The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-10-03
BY WILLIAM ENGLE
Times STAFF Writer


Telegram Corporation
TN the shambles they had made
Il as they rsided 20 Dey street,
Judge William Travers Jerome
stood, a little flushed, but urbane,
and remarked that he now would
hold court.
This seemed both to the raiders
and their quarry incomprehensi-
bly, funny. They did not believe
he meant it. Did not realize that
the young about town jurist
was suavely presaging, this spring
evening of 1901, one of the most
zestful eras of reform ever to en-
liven the town, and taking the
first bold, unconventional step in
a career that marked him as
picturesque crusader as ever
snubbed, then drubbed, a snarl-
ing Tammany.
He had hardly declared himself
presiding judge and the court in
session, there in the suspected
gambling resort, before a jittering
gentleman edged over to him.
Mr.. Jerome, I can't afford to be
caught here. You must help me
get out"
You don't understand this is a
courtroom. Hold up your hand and
be sworn
The Supplicant Squirmed
You can take your choice. Go
to Jail for contempt of court or
hold up your hand"
The man held up his hand. He
was John Doe, he said.
Il shall be obliged to commit
John Doe to the house of deten-
ton to find him when I want
him. I do not know his resi-
dence."
Well, then, if the judge was seri-
Gus, he was Maurice Holahan,
president of the board of public
works, and he was looking for
"wayward SON."
In irreverent laughter, the
town hooted over that, and forth
with Jerome, abetted by young
idealiSts who were called the COM
mittee of fifteen, swung into Sc
ries of combined raids and court
sessions on the spot that brought
on reign of terror in the halls
of the corrupt.
A S judge first, then as district
L n attorney, he twice beat Tam
many into submission. He bagged
Garfield, the gambler. He was a
barhed fate to Harry K. Thaw.
To red light district cadets and
to fraudulent bankrupcS, doctors
guilty of malpractice, swindling
lawyers and crooked bookmakers,
he was a scourge.
Detractors called him Carrie
Nation Jerome, caricatured him
with the little Ratchet he never
carried and the cigaret he always
did; but he made a place for
himself in Manhattan history as
a snickersnee of justice.
No head was too hard for that
blade, no wall of influence too for
midable. Before the first decade
of the new century ended,
Theodore Roosevelt, William Jen-
nings Bryan and he were the best
known men in America.
Now, to man of 70, bronzed,
dominant man with close clipped,
gray mustache and horn-rimmed
glasses, broad shouldered and
standing 6 feet in brown tweeds,>
that is all a tale told long ago,
only mildly stimulating memory.
He stepped out of the spotlight
nearly twenty-five years ago,
never went back, never has been
sorry.
A day or two a week he goes
to his Broad street Office, high
above the harbor, and the re-
mainder of the time he spends
either at his Murray Hill apart
ment or in his Yonkers home,
where he lives with his wife, or
at the nearby residence of his
only son, William Trevers Je-
rome Jr.
LIE now would much rather
Il l. play poker in the Union Club,
isolate himself in the workshop
where he is a skilled goldsmith,
or submerge himself in the de-
tails of Technicolor, the colored
motion picture concern which he
has backed, than ponder on the
glamor of the old fighting days.
Yet it is his happy fortune to
be remembered generally as a
young man, generally as the
Snickersee of justice.