The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-10-31
STUBS BIG DAY.
Governors Experience in Chi
cagO Was Exciting.
at Home Before Interstate
Commerce Commission
MATCH FOR LAWYERS.
Turned InQuisitOr When He Was
Cross Examined.
Kansas Executive Apparently
Made a Good Impression.

interstate commerce commission at the
rate hearing in Chicago last week. The
governor has done greater things in a
political way, possibly, or more spec
tacular, but he never did anything so
difficult as turning the tide back to the
shippers in the Chicago rate hearing.
The odds were against him, and the
fight was going the other way when he
appeared on the scene.
The governor had built railroads
and therefore had peculiar knowledge
of the case in hand. He had worked
for a week to prepare his evidence and
had great mass of data. He was
thoroughly prepared. But another
witness equally prepared would have
done well to break even in that case
with none of the biggest corporation
lawyers in the west opposed to him in
a legal arena, where they were at
home and the witness was stranger.
1t was the Stubs personality and
genius for taking advantage that gave
him such a decided victory.
It is impossible to convey in print
any idea of the fight the governor
made in Chicago for the shippers last
Friday. Within five minutes after tax
ing the witness chair the governor was
standing up to make his answers. He
leaned over the commissioners desk
and made them a heart to heart talk,
punctuating it with his fist on the sur
face of the desk. And the commission
liked it, too. His intense earnestness
stirred them up to new interest In the
dragging case. His eccentricity and
audacity would have profited. him moth
ing before this dignified tribunal had
he not had the brains and strength of
character and knowledge of his subject
for a foundation upon which to DulId
his dominant personality.
Imagine a witness within thlrty
minutes after taking the stand getting
right into the heart of the subject with
the judges and them asking him just
the questions he wanted asked and
giving him the opportunity to unbur-
den his mind in his own way. The
precedent of the court was swept
aside. The shippers lawyers smiled
with satisfaction and took no part at
all to speak of in the examination Ihe
commissioners and the Kansas COVER
nor got acquainted with each other
and discussed the shortcomings of the
railroads to their hearts content.
When a railroad attorney butted into
the conversation Stubs stood up and
answered him with heavy artillery.
Governor Cool Under Fire.
But it was at the afternoon session
under cross examination that the gov
ernor faced the real test. Word had
been passed around that the red-head-
ed Kansan would get his at the
evening session. The court room was
crowded. Judge j. B. Payne, general
counsel for the Chicago & Alton, was
selected as the Marshal Ney to lead
the last hope of the old guard.
Judge Payne was admirably fitted for
of the old school. He looks it. Iron
gray hair, strongly marked face, polish
ed manners, calm, cool, sarcastic,
brainy, patient, wise, he opened on the
of a kitten. Stubs seemed to have
presentiment that this man who ques-
toned him had the advantage and was
fighting on his own ground.
The governor answered questions by
asking others. He laughed at Judge
Payne and made serious answers while
he smiled. The judge was patient. He
was polite. Stubs was patient, but
not very polite. The governor an
swered questions to suit himself and
together. The judges fire was being
wasted. The governor laughed and
talked cheerfully about the doubtful
methods of the railroads.
The strain was intense and the specta-
tors felt it at the end of an hour Neith-
er had the advantage, but the fire-eat-
ing Kansas governor had been checked
for a moment in his onward career
That was something. 1t is hard to tell
how the fight would have resulted had
the judge kept his temper, but finally
he got mad. The Stubs laugh did it.
The witness was too cheerful under the
grill, and the lawyers ire begain to rise.
Stubs got more cheerful than ever
and began to also get very polite. Payne
choked up with anger and quit after
an hour and 20 minutes There was no
one to take his place and Stubs had
a snap the rest of the afternoon while
the cross-examination lasted.
He Turns InquiSitor.
When Counsel Norton, of the Santa
Fe, undertook to take Payne's place,
the governor asked him three questions
to his one. Dawes, of the Burlington,
had dug up some testimony given by
T.. hon nj
years ago, and he sprung 1t on the
witness as a final shot. Mr.. Dawes
started to read the evidence but Stubs
would not have it that way. He got
hold of the typewriter sheets himself,
and leaning over the commissions desk,
looked them over in most deliberate
way. Dawes urged him to read, and
the governor turned back the sheets
and gravely read: What is your occu-
patton, Mr.. Stubbs?"
Railroad contractor.
The court, spectators and lawyers all
Joined in the gust of laughter that
swept through the room. The governor
looked up from his reading, looked up
over his glasses as innocent as a Child
and waited for the laughter to cease
and then started again at his reading.
When he did read the deadly passage
it's sting had been removed He read 1t
and explained it as he went along. 1t
was easy. Had Dawes read the testi-
nonv using only the portions he desir-
ed, it might have been different. but
Stubs read it in his own way, and
turned it to his advantage just as he
had done all day.
1t was a big day for the governor.
and at the close of the session the
newspaper men, lawyers and spectators
and commissioners crowded forward to
congratulate him on the splendid show
ing he had made against odds.
Frank Ryan, Kansas railroad COM
missioner, was a witness at the hear
ing, and helped John Dawson, attorney
for Kansas, to establish the fact that
the Missouri Pacific has declared Il
new deal in Kansas and is improving
its roads in this state after having
consolidated all the independent lines
into the parent system. Dawson claims
that the case hinges in a measure on