Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/209

 GUITEAU'S CASE. 197 �vidual must enter some discrimiiiating knowledge of his antecedents, his edu- cation, his temperament, his nature. Such elements as enter into the ' make- up' of Judge Cox are rarely seen in any man, north or south, who has acliieved success or eminence. Said one who knows him vvell, ' I liave never seen any man really eminent who had so little self-cousciousness.' 'Judge Cox is the niost unpretentious man I ever knew. He assumes nothing.' �"Judge Walter Cox was born in Georgetown, and is by birth, association, and training a real son of the District of Columbia. Inheriting a large for- tune from his father, he had all the incentives to idleness usually born of opulence; but, though he lives in great elegance, and entertains with large hospitality, he has been all his lif e one of the hiirdest of workers. Standing in the foremost rank as a lawyer, he has been for years at the head of the law school of Columbia University, Washington. In addition to a pressing law practice, three evenings of the week, for many years, have found him in his place as the instructor of the intelligent, and, in many cases, hard-worked young men, who, with other employments by day, studied law with Judge Cox of nights. * * * �"Judge Cox is a slight, delicate-looking man, whose strong features and fine head indicate a mentality more potent than any mere physical force could express. He is somewhat bald, has mild blue eyes, a Roman nose, and an ex- pression entirely benevolent. Said a friend: 'I cannot see how a man can amount to so much and assert himself so little.' This was the quality that brought down upon him so many anathemas during the Guiteau trial. His is not the material energy or enginery that vociferates, gesticulates, com- mands. Guiteau, who is an acute and nervous brute, cared no more for Judge Cox's gentle cry of ' Silence! ' than he did for the fly he brushed from his nose. But the moment came when he cared. When Judge Cox's wise mind, clear sight, and just statement were set upon the facts of his awful crime, the criminal knew he had reached at last his moment of doom, and he quaked as utterly as if the vociferons insolence and insults with which he had flUed every hour of his disgraceful presence in court had never been." �This, from what I know of Judge Cox, I believe to be true; and I may add that there was a heroism in his management of the case which should mark an era in judicial history. I do not, of course, appeal, by way of comparison, to the conduct of English judges in the seventeenth century, or even to that of French judges of the present day. Yet, in view of recent EngUsh criti- cisms of the Guiteau trial, it is well to look at some of the more conspicuous English prosecutions, and inquire whether the example they set is not one which it was right to reject. �When the few surviving regicides were brought to trial on the restoration of Charles II., they were overwhelmed with obloquy by the court as well as from the attorney general; they were not permitted to have counsel; when they attempted to argue in extenuation the political conditions of the times they were crushed under a storm of coarse abuse. In the later political trials under Charles II. and James II. the judges interfered to degrade, insuit, and convict the prisoners with a savage and vulgar ferocity which Guiteau alone, were he now put on the bench, could exceed. I do not, of course, tum to such scenes as these, but I would take, by way of comparison. Lord Chief Justice Gockburn's course in the iichbourne prosecution. As to that proseeution two remarks may be preraisfed: In the first pla«e, the claimant's guilt was very far from being as plain as that of Guiteau ; in the second place, exasper- ating as was the claimant, the annoyanee he gave the court was but slight ��� �