Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned - By John A. Farrell Page 0,22

that exquisite thrill of triumph,” Darrow recalled. But he was not content; he yearned to convert ideas to action. He and Lloyd explored a scheme to buy the Chicago Times and provide the city with a radical labor voice. And he had been in Chicago for but a short while when he told his socialist friend Schilling: “What ought to be done now is to take a man like Judge Altgeld; first elect him mayor of Chicago, then governor of Illinois.”10

OF DARROW’S MENTORS, John Peter Altgeld had the most vivid personality and the most lasting impact. “He was the first man to know there was a Clarence Darrow,” Darrow said.

Altgeld was the son of German immigrants who had settled in Ohio. At the age of sixteen he enlisted in the Union Army and after the war worked as a laborer and schoolteacher while studying law at night. He came to Chicago in 1875, made his fortune in real estate, and was elected judge. Altgeld was shy and diffident, but well read, ambitious, and intense. “His character was that of the philosopher, of the seer, of the dreamer, of the idealist” yet “there was mixed with that … the practical touch of the politician,” said Darrow. “He knew how to play to those cheap feelings which the politician uses to inspire the vulgar mob.”

Altgeld’s political success was all the more notable for his alien disposition. He had a German accent, short-cropped nappy hair, and a bit of a harelip hidden beneath his beard. He was a congenital outsider, attuned to the difficulties faced by the workingmen hauled into his court. He developed a following in the immigrant wards and trade unions and, after publishing his judicial philosophy in the book that had caught Darrow’s attention in Ashtabula, was embraced by liberals too. But Altgeld was no dreamy socialist; in practice he could be ruthless. “I want power, to get hold of the handle that controls things,” he told Schilling. “When I do, I will give it a twist.” On the mantel in his library was a bust of Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom. But there was also a bust of Augustus Caesar.

Darrow had called on Altgeld soon after arriving in Chicago. They were compatible politically and shared a contempt for political leaders who, as Altgeld put it, were “moral cowards, following the music wagon of their times.” Here was an Amirus, but with courage, steel, and the knack of making money. “It will always be a source of pride to me that I knew him … that there never was a time that I did not love and follow him,” Darrow recalled. He adopted Altgeld’s blend of passion and calculation. The judge was “absolutely honest in his ends and equally as unscrupulous in the means he used to attain them,” Darrow said, admiringly. “He would do whatever would serve his purpose when he was right. He’d use all the tools of the other side—stop at nothing.”

One of Altgeld’s enemies was Judge Gary, the man who hanged the Haymarket anarchists, and their feud had long-lasting consequences for Darrow. The hard feelings stemmed from their political differences, but also from Altgeld’s investments in real estate. He had purchased a building along the Chicago River, only to have its value damaged by the city’s construction of a bridge. After consulting with the city attorney, Altgeld agreed to have experts testify and abide by a jury’s verdict.

Mayor John Roche, however, was a political foe of the city attorney. Two mischievous members of the mayor’s staff—John Green and Clarence Knight—arrived at the courtroom, where they suggested that Judge Altgeld was using improper influence. Altgeld lost his temper, jumped to his feet, and, in a confrontation that made headlines as far away as New York, waved his fist and called Green “a damned liar!” Altgeld won the case, but was fined $100 and publicly humiliated for his outburst. And when an appellate panel reversed his victory he sent a seething letter to the judges, one of whom was Gary.

Altgeld first took revenge on Roche, a Republican who ran for reelection against Democrat DeWitt Cregier in 1889. Altgeld spent some $5,000 to distribute a campaign leaflet, topped by Cregier’s name, that listed Democratic and Republican candidates and identified them as an “anti-machine” ticket. Enough Republicans were fooled into voting for the slate to cost Roche his job.11

Knight was Altgeld’s next victim. In June, Cregier fired the ten-year veteran of the city legal staff. “Judge Altgeld was after