Denver was then, as it is now, a beautiful city, built on a slope,
between the prairies and mountains, always sunny, cool, and clear-skyed
with the very sparkle of happiness in its air; and on the crown of its
hill, facing the romantic prospect of the Rockies, the State Capitol
raised its dome--as proud as the ambition of a liberty-loving
people--the symbol of an aspiration and the expression of its power.
That Capitol, I confess, was to me a sort of granite temple erected by
the Commonwealth of Colorado to law, to justice, to the ideals of
self-government that have made our republic the promised land of all
the oppressed of Europe; and I could conceive of no nobler work than to
serve those ideals in the assembly halls of that building, with those
eternal mountains on the horizon and that sun of freedom overhead.
Surely a man may confess so much, without shame, of his youth and his
inexperience. . . . It is not merely the gold on the dome of the
Capitol that has given it another look to me now.
It was the year 1897. I was about twenty-eight years old, and my
partner, Gardener, was three years younger. He was more worldly-wise
than I was, even then; for while I had been busy with briefs and
court-work, he had been the "business head" of the firm, out among
business friends and acquaintances--"mixing," as they say--and through
his innumerable connections, here and there, with this man and that
fraternity, bringing in the cases that kept us employed. He was a
"Silver Republican"; I, a Democrat. But we both knew that if he was to
get into politics it must be with the backing of the party
"organization" and the endorsement of the party "boss."
The "Silver Republican" boss of the day was a man whom we both
admired--George Graham. Everybody admired him. Everybody was fond of
him. "Why," they would tell you, "there isn't a man in town who is
kinder to his family. He's such a good man in his home! And he's so
charitable!" At Christmas time, when free baskets of food were
distributed to the poor, George Graham was chairman of the committee
for their distribution. He was prominent in the fraternal orders and
used his political power to help the needy, the widow, and the orphan.
He had an engaging manner of fellowship, a personal magnetism, a kindly
interest in aspiring young men, a pleasant appearance--smooth and dark
in complexion, with a gentle way of smiling. I liked him; and he
seemed to discover an affection for both Gardener and me, as we became
more intimate with him, in the course of Gardener's progress toward his
coveted nomination by the party.
That progress was so rapid and easy that it surprised us. We knew, of
course, that we had attracted some public attention and much newspaper
notice by our legal battles with "the corporation heavyweights" in our
three big cases against the surgeon, the tramway company, and the
factory owner. But this did not account to us for the ease with which
Gardener penetrated to the inner circles of the Boss's court. It did
not explain why Graham should come to see us in our office, and call us
by our first names. The explanation that we tacitly accepted was one
more personal and flattering to us. And when Gardener would come back
from a chat with Graham, full of "inside information" about the party's
plans--about who was to be nominated for this office at the coming
convention, and what chance So-and-so had for that one--the sure proofs
(to us) that he was being admitted to the intimate secrets of the party
and found worthy of the confidence of those in power--I was as proud of
Gardener as only a young man can be of a friend who has all the
brilliant qualities that he himself lacks. Gardener was a handsome
fellow, well built, always well dressed, self-assured and ambitious; I
did not wonder that the politicians admired him and made much of him.
I accepted his success as a tribute to those qualities in him that had
already attached me to him with an affection rather more than brotherly.
We said nothing to the politicians about our projected bills. Indeed,
from the first, my interest in our measures of reform was greater than
Gardener's. His desire to be in the Legislature Was due to a natural
ambition to "get on" in life, to acquire power in the community as well
as the wealth and distinction that come with power. Such ambitions
were, of course, beyond me; I had none of the qualities that would make
them possible; and I could only enjoy them, as it were, by proxy, in
Gardener's person. I enjoyed, in the same way, his gradual penetration
behind the scenes in politics. I saw, with him, that the party
convention, to which we had at first looked as the source of honours,
was really only a sort of puppet show of which the Boss held the wires.
All the candidates for nomination were selected by Graham in
advance--in secret caucus with his ward leaders, executive
committeemen, and such other "practical" politicians as "Big
Steve"--and the convention, with more or less show of independence, did
nothing but ratify his choice. When I spoke of canvassing some of the
chosen delegates of the convention, Gardener said: "What's the use of
talking to those small fry? If we can get the big fellows, we've got
the rest. They do what the big ones tell them--and won't do anything
they aren't told. You leave it to me." I had only hoped to see him in
the Lower House, but he, with his wiser audacity, soon proclaimed
himself a candidate for the Senate. "We can get the big thing as easy
as the little one," he said. "I'm going to tell Graham it's the Senate
or nothing for me." And he got his promise. And when we knew, at
last, that his name was really on "the slate" of candidates to be
presented to the convention, we were ready to throw up our hats and
cheer for ourselves--and for the Boss.
The convention met in September, 1898. There had been a fusion of
Silver Republicans, Democrats, and Populists, that year, and the
political offices had been apportioned out among the faithful
machine-men of these parties. Gardener was nominated by "Big Steve,"
in a eulogistic speech that was part of the farce; and the convention
ratified the nomination with the unanimity of a stage mob. We knew
that his election was as sure as sunrise, and I set to work looking up
models for my bills with all the enthusiasm of the first reformer.
Meanwhile there was the question of the campaign and of the campaign
expenses. Gardener had been assessed $500 by the committee as his
share of the legitimate costs of the election, and Boss Graham
generously offered to get the money for him "from friends." We were
rather inclined to let Graham do so, feeling a certain delicacy about
refusing his generosity and being aware, too, that we were not
millionaires. But Graham was not the only one who made the offer; for
example, Ed. Chase, since head of the gambler's syndicate in Denver,
made similar proposals of kindly aid; and we decided, at last, that
perhaps it would be well to be quite independent. Our law practice was
improving. Doubtless, it would continue to improve now that we were
"in right" with the political powers. We put up $250 each and paid the
assessment.
The usual business of political rallies, mass-meetings, and campaign
speeches followed in due course, and in November, 1898, Gardener was
elected a State Senator on the fusion ticket. I had been busy with my
"three-fourths jury" bill, studying the constitution of the State of
Colorado, comparing it with those of the other states, and making
myself certain that such a law as we proposed was possible. Unlike
most of the state constitutions, Colorado's preserved inviolate the
right of jury trial in criminal cases only, and therefore it seemed to
me that the Legislature had plenary power to regulate it in civil
suits. I found that the Supreme Court of the state had so decided in
two cases, and I felt very properly elated; there seemed to be nothing
to prevent us having a law that should make "hung" juries practically
impossible in Colorado and relieve the courts of an abuse that thwarted
justice in scores of cases. At the same time I prepared a bill
allowing parents to recover damages for "anguish of mind" when a child
of theirs was killed in an accident; and, after much study, I worked up
an "employer's liability" bill to protect men who were compelled by
necessity to work under needlessly dangerous conditions. With these
three bills in his pocket, Senator Gardener went up to the Capitol,
like another David, and I went joyfully with him to aid and abet.
Happy? I was as happy as if Gardener had been elected President and I
was to be his Secretary of State. I was as happy as a man who has
found his proper work and knows that it is for the good of his fellows.
I would not have changed places that day with any genius of the fine
arts who had three masterpieces to unveil to an admiring world.
I did not know, of course--but I was soon to learn--that the
Legislature's time was almost wholly taken up with the routine work of
government, that most of the bills passed were concerned with
appropriations and such necessary details of administration, and that
only twenty or thirty bills such as ours--dealing with other
matters--could possibly be passed, among the hundreds offered. It was
Boss Graham who warned us that we had better concentrate on one
measure, if we wished to succeed with any at all, and we decided to put
all our strength behind the "three-fourths jury" bill. Since Graham
seemed to doubt its constitutionality, I went to the Attorney General
for his opinion, and he referred me to his assistant--whom I convinced.
I came back with the assistant's decision that the Legislature had
power to pass such a law, and Gardener promptly introduced it in the
Senate.
It proved at once mildly unpopular, and after a preliminary debate, in
which the senators rather laughed at it as visionary and
unconstitutional, it was referred to the Attorney General for his
opinion. We waited, confidently. To our amazement he reported it
unconstitutional, and the very assistant who had given me a favourable
opinion before, now conducted the case against it. Nothing daunted,
Gardener fought to get it referred to the Supreme Court, under the law;
and the Senate sent it there. I got up an elaborate brief, had it
printed at our expense, and spent a day in arguing it before the
Supreme Court judges. They held that the Court had already twice found
the Legislature possessed of plenary powers in such matters, and
Gardener brought the bill back into the Senate triumphantly, and got a
favourable report from the Judiciary Committee.
By this time, Boss Graham was seriously alarmed. He had warned
Gardener that the bill was distasteful to him and to those whom he
called his "friends." It was particularly distasteful, it seemed, to
the Denver City Tramway Company. And he could promise, he said, that
if we dropped the bill, the railway company would see that we got at
least four thousand dollars' worth of litigation a year to handle. To
both Gardener and myself, flushed with success and roused to the
battle, this offer seemed an amusing confession of defeat on the part
of the opposition; and we went ahead more gaily than ever.
We were enjoying ourselves. If we had been a pair of chums in college,
we could not have had a better time. Whenever I could get away from my
court cases and my office work, I rushed up to watch the fight in the
Senate, as eagerly as a Freshman hurrying from his studies to see his
athletic room-mate carry everything before him in a football game. The
whole atmosphere of the Capitol--with its corridors of coloured marble,
its vistas of arch and pillar, its burnished metal balustrades, its
great staircases--all its majesty of rich grandeur and solidity of
power--affected me with an increased respect for the functions of
government that were discharged there and for the men who had them to
discharge. I felt the reflection of that importance beaming upon
myself when I was introduced as "Senator Gardener's law partner, sir";
and I accepted the bows and greetings of lobbyists and legislators with
all the pleasure in the world.
When Gardener got our bill up for its final reading in the Senate, I
was there to watch, and it tickled me to the heart to see him. He made
a fine figure of an orator, the handsomest man in the Senate; and he
was not afraid to raise his voice and look as independent and
determined as his words. He had given the senators to understand that
any one who opposed his bill would have him as an obstinate opponent on
every other measure; and the Senate evidently realized that it would be
wise to let him have his way. The bill was passed. But it had to go
through the Lower House, too, and it was sent there, to be taken care
of by its opponents--with the tongue in the cheek, no doubt.
I met Boss Graham in the corridor. "Hello, Ben," he greeted me.
"What's the matter with that partner of yours?" I laughed; he looked
worried. "Come in here," he said. "I'd like to have a talk with you."
He led me into a quiet side room and shut the door. "Now look here,"
he said. "Did you boys ever stop to think what a boat you'll be in
with this law that you're trying to get, if you ever have to defend a
corporation in a jury suit? Now they tell me down at the tramway
offices"--the offices of the Denver City Tramway Company--"that they're
going to need a lot more legal help. There's every prospect that
they'll appoint you boys assistant counsel. But they can't expect to
do much, even with you bright boys as counsel, if they have this law
against them. You know that all the money there is in law is in
corporation business. I don't see what you're fighting for."
I explained, as well as I could, that we were fighting for the bill
because we thought it was right--that it was needed. He did not seem
to believe me; he objected that this sort of talk was not "practical."
"Well," I ended, "we've made up our minds to put it through. And we're
going to try."
"You'll find you're making a mistake, boy," he warned me. "You'll find
you're making a mistake."
We laughed over it together--Gardener and I. It was another proof to
us that we had our opponents on their knees. We thought we understood
Graham's position in the matter; he had made no disguise of the fact
that he was intimate and friendly with Mr. William G. Evans--the great
"Bill" Evans--head of the tramway company and an acknowledged power in
politics. And it was natural to us that Graham should do what he could
to induce us to spare his friends. That was all very well, but we had
made no pledges; we were under no obligations to any one except the
public whom we served. Gardener was making himself felt. He did not
intend to stultify himself, even for Graham's good "friends." I, of
course, went along with him, rejoicing.
He had another bill in hand (House Bill 235) to raise the tax on large
foreign insurance companies so as to help replenish the depleted
treasury of the state. Governor Thomas had been appealing for money;
the increased tax was conceded to be just, and it would add at least
$100,000 in revenue to the public coffers. Gardener handled it well in
the Senate, and--though we were indirectly offered a bribe of $2,500 to
drop it--he got it passed and returned it to the Lower House. He had
two other bills--one our "anguish of mind" provision and the second a
bill regulating the telephone companies; but he was not able to move
them out of committee. The opposition was silent but solid.
It became my duty to watch the two bills that we had been able to get
as far as the House calendar on final passage--to see that they were
given their turn for consideration. The jury bill came to the top very
soon, but it was passed over, and next day it was on the bottom of the
list. This happened more than once. And once it disappeared from the
calendar altogether. The Clerk of the House, when I demanded an
explanation, said that it was an oversight--a clerical error--and put
it back at the foot. I began to suspect jugglery, but I was not yet
sure of it.
One day while I was on this sentry duty, a lobbyist who was a member of
a fraternal order to which I belonged, came to me with the fraternal
greeting and a thousand dollars in bills. "Lindsey," he said, "this is
a legal fee for an argument we want you to make before the committee,
as a lawyer, against that insurance bill. It's perfectly legitimate.
We don't want you to do anything except in a legal way. You know our
other lawyer has made an able argument, showing how the extra tax will
come out of the people in increased premiums"--and so on. I refused
the money and continued trying to push along the bill. In a few days
he came back to me, with a grin. "Too bad you didn't take that money,"
he said. "There's lots of it going round. But the joke of it is, I
got the whole thing fixed up for $250. Watch Cannon." I watched
Cannon--Wilbur F. Cannon, a member of the House and a "floor leader"
there. He had already voted in favour of the bill. But--to anticipate
somewhat the sequence of events--I saw Wilbur F. Cannon, in the
confusion and excitement of the closing moments of the session, rush
down the aisle toward the Speaker's chair and make a motion concerning
the insurance bill--to what effect I could not hear. The motion was
put, in the midst of the uproar, and declared carried; and the bill was
killed. It was killed so neatly that there is to-day no record of its
decease in the official account of the proceedings of the House!
Expert treason, bold and skilful! [4]
Meanwhile, I had been standing by our jury bill. It went up and it
went down on the calendar, and at last when it arrived at a hearing it
was referred back to the Judiciary Committee with two other
anti-corporation bills. The session was drawing toward the day
provided by the constitution for its closing, and we could no longer
doubt that we were being juggled out of our last chance by the Clerk
and the Speaker--who was Mr. William G. Smith, since known as "Tramway
Bill." [5]
"All right," Gardener said. "Not one of Speaker Smith's House bills
will get through the Senate until he lets our jury bill get to a vote."
He told Speaker Smith what he intended to do and next day he began to
do it.
That afternoon, tired out, I was resting, during a recess of the House,
in a chair that stood in a shadowed corner, when the Speaker hurried by
heavily, evidently unaware of me, and rang a telephone. I heard him
mention the name of "Mr. Evans," in a low, husky voice. I heard,
sleepily, not consciously listening; and I did note at first connect
"Mr. Evans" with William G. Evans of the tramway company. But a little
later I heard the Speaker say: "Well, unless Gardener can be pulled
off, we'll have to let that 'three-fourths' bill out. He's raising
hell with a lot of our measures over in the Senate. . . What? . . .
Yes. . . . Well, get at it pretty quick."
Those hoarse, significant words wakened like the thrill of an electric
shock--wakened to an understanding of the strength of "special
interests" that were opposed to us--and wakened in me, too, the anger
of a determination to fight to a finish. The Powers that had "fixed"
our juries, were now fixing Legislature. They had laughed at us in the
courts; they were going to laugh at us in the Capitol!
Speaker Smith came lumbering out. He was a heavily built man, with a
big jaw. And when he saw me there, confronting him, his face changed
from a look of displeased surprise to one of angry contempt--lowering
his head like a bull--as if he were saying to himself: "What! That
d---- little devil! I'll bet he heard me!" But he did not speak. And
neither did I. He went off about whatever business he had in hand, and
I caught up my hat and hastened to Gardener to tell him what I had
heard.
When the House met again, in committee of the whole, the Speaker, of
course, was not in the Chair, and Gardener found him in the lobby.
Gardener had agreed with me to say nothing of the telephone
conversation but he threatened Smith that unless our jury bill was
"reported out" by the Judiciary Committee and allowed to come to a
vote, he would oppose every House bill in the Senate and talk the
session to death. Smith fumed and blustered, but Gardener, with the
blood in his face, out-blustered and out-fumed him. The Speaker, later
in the day, vented some of his spleen by publicly threatening to eject
me from the floor of the House as a lobbyist. But he had to allow the
bill to come up, and it was finally passed, with very little
opposition--for reasons which I was afterward to understand.
It had yet to be signed by the Speaker; and it had to be signed before
the close of the session or it could not become a law. I heard rumours
that some anti-corporation bills were going to be "lost" by the Chief
Clerk, so that they might not be signed; and I kept my eye on him. He
was a fat-faced, stupid-looking, flabby creature--by name D. H.
Dickason--who did not appear capable of doing anything very daring. I
saw the chairman of the Enrolling Committee place our bill on
Dickason's desk, among those waiting for the Speaker's signature;
and--while the House was busy--I withdrew it from the pile and placed
it to one side, conspicuously, so that I could see it from a distance.
When the time came for signing--sure enough! the Clerk was missing, and
some bills were missing with him. The House was crowded--floor and
galleries--and the whole place went into an uproar at once. Nobody
seemed to know which bills were gone; every member who had an
anti-corporation bill thought it was his that had been stolen; and they
all together broke out into denunciations of the Speaker, the Clerk,
and everybody else whom they thought concerned in the outrage. One man
jumped up on his chair and tried to dominate the pandemonium, shouting
and waving his hands. The galleries went wild with noisy excitement.
Men threatened each other with violence on the floor of the House,
cursing and shaking their fists. Others rushed here and there trying
to find some trace of the Clerk. The Speaker, breathless from calling
for order and pounding with his gavel, had to sit down and let them
rage.
At last, from my place by the wall, on the outskirts of the hubbub, I
saw the Clerk dragged down the aisle by the collar, bleeding, with a
blackened eye, apparently half drunk and evidently frightened into an
abject terror. He had stolen a bill introduced by Senator Bucklin,
providing that cities could own their own water works and gas works;
but the Senator's wife had been watching him; she had followed him to
the basement and stopped him as he tried to escape to the street; and
it was the Senator now who had him by the neck.
They thrust him back into his chair, got the confusion quieted, and
with muttered threats of the penitentiary for him and everybody
concerned in the affair, they got back to business again with the
desperate haste of men working against time. And our jury bill was
signed!
It was signed; and we had won! (At least we thought so.) And I walked
out of the crowded glare of the session's close, into an April midnight
that was as wide as all eternity and as quiet. It seemed to me that
the stars, even in Colorado, had never been brighter; they sparkled in
the clear blackness of the sky with a joyful brilliancy. A cool breeze
drew down from the mountains as peacefully as the breath in sleep. It
was a night to make a man take on his hat and breathe out his last
vexation in a sigh.
We had won. What did it matter that the Boss, the Speaker, the Clerk
and so many more of these miserable creatures were bought and sold in
selfishness? That spring night seemed to answer for it that the truth
and beauty of the world were as big above them as the heavens that
arched so high above the puny dome-light, of the Capitol. Had not even
we, two "boys"--as they called us--put a just law before them and made
them take up the pen and sign it? If we had done so much without even
a whisper from the people and scarcely a line from the public press to
aid and back us, what would the future not do when we found the help
that an aroused community would surely give us? Hope? The whole night
was hushed and peaceful with hope. The very houses that I
passed--walking home up the tree-lined streets--seemed to me in some
way so quiet because they were so sure. All was right with the world.
We had won.
[1] A New England family, to which the poet Whittier was related.
[2] This is one of the few fictitious names used in the story. Judge
Lindsey wishes it disguised "for old sake's sake."
[3] Many of the conversations reported in this volume are given from
memory, and they are liable to errors of memory in the use of a word or
a turn of expression. But they are not liable to error in substance.
They are the unadorned truth, clearly recollected.--B. B. L.
[4] Wilbur F. Cannon is now Pure Food Commissioner in Colorado.
[5] Smith is now tax agent in the tramway offices.