Capitalists and financiers -- Fiction; Psychological fiction
Stener—had been closed to him! He knew that honestly, by open
agreement, he could not extract another single dollar from the treasury
of the city of Philadelphia. He knew that if he left the office without
this check and sent a boy for it, the aroused city treasurer would have
time to inform his clerks, and that then no further money could be
obtained. That’s why! That’s why, gentlemen, if you really want to
know.
“Now, gentlemen of the jury, I am about done with my arraignment of
this fine, honorable, virtuous citizen whom the counsel for the
defense, Mr. Steger, tells you you cannot possibly convict without
doing a great injustice. All I have to say is that you look to me like
sane, intelligent men—just the sort of men that I meet everywhere in
the ordinary walks of life, doing an honorable American business in an
honorable American way. Now, gentlemen of the jury [he was very
soft-spoken now], all I have to say is that if, after all you have
heard and seen here to-day, you still think that Mr. Frank A.
Cowperwood is an honest, honorable man—that he didn’t steal, willfully
and knowingly, sixty thousand dollars from the Philadelphia city
treasury; that he had actually bought the certificates he said he had,
and had intended to put them in the sinking-fund, as he said he did,
then don’t you dare to do anything except turn him loose, and that
speedily, so that he can go on back to-day into Third Street, and start
to straighten out his much-entangled financial affairs. It is the only
thing for honest, conscientious men to do—to turn him instantly loose
into the heart of this community, so that some of the rank injustice
that my opponent, Mr. Steger, alleges has been done him will be a
little made up to him. You owe him, if that is the way you feel, a
prompt acknowledgment of his innocence. Don’t worry about George W.
Stener. His guilt is established by his own confession. He admits he is
guilty. He will be sentenced without trial later on. But this man—he
says he is an honest, honorable man. He says he didn’t think he was
going to fail. He says he used all that threatening, compelling,
terrifying language, not because he was in danger of failing, but
because he didn’t want the bother of looking further for aid. What do
you think? Do you really think that he had purchased sixty thousand
dollars more of certificates for the sinking-fund, and that he was
entitled to the money? If so, why didn’t he put them in the
sinking-fund? They’re not there now, and the sixty thousand dollars is
gone. Who got it? The Girard National Bank, where he was overdrawn to
the extent of one hundred thousand dollars! Did it get it and forty
thousand dollars more in other checks and certificates? Certainly. Why?
Do you suppose the Girard National Bank might be in any way grateful
for this last little favor before he closed his doors? Do you think
that President Davison, whom you saw here testifying so kindly in this
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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