For Dora McDonald, life had been lived when Guerin died. It mattered
not after that whether she went to the gallows or to freedom. But for
one reason she would not have cared a whit whether her case was fought
before a jury or not. The one reason was vindication that her mother
might be spared something of shame.
The vindication, however, was sought at a costly price--the price of a
life and heart and love bared to a gaping world. It was an expensive
effort to wash off the stain of an indictment.
At the trial Assistant State's Attorneys Edward S. Day and William
H. Rittenhouse wrangled with their own witnesses and tried one after
another to have them testify to things they never saw or heard.
They attacked Inspector John Wheeler, Officer J. G. S. Peterson,
Thomas F. McFarland, Detective Wooldridge, Police Matron Elizabeth
Belmont, Charles Freudenberg, an old soldier 60 years old, and
threatened him with an indictment; Louis Jacobs, Lorenzo Blasi, Herman
Hanson and Charles B. Williams.
All of those accused except Detective Wooldridge considered the
fulminations of Attorneys Day and Rittenhouse a good joke. They
regarded them as the vaporings of temporarily disordered intellects,
minds that had become rattled by a case which was too big for them.
Owing, however, to the peculiar position in which he was placed as the
officer who made the arrest, Wooldridge was forced to take cognizance
of the matter.
Wooldridge denied the statements made against him and branded them as
malicious lies manufactured out of whole cloth. He asked for a hearing
before the Civil Service Board, which was granted to him after the
trial was over.
It was fully shown at the investigation how Wooldridge had been
treated in the matter, and the motive for his transfer; it was also
shown that he knew no new facts, neither did he meet or know any
witnesses except those who had testified to the Coroner and Grand Jury.
The motives for his transfer and the reports were fully uncovered and
exposed.
Detective Wooldridge was exonerated by the entire Board of Civil
Service Commissioners.
Day and Rittenhouse simply sewed up the case in criminations and
recriminations.
Assistant State's Attorneys Day and Rittenhouse were outgeneraled,
outclassed and whipped, and wanted to throw the blame for the
acquittal of Dora McDonald on the Police Department and failed. They
did everything but try the case.