Sfy&s ^J^^^^l L I E> R_A R.Y OF THE U N I VER.5ITY OF 1 LLI NOIS c v.io cop.*. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://archive.org/details/illio1904univ Ore 1904 ^r TO ANDREW SLOAN DRAPER, TO WHOSE WISE AND EFFICIENT DIRECTION WE AND ALL THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS ARE SO DEEPLY INDEBTED, THIS VOLUME IS GRATE- FULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. J^ l/jU^C/ cfe^Ctsz^Af &&0~Z4^%r A LEAF FROM A LAWYER'S NOTE-BOOK The writer knows but little about fiction: doubtless so much the worse for him. He is incapable of imaginative writing. The story which follows is in every detail true, except that names and locations have been substituted for the real ones in or- der to avoid the possibility of unmerited humiliation to one whom I believe to be worthy. At the time it bears date, the following note came in my mail: "Albany Penitentiary, Albany, New York, June 27, 1884. My dear sir:- I am a life-convict in this prison, convicted of a crime I never committed. I have been here eight years. You have the power to procure my release and to give me another chance in life. If you will come and see me I will convince you that I am worthy of your help. Will you not let me have the opportunity? JS Very truly yours, 3 George Baker." <£] Circumstances were such that I frequently received letters pleading for help from prisoners at the Albany Penitentiary. These letters were ordinarily verbose, and often inconsistent. I paid no attention to any of them. But the one from George Baker bored its way into my life. I carried it in my pocket and read it frequently. Several times I made the move to throw it in the waste basket, but its brevity and directness, the good English and the clear, well-rounded writing stopped me each time. The matter grew upon me until I could no longer resist the impulse to go and learn what sort of a being George Baker was. I went to the prison and asked the warden what he knew of the prisoner. He said he was an exceptional prisoner, never gave trouble, was some thirty-five years old, clean and wholesome in person, and given to reading and study beyond any other man in their charge. I asked that he be brought out, and in a few minutes he came through the heavy iron door into the room to which I had been shown. The man was yet more impressive than his letter. Even in his striped prison clothes he was attractive. He was quite six feet two inches, without surplus fat so common in prison life, and straight as an arrow. His face was winsome, his teeth and finger nails cared for. He looked at me squarely, and his voice was low, steady and confident. I had it in my mind that I would resist him; that I would not let a life-convict engage my feelings or occupy my time. But my determination oozed out as he told me his story. Baker said he had kept a drug store in a Rocky Mountain town, admitted frankly that he had done some things he ought not to have done, but insisted that he had never committed a crime, and had never before been charged with one. "lam become a name." —Adolph Kkeikenhaum. 7 He said that some ten years before, one winter night, the overland mail and express coach came to the post office a couple of hours late, and the driver reported that, three miles out, he had been held up by masked men who robbed the passen- gers and rifled the mail pouches. The next day the prisoner and two others were- arrested for this crime and an investigation was held before a local magistrate, who found no cause for holding the prisoners, and they were discharged. Nothing more was done for three months. In the meantime government officers were active in the matter, and the express company offered a reward of $5,000 for evidence which would result in conviction for the crime. They were then indicted and tried, but the trial resulted in a disagreement by the jury. They were tried a second time with the same result. The venue was then changed to another judicial district, and they were taken five hundred miles over the mountains and tried a third time, now among strangers. After being out thirty-six hours the jury convicted two of them and dis- agreed as to the third. The two convicted were, under the severe statute of the United States against the robbing of the mails, sentenced to prison for life. The story was told with full circumstantiality and a ready understanding of legal principles and judicial proceedings relating to the matter. All questions were an- swered in a consistent and convincing way. The man insisted that he had been the victim of systematic perjury to gain the approval of the United States Department of Justice, and obtain the reward offered by the express company. I found myself thinking it might be so, and thinking also that such a man had been sufficiently pun- ished for the crime charged against him even if there was no doubt about his having committed it. Before we were half way through, my mind was made up that it was safe enough for me to help him if the things he had said and which could be verified proved to be true. The man in stripes had gained possession of a free man. I wrote the judges who had tried the case, the district attorneys who had prose- cuted it, and each of the jurors who had part in it. The judges thought, as judges must think, that enough had been proved to warrant the submission of the case to the jury, and that the finding of the jury was sufficient ; but they also thought that the ends of justice had been satisfied, and were not opposed to the granting of a pardon. The prosecuting attorneys of course thought there was no doubt of the guilt of the prisoner. The jurors had mixed feelings and stood ready to sign an ap- plication for clemency. Every fact that any of them mentioned was wholly in ac- cord with what the prisoner had said. I cut corners and went directly to President Arthur and told him the story. I said that if I had to fight the Department of Justice at every step, and submit to all the delays the people over there usually imposed, I had no time to prosecute an ap- plication for a pardon. If the case appealed to the President, and he would intimate to the Attorney General that it was time to call off the dogs, I would be glad to put the matter in proper form for action. The President said it seemed to him a proper case for a pardon, and unless something new developed there would not be many obstacles in my path. The formal steps were taken, and a few weeks later, one dark, rainy and muddy evening this telegram came : "Washington, D. C, November 18, 1884. Pardon for George Baker mailed you today. The President has directed that it be sent to you to deliver. Fred J. Phillips, " Secretary to the President. Putting on my hat and overcoat I pushed through the wet and slush out to the County Penitentiary. All cells had been locked for the night, but I was taken to " He knew the taverns well in every town."—"Click" Mathkws. No. 301, roused the occupant, and reached my hand through the grated door for that of George Baker, and told him that under the law he was as free as I, that he who had been legally dead for years was alive again, and that I would come up for him at ten o'clock the next morning. What he said in his low, steady voice was ample compensation. The warden seemed as glad as we were. He promised that Baker should have on his new suit of clothes by the hour I had named, and by the appointed time I had the pardon and was on hand to get my man. We walked out into the free air to- gether. He had not been in the open air, except to cross the narrow prison yard in the lock -step, for more than eight years. As we walked down the street he said the trees, and the horses and the people looked small. We came to a tobacco store, and " his look showed that it was too much for him. " Would you like a cigar ? " Well, I guess so, " he said, and the way he lighted and smoked it proved that he had guessed correctly. He found a boarding place and remained in the city a couple of weeks. His ap- pearance improved every day. He had his photograph taken, and a copy lies upon my table as I tell the story. He talked of the future, saying he should look about and find a place to do something. He even had ambition to become a physician, and thought that perhaps his early knowledge of drugs, and his study through his prison life, might make it possible. He went away without knowing where. I could not bear to see him go, for it seemed to me that the conditions were heavy enough to bear any man down.