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About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (July 9, 1916)
6 THE SUNDAY FICTION MAGAZINE, JULY 9, 1916. AT THE END OF -THE TRING HON IN was a fixer. That was his business and you might as well know it now his vo cation. He "had been, always, 'a sneaking stool-pigeon in every walk that he had stepped, aDd a go-between In delicate y E3 By JacK Lait Illustrated by R. Tandler. and indelicate matters. He would have been a blackmailer had he the courage to lake chances and take a chance there is a difference between these; ponder over it. His status, professionally, was that of a disbarred lawyer. He had been kicked away from the bar for a job of disreputa ble business early in his practice. Since then he had subsisted ostensibly as an "investigator." Whenever you hear of an "investigator," look out He is usually something else, something worse. Investi gating may be a lawful and decent call ing. But an "investigator" seldom is on the level. At times Cronin prospered. There are A new character of the underworld the "fixer' who creates humor and vice wherever he works So he was the logical specialist to call In side-whiskers and the law-arid -order fool when a number of saloon-keepers were ishness. He looked into the pasta of all the pros ecuting witnesses. The search proved dis couragingly unprofitable. He found that one of the lily-pur es had been sued for a rent bill; but that wasn't very strong. He learned that another had once been a newspaper reporter; but he had outlived that and had been good so long that the suddenly arrested on complaints signed by a committee of fussy reformers who had quietly gathered bottled evidence, ewom evidence, eyewitness evidence and earshot evidence of all the violations of all the paragraphs relating to the legal restric tions on the saleof malt, vinous and spir ituous liquors, theatrical performances in places where liquors were sold' and the abuse of restaurant licenses as filmy cloaks for distribution out of lawful hours. The saloon-keepers were pooled and or ganized. They saw that they had a long, dictment was no evidence of guilt, and that the burden of proof was on the side of the authorities. They wrangled and they fought with the expert who said they knew whisky from "cold tea when they chemically analyzed it, and they de manded that the jury be discharged and a verdict of not guilty ordered by the court, ; But all in vain. The court refused to take the case from the jury. All ,the de manded rights were yielded. Some of tba objections-were sustained and exception freely entered where otherwise. But the evidence went right along, and, to a man up a tree, had there been a tree in the courtroom, It would have seemed very likely that the Jury would convict. Tho law was plain. The facta were nearly ail palpable. The defendant wiped his brow. The lawyers flew to their feet and tried to past probably wouldn't break him. He -am tne ,tldal rush of unfriendly truths went through and after the whole list It was most fruitless. Cronin felt injured and picked on. That was just his luck. The enemy had rung cases from time to time, in big cities, hard fight against them, and that if it was in a lot of airtight saints on him. It was which find rich men panic-driven. It is then that these men clutch the lapels of their attorneys and tell them to spare no expense, stand by no rules of right or law, but for heaven's sake get them out of the nasty mess. That is the harvest of the "investigator," who is brought in to help the lawyer. What he is to do depends on bis own conscience, sincerity and degree of vi ciousheas. The least he 1 ever asked to accomplish is to snake or buy or scare pivotal witnesses out of jurisdiction, try to "get something on" the prosecutor, the opposing counsel, the main figures of the lost to them there would be dangerous an attack against his means of livelihood. with far-fetched straws of obscure and irrelevant legal interpositions. The liquor world felt before the trial was half over that that Idiotic jury would bang "guilty" on that bewildered and precedents. The most unsavory of the It wasn't honest and it certainly wasn't neIPles whisky merchant, and thit they clan had been arrested for the test cases, which would make it harder. The drys had been hammering and battering and had won a point after a point, and this looked like about the last stand, when the booze sellers would see whether a man the judge who was to try the first case could violate an ordinance In a free coun- the big one was the superintendent of a good sportsmanship. au wouia suffer that they all would be So he went into the record of the public 'ore to give up certain sacred rights to attorney who was to push the cases..Noth- vloJate n law which had so long been ing doing. The man was as clean and T1aia tnat the law had died of atrophy white as a washerwoman's thumb. And try or whether he was going to be pestered by butters-in who had no real estate and, no visible means of support, by jingo. The barroom trus had a regularly con- other side's case, the judge If possible, the stituted set of lawyers. Their chief de Jurors, and put over any unfair advantage, fender was a former prosecutor who knew strategical, psychological, crooked orcrlm- all the ropes and all the strings. An in Inal that an oblique mind and a liberal ex- dignant committee locked itself into his pense account can deliver. office with him and his staff, pounded his Jury bribing is one of the advanced good mahogany desk with their hardwood specialties of the fixer. A good Jury fixer fists and said money was no object no, is worth his weight in double eagles, and sir. What they wanted was to teach these many a supposedly ethical attorney has blatherskite reformers a lesson they'd him on his telephone card. But most of never forget to learn them that when the species never hope to attain this splen- they go against business men with their dor, and look with envious eye upon the bum law and their scurvy code-books they rival fixer who has to his credit a Juror were biting off something that would who has hung a case for a few hundred, break their Jaws In trying to chew it Baptist Sunday school, had never looked to right nor left and had left a trail of pious decency behind him that made Cro nin sick. There was nothing left, then, but the Jury. All the hope was wrapped up In the twelve peers of the blackleg underworld dive proprietor whose trial was set to open the court campaign. As quickly as jurors were tentatively accepted Cronin and his lieutenants swarmed about their home neighborhoods and "looked them up. They found that two or three had bad records one was a total abstainer and another was a member of a Christian Endeavor circle, and a third had caused a janitor to be fired because he was drunk and abusive. These were and old age. The word "obsolete" was prominent in their arguments. The word "hell" was conspicuous in their irritated comment Meantime, what had Cronin and his worthies been doing? Ah let us see. Busier than rats, they had been nosinf about the homes of the twelve Jurora. They couldn't get at the men themselves, who were guarded by unapproachable bailiffs, night and day. But they could find the wives, the children, the other rel atives, the employers and the cronies of the Jurors. It was through them or some of them or one of them that a little sug gestion might percolate. A cousin twice removed had been known to open a leak into a Jury-room. Judges are inclined to be liberal in permitting communications' to sealed Jurors from their families. The work was cut twelve ways, and each of these ways was subcut many more. And fail are after faJiura " - - Hlli V or an acquittal for a guilty man bought Againmoney was no object. This had " "'"'7 "w cnauengea. through enough of the twelve men good reached a point where an example had to The ur .D0X waa Ailed at last. Cronin on the spinning and ringing head of Cro- and true to swing the balance against the be established, where these blue noses had naa no reacnea any ox me aozen, but he nin. truth. Cronin was an all-around man. He had scored with Juries several times in tight pinches, and he had rustled witnesses and driven a famous jurist to cover in one lit tle affair by bringing Into court and seat ing in a forward row a certain woman who, at a critical stage of the proceeding, reached over and communed at intimate propinquity. In whispers, with the defend ant. He had "thrown" several historical cases against the percentage and had brought about some inexplicable not gulltles. to be driven to the understanding that had pasaed on tnm a11 " reasonable pos- Here was one of the biggest cases that they didn't have a chance. sibilities for missionary work-with at- had ever been intrusted to him, and from The lawyer said all right-all right tractive inducements. - one of hl8 beet t ovt of a They needn't be so emphatic; he would The trial began. The defendant's flock tomless bank roll, and he couldn't turn a look to the matter. He knew how this of lawyers began entering objections, 1m- wheel, he couldn't move a cog. was to be handled. pugning the sincerity of the prosecution. The work grew raw in his desperation. So, after they departed, he sent for throwing out flimsy technical hurdles, In- Cold and open propositions of money were Cronin. troducing innuendo of subtle depth against made to the nearest kin of the Imprisoned Cronin arrived. He had read the papers the veracity of the state testimony and Jurors nothing gained and a lot of risks and he had a fair idea of what be had appealing to the Judge for their const! tu- taken. been sent for for. His Interview didn't tional rights, privileges and advantages. The lawyer was on Cronin's neck night take ten minutes. He walked out with They thundered the principle that their ly after the court sessions demanding to some new money in his pockets and carte client was innocent until proven guilty be- know what progress had been made, if blanche to unhorse the parties with the yond a reasonable doubt and that an in- any. And Cronin promised and stalled -