Standard Oil Company; Trusts, Industrial -- United States
extradited, as he would have done, does daily, in the case of poor
men, and the courts so tangled up the questions of procedure that the
people withdrew, and left the indictments, as they remain to this day,
on file in the Clarion County court, swinging like the body of some
martyr on a road-side gibbet in the pagan days, polluting the air and
mocking justice.[471]
That the trust was thoroughly alarmed, and saw the necessity of
rallying all its resources to save itself, was apparent from the
formidable display with which it appeared in the court-room. Present
with the five defendants, as if also on trial--a solid phalanx--were
its president, the vice-president, the manager of its pipe-line system,
the principal representatives of the trust in Buffalo, and many others.
Their regular attorney of New York was present with two of the leading
lawyers of Buffalo. Besides these there was a distinguished man from
Rochester, reputed the ablest lawyer in western New York, whose voice
is often heard in the Supreme Court at Washington. He had two important
members of the Rochester bar as assistants, one of them in the summing
up unmercifully scored by the District Attorney for fixing witnesses;
and, not least, a well-known United States District Attorney, who made
the convention speeches by which a distinguished citizen of Buffalo
was nominated, successively and successfully, for Sheriff, Mayor,
Governor, and President. The defendants come here, said the people's
attorney, with the best legal talent the country affords, the best
the profession can furnish; for the trust--"they are practically the
defendants in this action--with its great wealth, has the choice of
legal talent." Other eminent lawyers were also consulted, but were not
present. Never was a weak defence made the most of with more skill
than these gentlemen exhibited upon the trial.... But great as was the
ability of the defence, Mr. George T. Quinby, the District Attorney,
and his assistant, William L. Marcy, proved a match for them. Every
political and moneyed influence that could be brought to bear was used
to mislead the District Attorney, but all to no purpose. The jury
could see that the complainant, Charles B. Matthews, did not get the
indictment to sell out, otherwise he would have sold it out and not
have insisted upon a trial. The fact that the case was on trial, at a
cost of many thousands of dollars to the defendants, was conclusive
upon that point. An emissary, trying to get Matthews to call off the
District Attorney and to hush up this criminal prosecution, said the
oil trust could "give him anything, even to being governor of a Western
territory."[472] "You will have a chance," Matthews told the District
Attorney, "to line the street from your house to the City Hall with
gold bricks." But this public prosecutor had no price. He grasped the
full scope of this extraordinary case, which involved not only a crime
against persons and against the people, but against that true commerce
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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