Scores of criminals, deputies and strikers were rounded up for a hearing
before Judge Meyer. So great was the crowd of defendants that little
room was left for the curious. The first man called was a laborer, a
freight handler, whose occupation had gone when the company ceased to
handle freight. The charge against him was a peculiar one. His neighbor,
a driver for one of the breweries, owned a cow, which, although she gave
an abundance of milk at night, had ceased almost entirely to produce at
the morning milking. The German continued to feed her and she waxed fat,
but there was no improvement, and finally it was decided that the cow
should be watched. About four A. M. on the following morning a small man
came and leaned a ladder against the high fence between the driver's
back-yard, and that of the laborer. Then the small man climbed to the
top of the fence, balanced himself carefully, hauled the ladder up and
slid it down in the Dutchman's lot. All this was suspicious, but what
the driver wanted was positive proof, so he choked his dog and remained
quiet until the man had milked the cow and started for the fence. Now
the bull-dog, being freed from his master's grasp, coupled into the
climber's caboose and hauled him back down the ladder. It was found upon
examination that a rubber hot-water bag, well filled with warm milk, was
dangling from a strap that encircled the man's shoulders, shot-pouch
fashion.
Upon being charged, the man pleaded guilty. At first, he said, he had
only taken enough milk for the baby, who had been without milk for
thirty-six hours. The thought of stealing had not entered his mind until
near morning of the second night of the baby's fast. They had been up
with the starving child all night, and just before day he had gone into
the back-yard to get some fuel to build a fire, when he heard his
neighbor's cow tramping about in the barn lot, and instantly it
occurred to him that there was milk for the baby; that if he could
procure only a teacupful, it might save the child's life. He secured a
ladder and went over the fence, but being dreadfully afraid he had taken
barely enough milk to keep the baby during the day and that night they
were obliged to walk the floor again. It was only a little past midnight
when he went over the fence for the second time. Upon this occasion he
took more milk, so that he was not obliged to return on the following
night, but another day brought the same condition of affairs and over
the fence he went, and he continued to go every night, and the baby
began to thrive as it had not done in all its life.
Finally the food supply began to dwindle, he was idle, and his wife was
unable to do hard work; they had other small children who now began to
cry for milk, and the father's heart ached for them and he went over the
fence one night prepared to bring all he could get. That day all the
children had milk, but it was soon gone and then came the friendly night
and the performance at the back fence was repeated.
Emboldened by success the man had come to regard it as a part of his
daily or nightly duty to milk his neighbor's cow, but alas! for the
wrong-doer there comes a day of reckoning, and it had come at last to
the freight handler. The freight agent who was called as a witness
testified as to the good character of the man previously, but he was a
thief. Put to the test it had been proven that he would steal from his
neighbor simply to keep his baby from starving, so he went to the
workhouse, his family went to the poor-house, and the strike went on.
"If you were to ask who is responsible for this strike," said the
philosophic tramp to Patsy, "which has left in its wake only waste,
want, misery, and even murder, the strikers would answer 'the company';
the company, 'the strikers'; and if Congress came in a private car to
investigate, the men on either side would hide behind one another, like
cattle in a storm, and the guilty would escape. The law intends to
punish, but the law finds it so hard to locate the real criminals in a
great soulless corporation, or in a conglomeration of organizations
whose aggregate membership reaches into the hundreds of thousands, that
the blind goddess grows weary, groping in the dark, and finally falls
asleep with the cry of starving children still ringing in her ears."
Now an officer brought engineer Dan Moran, the alleged dynamiter, into
court for a special hearing. He wore no manacles, but stood erect in the
awful presence of the judge, unfettered and unafraid.
Mr. Alexander, the lawyer for the strikers, having had a hint from Billy
Watchem, the detective, asked that the prisoner be discharged, but the
young man who had been sent down from the office of the prosecuting
attorney, being behind the procession, protested vigorously. In the
midst of a burning argument, in which the old engineer was unmercifully
abused, the youthful attorney was interrupted to receive a message from
the general manager of the Burlington route. Pausing only long enough to
read the signature, the orator continued to pour his argument into the
court until a second messenger arrived with a note from his chief. It
was brief and he read it: "Let go; the house is falling in on you"; and
he let go. It was a long, hard fall, so he thought he would drop a
little at a time. The court was surprised to see the attorney stop short
in what he doubtless considered the effort of his life, and ask that the
prisoner be released on bail. Now the prosecuting attorney glanced at
Mr. Alexander, but that gentleman was looking the other way. "Does that
proposition meet with the approval of the eminent counsel on the other
side?"
"No," said the other side.
"Then will you take the trouble to make your wishes known to the court?"
"No, you will do that for me," said the eminent counsel, with a coolness
that was exasperating. "It would be unsafe to shut off such a flow of
eloquence all at once. Ask the court, please, to discharge the
prisoner."
"Never," said the young lawyer, growing red to the roots of his
perfectly parted hair. The counsel for the defence reached over the
table and flipped the last message toward the lawyer, at the same time
advising the young man to read it again. Then the young man coughed, the
old lawyer laughed, the judge fidgeted on his bench, but he caught the
prayer of the youthful attorney, it was answered, and Dan Moran received
his freedom.
"Do you observe how the law operates?" asked the Philosopher, who had
been the bearer of the message from the general manager, of Patsy Daly
as they were leaving the court.
"I must confess," said Patsy, "that I am utterly unable to understand
these things. Here is a lawyer abusing a man--an honest man at
that--unmercifully, and all of a sudden he asks the court to discharge
the prisoner. It's beyond me."
"But the side play! Didn't you get on to the message that blackguard
received? He had a hunch from the prosecuting attorney who had been
hunched by the general manager, who, as I happened to know, was
severely, but very successfully hunched by Billy Watchem, to the effect
that this man was innocent and must be released. It was the shadow-hand
of old 'Never Sleep,' that did the business and set an innocent man
free, and hereafter, when I cuss a copper I'll say a little prayer for
this man whose good deeds are all done in the dark, and therefore
covered up."
"Thank you," said Patsy, "I should never have been able to work it out
myself."
"Well, it is not all worked out yet," said the Philosopher, "and will
not be until we come up for a final hearing, in a court that is
infallible and unfoolable; and what a lot of surprises are in store for
some people. It is not good to judge, and yet I can't help picturing it
all to myself. I see a sleek old sinner, who has gone through this life
perfectly satisfied with himself, edging his way in and sidling over
where the sheep are. Then in comes this poor devil who went to jail this
morning--that was his first trip, but the road is easy when you have
been over it once--and he, having been herding all along with the goats,
naturally wanders over that way. Then at the last moment I see the Good
Shepherd shooing the sleek old buck over where the goats are and
bringing the milk-thief back with him, and I see the look of surprise on
the old gentleman's face as he drops down the 'goat-chute.'"