The Washington herald., 1913-05-25

| eran, whom I believe to have been a
personally honest man. but who was not
| inquisitive about the motives influencing
| his colleagues. This gentleman, who
: went by a nickname which / snail incor-
rectly call the bald eagle of Weehaw-
KEN" was efficient and knew his job.
! After a couple of weeks a motion to put
the bill through was made by the bald
| eagle" the black horse cavalry
whose feelings had undergone a complete
i change in the Intervening time, voted
unanimously for it. in company with all
the decent members; and that was the
| end. Now here was bit Of work, in
| the interest Of corporation and in the
interest Of a community, which the cor
poration at first tried honestly to have
put through on its merits The blame for
| the failure lay primarily in the supine
| indifference of the community to Legis-
| lative wrong doing, so long as only the
| corporations We're blackmailed.
| ''The Verge of Judicial Discretion"
Except as above mentioned, 1 was not
| brought in contact with big business.
| save in the effort to impeach certain
| judge. This Judge had been used as an
instrument In their business by certain
of the men connected with the elevated
that time. We got hold of his corre-
spondence with one Of these men, and
II showed a shocking willingness to use
the judicial Office in any way that one
| OF the kings of finance of that day de-
sired. He had actually held court IN one
! of that financier's rooms. One express
sion in one OF the judge s letters to this
| financier l shall always remember: Il
am willing to 60 to the very verge Of
judicial discretion to serve your vast in
terests." The curious thing was that
1 was by no means. certain that the
judge himself was corrupt. He may have
been; but I am inclined to think that.
aside from his being a man of coarse
moral fiber, the trouble lay chiefly in
the fact that he had a genuine-if 1
had not so often seen 1t, 1 would say a
wholly ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS for the
possessor of a great fortune as such.
He sincerely believed that business was
| the end of existence, and that judge and
legislator alike should do whatever was
| necessary to favor It; and the bigger
the business the more he desired to favor
II. Big business of the kind that is
allied with politics thoroughly appre-
ciated the usefulness of such a Judge.
and every effort was strained to protect
him. We fought HARDLY I'VE" l mean
eOIlt thirty or lofty 1eSisidtOFs, DOtn re
publicans and Democrats-but the black
horse cavalry" and the timid good men,
and the dull conservative men, were all
against us; and the vote in the Legisla-
ture was heavily against impeachment.
The minority of the committee that in
vestigated him. with Chaplin at its head,
recommended impeachment; the argu-
ment for impeachment before the COM
mittee was made by Francis Lynde
Stetson.
IL was my first experience of the kind.
Various men whom l had known well
socially and had been taught to look up
to, prominent. business men and lawyers,
acted in a way which not only astounded
me, but which 1 was quite unable to
reconcile with the theories / had formed
as to their high standing-I was little
more than year out of college at the
time. Generally. as has been always
the case since, they were careful to
avoid any direct conversation with me
on a concrete case Of what We now
call privilege" in business ard in poll
tics, that is, of the alliance between
business and politics which represents
improper fayors rendered to some men
in return for improper conduct on the
part Of others being ignored or permit
ted.
One member Of . prominent law nrm.