Now in New York those worthy, well-meaning, elderly judges of the court
of appeals have never had such an experience in their lives.
They don’t know. They don’t visualize to themselves how that brakeman
feels. They are not able to present to their minds the risks incident
to the ordinary, everyday performance of his duties.
They don’t know the brakeman. They don’t know what it is――I am speaking
of a case I know――they don’t know what it means when a brakeman loses
both legs, and the following winter――I am speaking of a case I know,
my own personal experience――the following winter his wife can’t go out
because she can’t purchase shoes if she purchases shoes to send the
children to school in. If they did visualize those facts to themselves,
I know that they would entirely alter the course of their judicial
decisions. They don’t understand what the facts of the case are.
Now, this is simply as a preliminary, because I want you to know,
to realize, that I have come to my present convictions as a result
of having lived in the actual world of workaday men. I am not a
sentimentalist. [Great applause.]