Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/263



smallest penalty provided by the law: “Ten dollars and costs! ”

The learned judge was right: there is a System, and the penalties that System imposed upon Judge Lindsey were not light. His sentence was destruction. Knowing that money couldn’t prostitute him, women were tried. The janitor of the County Court House wouldn’t clean Lind- sey’s court-room and so neglected his closet that the Board of Health had to interfere. He was cut on the street by other officials and, to avoid hearing himself called insulting names, had to stay away from his club. His party council allowed the convicted County Commissioners to name their successors and to reject from the platform a plank declaring for honesty in office.

This persecution continued for a year or two and, it must be confessed, the Judge was aggra- vating. He not only refused to surrender; he went right on fearlessly supporting in public every good reform measure and movement that anybody proposed. For example, a convention, called for by the so-called Rush Amendment to the State Constitution, drew for Denver a good, new, home-rule charter. The big business in- terests had to beat it, however, because it gave the people a vote on all franchise grants and permitted municipal ownership. The only