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O tell the truth, I did not at any time know District-Attorney Wickson well enough to be able now to do an intimate portrait-study of him at first hand. But I know his town—having "muckraked" it while he was in office. I know many of the circumstances of his story, because they were part of the material that came up in the raking. And I know a number of his closest friends and associates, from whom I have gathered the incidents of that day in his life which I wish to record—the great and culminating day of his career.

The men whom I have relied upon for the details of that day are "Jack" Arnett, sculptor of the Wickson Memorial, McPhee Harris, president of the Purity Defense League and the local Anti-Saloon Association, and Tim Collins (or "Cole" or "Colburn"), the detective who helped Wickson in the investigations and prosecutions that made the District Attorney a national figure. These three men were the chief actors in the dramatic crisis of Wickson's life and in those crucial incidents