Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/84

 suffering and despair that, had it not been for the high intelligence that shone from his eyes, it must have impressed many as altogether lacking in expression. Certainly it seldom or never expressed enthusiasm, or joy, or humor, though he had humor of a certain mordant kind, as many a political opponent was to know.

He had been a judge of the Circuit Court, and was known by his occasional addresses, his interviews and articles, as a publicist of radical and humanitarian tendencies. He was known especially to the laboring classes and to the poor, who, by that acute sympathy they possess, divined in him a friend, and in the circles of sociological workers and students, then so small and obscure as to make their views esoteric, he was recognized as one who understood and sympathized with their tendencies and ideals. He was accounted in those days a wealthy man,—he was just then building one of those tall and ugly structures of steel called "sky-scrapers,"—and now that he was spoken of for governor this fact made him seem "available" to the politicians. Also he had a German name, another asset in Illinois just then, when Germans all over the state felt themselves outraged by legislation concerning the "little red school-house," which the Republicans had enacted when they were in full power in the state.

But my paper did not share this enthusiasm about him; it happened to be owned by John R. Walsh, and between Walsh and Altgeld there was a feud, a feud that cost Altgeld his fortune, and lasted until the