It mattered not that most of the thoughtful men in Illinois would tell you that the “anarchists” had been improperly convicted, that they were not only entirely innocent of the murder of which they had been accused, but were not even anarchists; it was simply that the mob had convicted them in one of the strangest frenzies of fear that ever distracted a whole community, a case which all the psychologists of all the universities in the world might have tried, without getting at the truth of it--much less a jury in a criminal court. And so, one morning in June, very early, I was called to the governor’s office, and told to make out pardons for Fielden, Neebe, and Schwab. “And do it yourself,” said the governor’s secretary, “and don’t say anything about it to anybody.” I cannot tell in what surprise, in what a haze, or with what emotions I went about that task. I got the blanks and the records, and, before the executive clerk, whose work it was, had come down, I made out those three pardons, in the largest, roundest hand I could command, impressed them with the Great Seal of State, had the secretary of state sign them, and took them over to the governor’s office. I was admitted to his private room, and there he sat, at his great flat desk. The only other person in the room was Dreier, a Chicago banker, who had never wearied, it seems, in his efforts to have those men pardoned. He was standing, and was very nervous; the moment evidently meant much to him. The Governor took the big sheets of imitation parchment, glanced over them, signed his name to each, laid down the pen, and handed the papers across the table to Dreier. The banker took them, and began to say something. But he only got as far as---- “Governor, I hardly”--when he broke down and wept. Altgeld made an impatient gesture; he was gazing out of the window in silence, on the elm-trees in the yard. He took out his watch, told Dreier he would miss his train--Dreier was to take the Alton to Joliet, deliver the pardons to the men in person, and go on into Chicago with them that night--and Dreier nervously rolled up the pardons, took up a little valise, shook hands, and was gone. On the table was a high pile of proofs of the document in which Governor Altgeld gave the reasons for his action. It was an able paper; one might well rank it among state papers, and I suppose no one now, in these days, when so many of Altgeld’s democratic theories are popular, would deny that his grounds were just and reasonable, or that he had done what he could to right a great wrong; though he would regret that so great a soul should have permitted itself to mar the document by expressions of hatred of the judge who tried the case. But perhaps it is not so easy to be calm and impersonal in the midst of the moving event, as it is given to others to be long afterward.