Standard Oil Company; Trusts, Industrial -- United States
When he was nominated to be judge again, after his indecision and
decision had swelled the dividends of the great railways of New York,
the presiding officer of the convention which was to choose him to be
their candidate was, by a coincidence, also the president of one of
the great railway corporations which had been involved in the judicial
proceeding of 1882. The judge's record was made one of the issues in
the State election which followed the defeat of justice in Buffalo. He
was nominated by the Republicans in 1889 for Judge of the Court of
Appeals, the highest court in the State of New York, and the nomination
was asserted by the New York _Times_, in a leading editorial, to have
been procured by the oil trust. Its "influence was active," said the
_Times_, "in securing the nomination of" this judge. " ... An attorney
who has labored in its interests at Albany during the last two sessions
of the Legislature was conspicuous among the men who did the work." The
New York _Times_, the Buffalo _Courier_, the New York _Star_, the New
York _World_, and other leading journals of the State retold the story
of the trial, and declared that the judge's action in taking the case
of the members of the trust from the jury, and the sentence he gave the
convicted agents, made it clear that he was unfit to be a judge. The
oil combination, the _World_ said, editorially, "have had agents busy
this year trying to secure his elevation to the highest court in the
State.... We say confidently that the history of the case establishes
his conspicuous unfitness for a place on the bench of the Court of
Appeals. He should be defeated, and with him the oppressive monopoly
which is actively seeking his election."
He was defeated with the rest of the ticket. District Attorney Quinby
was re-elected several terms in succession. After their victory the
people went to sleep, but not the sower of tares. At the election of
1890 the nomination of this judge to a seat on the bench was secured
from both parties. For fourteen years, therefore--from 1890--a seat of
the Supreme Court, one of the most important tribunals of justice in
New York State, will be occupied by this judge, before whom must come
many questions affecting oil transportation, electric lighting, natural
gas and illuminating, street railways, banking, and other interests of
the oil trust.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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