Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/92

 Great Seal of State, had the secretary of state sign them, and took them over to the governor's office. I was admitted to his private room, and there he sat, at his great flat desk. The only other person in the room was Dreier, a Chicago banker, who had never wearied, it seems, in his efforts to have those men pardoned. He was standing, and was very nervous; the moment evidently meant much to him. The Governor took the big sheets of imitation parchment, glanced over them, signed his name to each, laid down the pen, and handed the papers across the table to Dreier. The banker took them, and began to say something. But he only got as far as

"Governor, I hardly"—when he broke down and wept. Altgeld made an impatient gesture; he was gazing out of the window in silence, on the elm-trees in the yard. He took out his watch, told Dreier he would miss his train—Dreier was to take the Alton to Joliet, deliver the pardons to the men in person, and go on into Chicago with them that night—and Dreier nervously rolled up the pardons, took up a little valise, shook hands, and was gone.

On the table was a high pile of proofs of the document in which Governor Altgeld gave the reasons for his action. It was an able paper; one might well rank it among state papers, and I suppose no one now, in these days, when so many of Altgeld's democratic theories are popular, would deny that his grounds were just and reasonable, or that he had done what he could to right a great wrong; though he would regret that so great a soul should have