Page:The History of the Standard Oil Company Vol 2.djvu/142

 owed Matthews. They had been his counsel for years. They were obliged to give up his cases because of their election to the bench. They were debarred by their relation to the case, of course, from hearing it, but there was no reason why their knowledge and experience should not be drawn upon to a reasonable degree by the new attorneys. Certainly this is a universal practice in law courts. It is difficult to see how it could be otherwise. If either judge had used his position to influence his fellow judge who heard the case there would be a just criticism, but no such intimation has ever been made, to the writer's knowledge.

The second proof of conspiracy drawn from this testimony to the referee is the statements of both Hatch and Moot that they had no contracts for compensation and that they knew they would receive nothing if they lost. For instance, when Moot was examined by the referee he was asked:

Judge Hatch in his statement said: "Matthews and I or any one for his company never had any talk with respect to compensation for services at the time of their commencement or during their rendition. I knew, however, that the payment for services was largely contingent upon the success of the litigation, and the company was not able to pay much more