
training as they got it. Fortunate it
was for them indeed that in the years
before Peter Cooper had been moved to
found and endow the noble institute
that bears his name, for it offered ex-
actly the school facilities of which they
must avail themselves.
So they enrolled their names in the
list of students at the institute. How
they studied and toiled together, cheer
ing and encouraging each other, testing
each other with knotty questions before
examinations, debating together the
problems of life and law that came
within their ken-all this would make
an entertaining story if only 1 had the
details for it's composition
At last they We're admitted and be-
gan their practice as young lawyers.
When Randolph MARITIME, now sitting
on the bench, was district attorney. he
made them both members of his corps
Of assistants, and when a few years ago
the Peoples Municipal league put up
a ticket their names were both among
its nominees, Golf running for district
attorney and Fitzgerald for a sessions
judgeship. Fitzgerald was elected, but
Golf was not. The latter's defeat. how
ever, was shared by all the nominees
but Fitzgerald. who was the only one
upon that ticket to whom success was
vouchsafed. Then Gof had to start out
to build up a private practice again Ee
was poor, for though he had been for
several years IN the receipt Of a good
salary as assistant district attorney he
had not accumulated money, and as he
married in the meantime and had a
growing family about him the task was
net so easy as 1t would have been for a
younger man. However, his worth had
begun to make name for it's pOssessor,
and. surely, though perhaps slowly, he
climbed the ladder as a practitioner. In
time he came to be known as a lawyer
who would always fight to the last, not
only for his case, but also for his own
rights in court. even before the most Sc
we're jurist Once when he made par
ticularly spirited contest for himself be-
fore Recorder Smyth that stern old
judge hailed the lawyer before his au-
gust presence for contempt. This became
noised about in the lawyer s Offices, and
nent of the city's legal luminaries that
Golf was in the right the courtroom
was crowded with lawyers on the day
set by the recorder for inf1icting pun
ishment. More than this, Joseph Choate,
surely one of the acknowledged leaders
of the New York bar, defended Golf,
and without cost to the latter, in a mas
terIy speech. This was evidence that
Mr. Choate believed his brother lawyer
to be IN the right, but the recorder i'm
posed a fine of $500 or 30 days Tt is
understood that had not Mr.. ChOate APP
peared in Colts behalf the punishment
would have been fine and imprisonment
It was after this that Mr. Golf was
asked to be counsel for the Lexow COM
mittee. At first he declined on the
ground that he could not afford to give
up his practice, but when DR.. Parkhurst,
to whose 'marshaling of the public con-
science the present exposures of munic-
ipa1 depravity here are so largely due,
added his p1eadings and the chamber of
commerce agreed to see to it that the
lawyer was properly paid for his serv-
ices, despite Governor Flowers veto of
the bill appropriating money for that
purpose, Mr.. Golf yielded Now his
name is before the voters of the city Of
New York for recorder in Snyth s
place, ana II ne snail % tl6Cl6u luo
lawyers friends say that poetic Justice
will be done.
Ills Life Has Been an Eventful One.
I had intended to write few para
graphs about Mr. COTS adventures in
the service of Irish liberty, of the part
he played IN the rescue of six Fenians,
who were imprisoned at the penal col
ony of Freenantle, South Australia, in
1876 in which exploit Golf cO-operated
with Dion Boucicault, John Breslin,
Thomas Desmond and others, but my
space is running short, and these mat
tiers can only be alluded to-
In conclusion, here are a few SEN
fences, each Of which deserves a para
graph: He was not born to be drowned,
for he has been rescued a full half dozen
times from a watery grave He is a
Democrat in politics, but has been per-
fectly impartial in the distribution of
his favors as counsel of the committee
He does not believe that the present in
vestigation Will permanently cleanse
the municipal government Of this town,
but he does believe it viii straighten
things out for the time. The men Of the
future, he says, must look out for the
evil Of the future
L d. MARSHALL