People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1893 — ANSWERS HIS CRITICS. [ARTICLE]

ANSWERS HIS CRITICS.

OO*. Sttceld DnUiw Be Acted In AceordMe« with What gee no Ml to Him to Be HU l*u*y and Ha. No Regret*. c Chicago, June 30. —Gov. Altgeld arrived in Chicago Thursday morning from Springfield. He will remain for some days, his purpose, as he explained it, being to transact private business of pressing importance. His secretary, who came along, brought with him a valise filtad with congratulatory telegrams all parts of the country. A.-jpood many people called at the governor’s office on the fourteenth floor of the Unity building in the forenoon him for pardoning the three men who cams home from Joliet Monday evening. The governor submitted-to an inter view during the afternoon on the subject of pardoning Fielden, Schwab and •Neebe. He spoke in a deliberate, judicial tone. He showed no resentment in his manner, and even when he condemned his critics most severely there was not a single trace of ahimation in his words. At times, however, h« looked unusually grave, as if the criticism of hundreds of influential tjewspapera was a difficult burden tc bear. He was asked what he had to say to the criticisms of the newspapers ojL&i* action, and retorted with an obKCT*Fiition that the criticism so far had been mainly abuse. . j “Why abuse?” he was asked. Replying, he said: “Well they leave the merits of the case entirely alone Generalities are though, to be sufficient and nothing like a care- j ful, unprejudiced review of my facts and arguments is anywhere attempted In most ■ cases, too, my critics have no knowledge of the facts, and probably none of them ha. studied the case siffflciently to make his opinion of great importance. How many of them have referred to what Chief Ebersold said about ; there being nothing in this anarchist business, : and how many of them referred to his state- ] ment about Sehaack being desirous of forming new societies and stimulating public excitement? “Then, again, my critics have avoided oil reference to the manner in which the jury that 1 convicted those men was impaneled. Nothing : is said of the declaration of those jurors that : they were prejudiced, and it appears to be ! taken for granted that it is a principle of American jurisprudence that men who are the viotims of a popular outcry are 1 not entitled to a fair trial. I hold it a sacred duty to insist that even the abandoned criminal is entitled to a fair and unprejudiced trial when arraigned- before the bar j of public justice. I hope the time will nevet ■ come when any other principle than that of ; honesty and fair play wUI prevail in the courts ol America.” Gov, Altgeld paused for a few minutes and seemed to he thinking hard. Then ! he continued: "My unfriendly critics laid no stress on the fact that the state never found out who threw \ the bomb, nor, in fact, anything about it The : state was never able to prove that the fellow who did throw the bomb had ever heard any of these men talk or had ever read anything they gpd written. Neither was it proven that he had ever heard of them. Not a single scintilla of evidence was brought out and no connection was made between the bomb thrower and the i men who were pardoned. “Those who have been so full of angry and hostile criticism ignore rational considerations entirely. In short they ignore the merits of the case and shut their eyes to the truth rather than admit that they possibly had taken a wrong view of the question. Instead of discussing the case calmly, logically, reasonably and in the spirit of Intelligent fairness, the critics grow wild, fierce and frenzied, and la that mood say things that they will probably be sorry for when cool, good sense reasserts its reign. “The reasons I gave for signing the pardon have been published, and they must stand c ir fall by themselves. To those persons who ascribe mean motives in an act of public ehar. acter I have nothing to say; , they suffloisntly answer themselves. My reasons have been given to the public. .If they are good they will stand; if they are not good they will fill. I simply have dpne what I believed to be my duty, and have nothing further to say. I. dp not care who commends nor do I care whe condemns my action.” In reply to a statement tliat many people believed that the pardon was all right, but that it was impolite to state his reasons so bluntly, the governor said: “1 do not believe in turning anybody out of ’ the penitentiary without giving good and subsubstantial reasons for so doing. In this case I considered such a course absolutely essential.” “What sort of an investigation did you make before deciding to grant the pardons’” “I read all the briefs it, the case and read all the documents submitted during the trial. I sent to Ottawa for the short-hand transcriptions of evidence, and I read them many times carefully. 1 neglected no opportunity to fully acquaint myself with the case.”