Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 November 1887 — THE NATIONAL CAPITAL. [ARTICLE]

THE NATIONAL CAPITAL.

When the case of the condemned anarchists came up in the Supreme Court at Washington on Thursday the court-room was packed by people anxious to hear the arguments. Three hours were evenly divided between J. Randolph Tncker and Attorney General Hunt, of Illinois. Says a Washington dispatch: Each made a clean and strong argument, and both were very closely listened to and seldom interrupted by any member of the court. Mr. Tucser got along swimmingly while he explained to the court that it was only necessary for his side to show a conflict between the action of the Illinois courts and the Federal Constitution in order to entitle his clients to a writ; whether the conflict amounted to a repugnance was to be settled if the writ were granted at a hearing on the merits of the question, and he did not arouse the court while he was explaining in eloquent fashion the unconstitutionality of trying a man before a jury some of whose members hau read about the crime in the papers. But when he began to argue that the first ten amendments, while originally restraints upon federal lower, were injected into the substance of the fourteenth amendment so that the provisions of that amendment really covered everything in the first ten amendments, Justice Field smiled increduously and remarked that he was giving the fourteenth amendment a pretty wide construction; and a few minutes afterward, when Mr. Tucker was explaining that the petitioners had been denied the right to peaceably assemble and discuss puulic affairs, Justice Miller, in entire unconsciousness of Mr. Tucker s labored argument, that the fourteenth amendment had the effect of investing the first ten amendments with a new and additional power, reminded the sneaker that the fourteenth amendment was a restraint upon Federal power alone, whereunon Mr. Tucker started in again to explain that the first ten amendments were by the fourteenth amendment made restraints upon State power as weil as Federal power. This exposition of the fourteenth amendment received a severe blow when Attorney General Hunt cited the opinion of the court, made only two and a half years ago in the Presser case, also an anarchist case, and also a case from Chicago. Presser was convicted by the State courts of violating a law which limited to the regularly-mustered State militia the right to parade the streets with arms. He appealed to the Federal Supreme Court on the ground that the right to • ear arms was guaranteed to him by the Constitution of the United States, and that this being so, the right to bear arms was one of the rights and immunities of citizenship which the fourteenth amendment guaranteed to him. The court held that the second amendment was a restraint upon federal and not State power, and that the fourteenth amendment had nothing to do with the case. Thus it will bo seen that the Presser case was closely analogous to Mr. Tucker’s presentation of the present case, and in the Presser case the State law was upheld. The argument for the day concluded with some brief remarks by Mr. Hunt on the impracticability and absurdity of the claim made in Gen. Butler s brief for Spies and Fielden that they were subjects of foreign powers, with which the United States had treaties guaranteeing the subjects of those foreign powers, in our territories, certain rights of trial, and that the treaties antedated the Illinois act of 1871 regarding the admissibility to juries of certain persons, and that Spies and Fielden had a treaty right to be tried by a jury impaneled in accordance with what was the law in force in this country at the time the treaties were ratified. The hearing of the motion of the anarchists for a writ of error was concluded in the United States Supreme Court on Friday, Oct 28. The closing arguments were made by State's Attorney Grinnell, of Chicago, and Gen. B. F. Butler. Mr. Grinnell spoke less than an hour, but he commanded close attention all the way through. He started out by disavowing the intention to make an argument, but what he said was clear, forcible, and convincing. The first utterance attracted attention because it revealed the fact that in all the twenty-eight assignments of error in Judge Gary's court there was no reference to the .’ ederal Constitution and no effort to raise a • Federal question.” Then he took up the objections raise I to Jurors Denker and Sanford and demonstrated from the record that no rights of the defendants had been abridged by their selection. Denker was among the first four jurors sworn and was really accepted by the defense after their first objection, but even if he had not been accepted, the defendants at that time had 112 challenges, with one of which they could have disposed of Denker if he was objectionable. Mr. Grinnell then laid bare the complaint that Juror Sanford had been forced upon the defense after all their challenges had been exhausted. He showed that after eleven jurors had been accepted by both sides the defense had forty-three challenges left, but these were frittered away before Sanford was called. During all of this portion of Mr. Grinnell's speech the members of the court wore close listeners. They asked many questions about the record end the manner of selecting juries, and showed that they regarded these points of greater importance than all the discussion about the Constitution and equal rights indulged in by Mr. Tucker and General Butler. BjjA what seemed to interest them most was tßFbtate’s Attorney's analysis of the jury. His statement about the number of talesmen examined, the division of challenges, and finally the assertion that the jury itself was representative of Americas citizenship, chosen from no class and having in it no "capitalist,” attracted the keenest interest not only from the Judges but the audience which filled the court-room. Mr. Grinnell quoted the cases of Kerr and Guiteau as precedents for seizing evidence. General Butler followed Mr. Grinnell. He complained that matter had been in-

troduced into the case that did not appear lx the record, and that the lives of his clients had thas been put in jeopardy. He asked for an extension of time in wnich to discuss this extraneous matter, but it was not granted. The leading feature of General Butler’s argument was the claim that Spies and Fielden were entitled to greater privileges than American citizens because the State had no right to change their status from what it was under the treaties, and that therefore the Illinois jury law did not apply to them. One of the most specious pleas presented in the whole case was first alluded to by Mr. Tuckei and elaborated by Gen. Butler. This was the assertion that the anarchists were not in the court when sentenced. Gen. Butler wanted a writ of certiorari, so that they could prove this was the case. A Washington dispatch says that Secretary Whitney is now in New York, and will not return to the capital for an indefinite period. For the last year he has had troubles from headaches, which have grown more and more severe and frequent, until now he is unable to work. He has written no word ol his annual report, and there is no prospeci that he will be able to prepare one.