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The day book. (Chicago, Ill.) 1911-1917, July 06, 1914, NOON EDITION, Image 6


Persistent link: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045487/1914-07-06/ed-1/seq-6/

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The Progressive opportunity will
come only when the Hearst-Clark-Underwood-Belmont-Tammany
tion of reaction becomes strong
enough to overcome Wilson and
force Democratic progressives to
hunt a new home. It can't be forced
by untimely knocking.
Fixing Juries. There are two sides
to that jury-fixing story, too. If there
are poor devils who will risk a term
in the'pen by fixing juries for a bare
living, there are lawyers in the case
who hire them to do it and get the
big money.
And the lawyers generally get
away with it.
It has been the practice for years
for public service corporations to
have on their payroll two kinds of
lawyers eminently respectable law
yers who. pose before the public as
prominent citizens, and cheap law
yers who are hired by the high-toned
lawyers to do the dirty work.
The high-toned lawyers don't take
the risk themselves, although they
get the big end of the swag. But you
can gamble they know how the job
was done.
Many a big corporation lawyer,
whose family moves in what some
folks call "our very best circles,"
knows, when he gets up and says
in a personal injury case "If your
Honor please, and gentlemen of the
jury" that a lesser lawyer, or so
called 'claim-agent, has already fixed
the jury.
You can't make one believe that
the eminent general counsel of big
railways don't know just what their
little lawyers and lobbyists are doing
when legislatures are in session for
the money that goes through the lit
tle legal pimps to the bought repre
sentatives of the people passes
through the hands of the big legal
pimp, who is heralded in the news
papers as one of the great lawyers of
the state.
I can remember when the lawyer
everybody was interested in was the
big criminal lawyer, who made won
derful speeches to the jury in a mur
der case. But times have changed.
The big criminal lawyer who is
often a lawyer criminal as well is
today the corporation lawyer.
When the law gets after crime, the
mountain usually labors and brings
forth a mouse. We make a big fuss
over the pretty criminal who robs an
individual, and put a halo on the
head of the one who robs an entire
community, state or nation.
An ounce of law-violation is crim
inal; a ton of it is genius. And it
doesn't pay to be a piker.
The lawyers have a powerful
union. They call it the Bar Asso
ciation. It could protect society from
legal crooks; but it doesn't. That
may be because the crooks are in the
majority; and also because most law
yers aspire to the big financial gains
that come from success in the cor
poration practice, and hope to be
come what the big corporation law
yers are and many of them are
crooks hired, for big pay to show
captains of industry how to laugh at
the law and still keep out of jail.
This may sound harsh to the laity,
but down in his heart every lawyer
knows it is true. He won't admit it,
of course. But he knows it. He
knows that the average lawyer is for
sale to the highest bidder and you
can't say much more than that of the
most degraded woman in the under
world. And from this material our judges
are made. Some of them are honest,
O yes they think they are anyhow.
And they want the rest of us to think
they are. But they know it takes a
wonderful man to get on the bench
and stay there if he lives up to the
ideals he had when he was a law
Anyhow, if the Bull Malones are
really guilty of jury-fixing, there are
brainy men higher up who are much
more guilty than they. And it is a
hard job to get at the men higher up.

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