Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/238

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

ll. United

States Senator Patterson’s paper, the Rocky Moun- tain News , printed the interview in red, and it was sensational. The Judge says it gave him a sensation himself. But it was true, so he “stood for it.” Frank Adams answered it with a denial. The boys were liars, he said, and as for Judge Lindsey, he was crazy.

“I knew then,” says the Judge, “that I was up against it. I must make good. So I wrote to the Police Board offering to hold an inquiry. They were willing, they answered, but not then. I wanted it then, and I ordered it for two o’clock the next day in my court room. And lest the Board, recalling the last time they met the boys, might not come, I invited also the Governor, the Mayor, the District-attorney, other officials, fifteen ministers and rabbis, and others. I didn’t expect many to come, but they all accepted, even Governor Peabody — all but Frank Adams and the police commissioners. The Board sent a dummy to represent it.”

It was Saturday morning when the Judge got his acceptances, and he had to hurry. Calling in a friendly deputy sheriff, he asked him to get ten witnesses named on a list he had made of boys who had been in the jails. I must have them by two o’clock,” the Judge said. The officer declared it impossible. He should have