Page:The American Magazine volume LXIV.djvu/619

Rh the jurors, Heney asked him if he knew Kribs. He said he didn't.

"Did your firm ever do business with him?"

"I don't know."

That was all at the time, but both Mitchell and Heney knew that the basis of the Mitchell case was laid, both the prosecution and the defense. The charge was to be that this United States Senator took fees for using his influence in the Department at Washington to put through (fraudulent) business, and the defense was to be that the firm of Mitchell & Tanner, not the Senator, had taken these "fees." When Mitchell went back to Washington, Heney summoned Tanner and asked for his co-partnership contract with Mitchell. It was drawn in terms which exculpated Mitchell absolutely, for all fees for Department business were to go only to Tanner and the Senator was to be asked to do only perfectly proper business for his constituents without pay. Heney suspected that this paper was drawn for this particular case and Bums traced the stationery. The paper on which that agreement was written had not been manufactured till after the date of the contract. Moreover, there had been a recent change of stenographers in Mitchell & Tanner's office and the crucial paragraph contained three misspelled words. Heney sent for the firm's new stenographer, Tanner's own son, and asked him if he had not typewritten the contract. He hesitated, flushed, but said he hadn't. Heney made him write at his dictation a passage which contained the three words misspelled in the contract. The young man misspelled them as in the paper. Heney had the father and son indicted for perjury and, to save his boy, the father confessed and pleaded guilty.

Tanner said that Mitchell had suspected that Heney would catch him on the Kribs business and that on his way home to appear before the Grand Jury he had had Tanner meet him on the train. The Senaator told him that he wasn't afraid of Puter; a United States Senator's word was better than a land thief's, but Kribs was a business man and paid in checks. Mitchell said they must look the books over and the next day they did so. Everything was in them: the payment by Kribs and the $500 a month from the Southern Pacific. "My God!" the Senator exclaimed. "These books will ruin me. They must be burned or rewritten." And the next thing he thought of was that partnership contract. Mitchell's private secretary, Robertson, had written it. Mitchell had Tanner's son write the new one. Kribs produced his checks; the bank produced its books, which showed that month by month the fees were divided between the partners; former stenographers recalled the payments, and vividly, because the firm did so little other business. So the "fees" were traced from Kribs to Mitchell. One link in the evidence was lacking to make out what lawyers call a "beautiful case."

Chief Wilkie saw Robertson in Washington, served a summons on him and advised him to tell the truth. Robertson reported to Mitchell, who was getting telegrams daily from Tanner.

"What do you suppose they want of me?" Robertson asked.

Mitchell told him about the old contract and the new one. "They probably want to question you about it and you must be careful what you answer."

Robertson read the new contract, and looked so dumfounded that Mitchell went on to explain.

"Oh, we framed that up when I was out there. Any means are justified to beat those——." And he said he would give him a letter for Tanner, telling him just what to do.

Robertson walked the floor all that night, and at last decided to tell the truth. His wife approved and off he started, with the letter to Tanner in his bag. He went straight from his hotel in Portland to the Grand Jury. Heney asked him about the original contract and Robertson produced a copy of it; there was no such clause in it as that which exculpated Mitchell in the new contract.

"Did Mitchell give you a letter to Tanner?" Heney happened to ask.

"He did," and Robertson went and got that so-called "bum-this" letter, in which Mitchell wrote himself down a rascal.

Heney published this letter, the news of Tanner's confession and enough other evidence to turn the tide of public opinion,