The brief; adventures in the courts of a new country and incidental studies in the morbid anatomy of government by organized corruption

Front matter

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSm ruy

Contents

CHAPTEB PAGE

Publisher's Preface 3

Prologue 8

Prologue

''But soft! methinks I digress too much, Citing my worthless praise: 0, pardon me; For when no friends are by, men praise themselves,"

— Shakespeaee.

I

TEE ONE BEHIND IT

I WAS struggling with languages, drifting into newspaper work, reading law, practicing stenography and economy, and residing in Pennsylvania in my early twenties, with not even a distant relative within four thousand miles except — Mary. Among other things not usually committed by men of such age, and under such circumstances — I gradually loaned my funds to her father. My generosity to the family was, judging by the experience I have since acquired, quite beyond that of those better advised and possessed of much larger means. This, coupled with my ready compliance with requests for the loans of my savings without evidences of debt, misled them to thinking that I was quite rich. My funds were already practically gone and I was entirely dependent upon what I earned when I learned of the exalted suspicions entertained by those who became my relatives-in-law of the enormous wealths I did not possess, and I enlightened the little bride, who in turn explained to her people — that I simply earned my living and way by work.

Soon my bride began to beg me to leave Pittsburg and go farther West — any place, saying that she would follow me as soon as I would telegraph her to come. After a few days' discussion we agreed on Cleveland, where I soon found employment, made arrangements for her entertainment, and telegraphed for her. She wrote several affectionate letters, and at last that she was coming. But she did not come. She ceased writing. She refused to talk over long distance telephone with me. In fact, and in law — and to be brief — she deserted me. My disappointment was terrible.

A week had passed. Cleveland was dark to me now, and I went to Chicago. But I was — infatuated, and sometimes furious, and indeed almost raving. For here I was, not only deprived of her and of all my earthly possessions — yes, my lifetime's savings — but such a misplacement of everything that seemed worth anything in the life of one of that age. And to think that when she accompanied me to the train as I was leaving Pittsburg — after I had given her everything else I possessed, including my storage receipts for trunks and other personalties, except some twenty-odd dollars after my fare was paid — her last words of affectionate farewell consisted of the suggestion in manner childish that I leave with her my watch and chain and ring and some diamond heirlooms I had, and a "stud" that I had been just young and vain enough to buy some time before for some three hundred and fifty dollars, lest among

THE ONE BEHIND IT 13

strangers I lose them! I left them. So that now, when I left Cleveland for Chicago, I was just able to secure transportation by purchasing a "scalper's" reduced rate ticket, arriving at my destination with two suitcases and forty cents and practically nothing to borrow on. The little wife was to ship everything when she was to follow to Cleveland.

I was in Chicago, alone. My wife returned what letters I now addressed to her, some opened and some unopened. Some were readdressed by herself and some in her father's writing. Anon her father sent a female named Newburgh to follow me to Chicago, where Father-in-law Delahun prearranged for counsel and entertainment consistent with the scheme — to sue me, charging that she was with child and that I was the father. This wench, as later evidences disclosed, had been a concubine of Delahun's and an inmate of a common bawdy house. That Delahun gave her the fare, furnished her counsel, and prearranged everything, she admitted quite boldly in court, as also that she obtained my address from him; and that she had been given letters I had written to Mary : for I did write, foolishly, lovingly — desperately. Years later I obtained some of my Mary's letters addressed to the lawyer of this — person, urging him and pleading with him to waylay me, cause me to be imprisoned, disgraced, discredited, and got rid of in any way consistent with such law practice as was in his power.

The Court instructed the jury that, it being a civil case, they need not be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt, and that the presumption is that the woman knows best who is the father of her — brat. There was no child in evidence. I had witnesses in court to prove the plot, for the woman, in an orgy, confided her criminal mission a few nights after her arrival in Chicago to those with whom she caroused. One of these witnesses was a sick woman who was told that she was going to die, and her priest told her that she must find me and tell.

Her deposition was taken by agreement of counsel and consent of Holdom, the judge, and when it was about to be read to the jury the plaintiff's counsel objected and the judge sustained him; he also objected to my other witnesses. A man named Brunski, to whom the woman confided her mission and the plot, took the stand. The judge — Holdom — ordered him off the stand. He would not listen to him. It was a farce! In the court room it was bastardy week, one of those sessions in which hundreds of such are tried, and generally judgments entered against the men for payments of alimony. Np doubt there are many unfortunate just causes. All objections made against my interests were sustained quite yawningly and mechanically. It was a one-sided affair; a lot of witnesses on my side, a good defense, and no show in court! My lawyer, Mr. Albert H. Putney, was one of my professors in law school, who had never before appeared in such a case, and only took up the defense on account of

TEE ONE BEHIND IT 15

his strong belief in my innocence and in the injustice being done me, and would not accept any fee. This gentleman took a friendly interest and wanted to help. It was impossible. No one could understand anything of this sort except one who practiced law in Chicago and actually knew these things! Chicago always was corrupt. I did try to make her a little more moral later, but she would not stand for it. Mr. Putney, my said lawyer, at this writing is chief of the Near-Eastern Division of the State Department, Washington.

A politician named Fake assisted this woman's lawyer in prosecuting. He was an "assistant state's attorney." He knew her relations with Delahun. The custom was to bring a stenographer to court, for otherwise the evidence would not be in existence and a disappointed litigant could not appeal. Fake put a "dummy" in the reporter's chair in order to mislead us to believe that the proceedings were being reported. Behold, now: this man was acting — or rather cheating — in the name of the State of Illinois ! He ordered this dummy in formal language, quite conspicuously, "to be sure and make a verbatim report." When I wanted to appeal I found there was no record to take to the court above. This fraud was committed in order to prevent me from taking the reporter's chair, where I would have made a shorthand report had we not been so — deceived in the name of the State of Illinois!

In the earlier stage of this case two lawyers were hired by Mr. Delahun, one named McCaslin and another named Blocki. When Mr. McCashn became satisfied that the case was unjust, he withdrew from it and tried to get his associate to drop it. But Blocki stuck, although he knew it was a fake case. Then Blocki's wife tried to get him to drop that kind of law practice, but she could not lead him aright either, and she left him; then Blocki gave to the papers a story to the effect that she left with another man. Then, of course, she decided never to return to him. Thus ended another married relation — but that is another story.

Later Mr. McCaslin left Chicago, and is now a judge somewhere in Massachusetts.

II Divorce Practice

ANON I learned that Mary sued for divorce in Pittsburg. The formahties of the laws of Pennsylvania were carefully complied with. She was sworn to a document reading that I deserted her; that I was already married to a lady named Starke; that my marriage to her was an act of bigamy — and, further, that she was a minor three days under twenty-one years at the time she married, and that without parental consent — a charge no more true than the others, but the insertion of this gravamen enabled her to sue in the name of her father as the next friend of an "infant"; that I failed and refused to support her; and that she did not know where I was. And here I had my letters readdressed in her own writing! At the time I learned of the suit the case had already reached the concluding stage, for a master in chancery had made his recommendation to the court that a decree be granted her by default, I not having known of the suit, not defending. Mary had access to my baggage, so she took both baggage and papers — and her many letters to me, even the one in which she thanked me for saving her life when a burning lamp had fallen over and covered her with flames.

Then and ever since in these years I often wondered why the blunder was made to insert that I deserted her "the next day," for those charges remain on record, and couples who separate the "next day" usually do so for one well-known reason; so that it was as clumsy a job for her sake as also an earmark of her lawyer's and her next friend's crookedness: and the poor girl did suffer the consequences. But that is another story, too.

I did not have much money. Yet for all the matter of policy in law practice to the contrary, I could not stand for the falsehood without answering to it; and I did. I was still young and foolish enough to believe that being right alone will prevail, too. And still, and for all the evidences to the contrary before and since, I hope for strength so to believe to the end! Of course, I was impulsive. The case came to my knowledge by my writing to the courts asking whether some sort of action was not pending. Then I secured a copy of the files, in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. I prepared an answer to it and filed it, together with a petition to the Court, explaining that I was never served, that there was a danger of fraud and miscarriage of justice, and that I wanted leave to defend. I got a lawyer, but I did not give him much money — because I did not have much. This lawyer readily made plans for many suits — his eye was on figures following the dollar mark: but his conversation did not savor of either speedy action or other

DIVORCE PRACTICE 19

satisfaction for me. It was all of figures, alienation of affection suits — money. I told him he could keep all the damages he could recover, but I wanted justice for myself: that is, I did not want a lie to be proven on me. I was crazy about the girl, too. The lawyer wanted in writing that he could keep all the damages he could recover. He got it. A cousin of this lawyer's was a railroad-witness physician, who was in a position to get passes for his friends. He got one for this lawyer for a set of vacation trips all over the country: and when he got the pass my true and lawful attorney also took in Pittsburg. The first thing he did was go and see the Delahuns, and offer that whilst he had come to fight — if Mr. Delahun would give him some of. those diamonds of mine he would let him take his daughter's decree of divorce by default, by silent agreement, or in any other way, on the charges on file. Soon I heard of that, for Delahun now had something to brag about, to strengthen his position, and it was common talk in Pittsburg. When Lawyer Ogden returned to Chicago I accused him of it, giving him the source of my information. He did not deny it, but said that he made that proposition to test the Delahuns — in fun. Maybe so, but I dismissed him immediately. Soon thereafter the court in Pittsburg entered an order, on motion, to ignore my petition for leave to defend because it was not accompanied by a non-resident's bond. Lawyers, like other people, usually give but slight attention to one who has little or no money.

Of course there are exceptions, but I did, not meet the exceptions. I had a great grievance and a just cause, and was eager to fight a fair fight. One is never such a champion of Justice as when he wants some. But justice works on wheels, as it were, and the wheels have to be greased, and I did not have much of the grease. The country herself has since, as before, officially admitted that you must have men, munition, and money. You can buy both men and munition, with money. I soon learned, too, that under the Pennsylvania practice, when a woman files a petition for divorce, and her defendant or victim, as the case may be, is within the jurisdiction of the court, her lawyer makes motion for temporary alimony, attorney's fees, and master in chancery's costs. She invariably gets this by interlocutory order; which means that I would have had to pay and keep on paying or go to jail: and poverty is no defense. When a very young man marries and gives up his funds to a father-in-law he does not think of a sinking fund for such purposes: so I was not prepared. The dice were loaded, the fight was an impossibility. I had not even had time enough to recover from my series of shocks yet, without remaking money. Besides, I knew I could not refrain from violence if I ever met that scoundrel anywhere — and then the law would handle me even more roughly. There was no use, then, and it would have been too expensive and risky, to go to Pittsburg: so I just decided to console myself with the satisfaction that I filed an answer, feeling that

DIVORCE PRACTICE 21

though it did no further good, it called the lie a lie, on the record. For purposes of policy, again, had I not filed the answer at all it would have been better, unless I had fought to the end. I had not the means. Nor did I care anything about policy. Policy is sometimes trickery. I wanted Truth. I knew I was right. The charges were false. I learned about them, and, like I thought an honest man ought to do, denied them. There have been times when I did feel that Mary was made to believe falsehoods, and I was fond of her. I should have known better. I was more of heart and less of head. Perhaps I should have been glad to get rid of her had I had the information I since obtained: but even then not with such charges against me on the records of a court, if I could help it. And in spite of it all, I could not believe her capable of any wrong, at times. I have since known men much older who could not believe any wrong, when there was wrong! There is no permanent resolution about her now. No decision of her morals or turpitude is twice alike or ever final, or ever will be. — In my life Mary is a sarcoma that gnaws.

Other complications arose. I used to be as good to my friends as other young people are who have no one to warn them. Now, when I got married and had all sorts of plans, and by such extravagances my means had begun to be exhausted, I wrote to those friends whom I had accommodated with loans that I could well use the various little amounts they had borrowed.

Some responded with what money they could spare. They were just friendly loans, without interest, and without memoranda, for that matter. By the time I got to Chicago responses still came to the Pittsburg address, although I had notified the postoffice to forward my mail.

Ill

CRIMINAL IMMUNITY

MY mail was received by Mary and her people in Pittsburg after I left there. They took out the moneys and checks the letters contained, signed my name, appropriated the funds, and destroyed the letters. When I learned about this I resented it and wrote demanding my stolen property. My letters to them were still ignored. Soon I learned that some of the inclosures were post-office money orders, one of which came in a registered letter. I complained about that to the post-office department. After a few months' correspondence I was informed by Post-office Inspectors Stuart, Germer and Mullen of Chicago that Delahun had political influence, that they could not get any satisfaction out of the postal authorities in Pittsburg, that they are a lot of crooks, and that they were very sorry about it. I had the return receipt of a registered letter in which a postal money order had been delivered to the Delahuns, who signed my name. The postmaster-general referred my letter to the local inspectors in Pittsburg, and they, as I was now informed, could not help me because there was politics! Then I wrote to President McKinley. By order of the President an investigation was made and the amount of this money order was repaid me by the postoffice. But I wanted to know what would be done to the thieves. After much correspondence I learned that nothing was done to them, and that the money which I received from the Department was deducted from the wages of the letter carrier from whom the registered letter was obtained without my authority, in spite of my written request to forward my mail. I sent the postman my check for the amount. But against pilferers of the mail who had friends in politics even the President was helpless. Later on letters were sent to me by friends in New York, together with the envelopes in which they had been received unsealed, written by this Delahun, on his realestate-agent stationery, saying that I was a very bad man, that nice people ought to shun me, that he did this letter-writing unselfishly and for the sake of humanity, that I was — everything that one could be called by a vile and filthy-mouthed rascal such as he. Again I lodged a grievance at the postoffice, because it is a violation of the postal laws to send such abuse: but I got no better satisfaction than when my money -mail was pilfered. "Nothing doing," "Politicians," "Great big drag in Pittsburg," were the reasons assigned by the same post-ofiice "inspectors" for what they pleaded to be their inability to do their duties under the law, claiming to have corresponded with the authorities in Washington and Pittsburg for months, in vain.

I would have been something else than hu-

CRIMINAL IMMUNITY 25

man had I not expressed my sentiments to the Delahun family in writing, which was really all I could afford to do. I did that and sent it by mail. Nor could I admit that the law gives them rights which other citizens have not. There is a quaint epithet, known by all Anglo- Saxons, commonly used and properly applied to men like I thought Delahun was, and so I showed him, in argumentative manner, that if ever there was a son of an indecent woman, he exhibited every etiological element of each symptom that pronounced one. He consulted his political and legal friends with a view of getting me prosecuted for it: but they told him that, had I written those letters to third persons instead of to himself, talking about him in terms as I did to him, those letters would be actionable: or, had I written those things on postal cards instead of letters, the language would be actionable under the postal laws: but that those letters, addressed as they were to himself, did not amount to a publication of the names that I gave him until he showed them around himself, and for such publication, by himself, the sender of the letter could not be charged. Delahun was furious: but he saw a way out: so he seated himself, now that he was well advised of the law, and wrote postal cards to himself and his wife and his daughter and other relatives of his that I never heard of, calling each all sorts of names, signed my name, and had them mailed to himself and his relatives and friends by his female accessory from Chicago.

Then I was charged by these same post-ofBce inspectors who theretofore claimed to resent Delahun's corrupt political influence — with sending obscene postal cards to the Delahun gang. I have begun to submit to such conditions in Pittsburg as criminal immunities by influence. Perhaps I might have been willing to overlook that this individual had the right to rob me, to lie about me, and to write all the libels he desired about me, in manner he chose, with impunity, whilst I should not have the same right, — since the President himself was helpless in the matter, — but here I was, charged with the writing of post-cards to Delahun, which cards he himself had written to himself and his!

Two years had passed. The judgment in the paternity case had been paid and forever satisfied^ and the wench had long since gone back to Pittsburg, the bawdy house, and Delahun. The white-slave law did not exist then; nor would it have affected one who had immunity by influence. There are plenty such. My petition for divorce was now pending in the Cook County Circuit Court, in Chicago. For I had to get rid of Mary legally. In fact it had been so pending at the time I heard that she had sought a divorce in Pittsburg upon those charges in which her father and his divorce specialist friends had assisted her. I charged desertion, although I had other evidence: for what would have been the use of marring her future chances.^ Had she not done enough to herself alone .^^ All I wanted was that she either

CRIMINAL IMMUNITY 27

come, and get out of the sinister influences in which I beheved she Kved — for I did beheve her an angel fallen among thieves, at times — or that I get free from the legal and moral bonds. The postal-card case came up for trial in the United States Court. I was arraigned on my twenty-fourth birthday. The very same postoffice inspectors who pretended to sympathize with me because they could not be helpful when the money was stolen from the mail — these same officials who lamented that nothing could be done to that scoundrel because he had friends in Pittsburg politics — now appeared as my prosecutors. Nay, they lied in the hope of having me convicted, in order to please the Delahuns. They sought the friendship of the man who had friends in politics; for they were on the public pay-roll through the support of such. They swore one after the other that I went to them and told them that I had written those postal cards. They knew they were in Delahun's writing: and they were still in possession of the letters he had written to my friends in New York, for which these same barnacles of the law should have prosecuted him. Delahun confirmed their testimony by saying that he had seen me write a hundred times, and that they were written by me. My plea was that Delahun himself had written them in order to get me in trouble. I wanted to offer in evidence the letters he had written about me, but the post-office inspectors had them: they claimed they were in Washington. I doubted it then, and know now that they were not in Washington. Inspector Stuart had them in his pocket. I happened to have other papers written in Delahun's hand, and used them to the best advantage I could.

IV Those Knights

DELAHUN came with political letters to Prosecutor Bethea: also, he wore the same society badges that the prosecutor did; and he had shed tears before the United States Attorney in his office. I have no doubt Bethea believed him. The prosecutor overdid himself, and got a number of assistants to help him. They abused me till they talked themselves hoarse, one after the other. I was alone. Since then I learned that when Delahun asked the United States Attorney to help him, he added: "Behold my badge as a noble Knight. You swore to avenge the wrongs done a brother. I am your brother. This man wronged me and my beautiful, innocent daughter." Bethea was a bachelor. These cattle actually believe themselves nobles after they pay their initiation!

I have been more or less connected since then with some of the biggest cases tried in the country, but never have I seen so much energy displayed, so much abusive language vituperated, and so much unfair and unlawful law practice in evidence as these United States Attorneys indulged, in this petty, nasty, "clothes-line" family affair, upon such forged postal cards, and against me — a mere boy, with not a friend so THE BRIEF

within four thousand miles! The prosecutor put the Government to considerable expense: even caused the payment of the traveling expenses of the Delahun family and some ward political toughs that they brought with them. This great power, the counsel for the Government, indulged in the unprofessional practice of waving a copy of that fraudulently secured "paternity" judgment before the jury, and by flaunting before the venire a certified copy of a now fraudulently and by -default-obtained divorce of Pittsburg, which said that I had had a wife living when I married this man's daughter. They made reference to my youth, my education, my religion, my writing in the papers, my foreign accent, which they claimed to be feigned — for I had spent seventeen of the few years I lived, abroad — and referred to my familiarity with foreign languages, as so many instruments of crime or vice, and made capital of every possible suggestion that could arouse passion and prejudice — for nothing will provoke the prejudice of the lower men in a jury box more than contemptible reference to education or anything respectable. "Look at him!" he shrieked; " don't he look like a seducer of young women .^^ He speaks French, and German, and Latin, and Hebrew, and Hungarian, and Italian, and Greek, and what not! — Will you let a fellow like that be at large and make it possible for him to write insulting postals to you and your wives and your daughters.^ He has a lot of wives, too. He deserted his young wife: and look

THOSE KNIGHTS 31

at this good, suffering father-in-law!" — whilst the complaint against me was that I wrote a postal to Mr. Delahun, respectfully requesting that he return to me the things he stole from me. The law is that though a man be a thief, you may not call him that on postals. You may, in a closed letter. Delahun wrote it, and signed my name. When Bethea got through abusing me, his assistant, Childs, addressed the jury; and after him another assistant, Hopkins, a senator's son who was there to work his way into politics: all in the same vicious vein. When the assistants got through they asked Delahun how he liked them as orators! Bethea foamed like a hy drophobiac : he said that the writing was so far from being Delahun's and so near mine, that as a matter of fact I imitated Delahun's writing when I wrote to him, and so prepared a defense, in order to be able to deny the writing if ever I were prosecuted for it. He was so tricky and abusive, and so unfair to fact, that I could not refrain from calling him a liar and a scoundrel in open court: for he well knew that I worked in newspaper offices, which are full of typewriters; he knew I was a shorthand reporter, and had typewriters; and he knew that if I had wanted to write something that I ever expected to deny, it would have been more reasonable for me to write it on a machine. And why should I, if I had written them? For I was anxious to have it known in what dastardly manner the cur robbed me, and how he made his young daughter take the place of billy, black-jack, and other burglar's tools! As a piece of thievery, it was a clever job: but is that the use one should make of a daughter? The pig!

It was one of those trials in which the prosecution feels overconfident: a prosecuting attorney has nothing to lose anyway, for, right or wrong, the Government pays the expenses and politics stand behind him: and what more dangerous than an irresponsible person — or a fool armed with a knife — with nothing to lose, acting in the name of the country? It was generally understood at the time, too, that when one is accused in the United States Courts he might as well plead guilty, for the marshal, the jurors, the commissioners, and all concerned there are one crowd, interdependent on each other for favors and the maintenance of jobs; they are known to stick together like thieves. The juries there consist of a melange of poor citizens and pensioners and cheap politicians. A rather interesting coincidence in a barber shop disclosed later that at least one actually came from the soldiers' home. These poor fellows usually beg the prosecutor for the favor of being given a chance to make jurymoney. The trial lasted two days. Over night the jurors were not allowed to go home. The deputy marshal in charge explained to them that the prosecution would have allowed them to go home, but that I, the defendant, insisted that they be kept behind lock and key — as if they had not already been influenced enough by all that array of official perjury and insidious elocution. Had I been fined, I do not know where