William Travers Jerome, elected district attorney of New York on November 5, 1902, won a great reputation as a reformer and a foe of vice, gambling, crooked politicians, and every other evil. Before being elected prosecutor, on a fusion ticket which overwhelmed the corrupt Tammany hall machine, he was a justice of the court of special sessions in New York City.
As a private lawyer he was favorably known for the intense earnestness he put into the cases of his clients. As a platform orator; a campaigner and a hustler for votes he had his name to make, and he made it. He was the bright, particular star of the campaign, and drew larger crowds and excited more enthusiasm from immense assemblies than any other speaker during the campaign.
William Travers son of the well-known Larry Jerome, grew from a puny baby to a boy too delicate to meet the rough-and-tumble life of public schools. He had a private tutor, and after he left the tutor’s care he entered Amherst College. He remained there three years, and at the end of that time he left on account of poor health.
But it was not in the Jerome blood to stay downed. Next year William Travers Jerome entered Columbia College Law School, and was graduated in 1884.
After that he traveled considerably, practiced law a little and amused himself a little. By 1888 he was ready to settle down, and in that year three important things happened in his life. He was appointed Assistant District Attorney. He married Miss Hart, of Sharon, Conn. Lawrence Jerome, his father, died.
In the District Attorney’s office Jerome made a reputation among the other assistants as a man who never gave up in the most thankless task, and as an embryo politician who never worked for his own pocket. Jerome has his failings and his friends, as well as his foes, know this well. His chief weakness is a desire to say startling things. He has said several, the most remarkable being an attack on William C. Whitney and Boss Platt and the declaration that there was a plot hatched to either kill him or scratch him at the polls. Jerome was called to time on these propositions, and he retracted—but he did it without crawling. Jerome is too outspoken to be a successful politician. His aggressiveness and his fearlessness are admirable.
Mr. Jerome’s speech was as follows:
“If it please your honor and gentlemen of the jury, you seem, as far as I can judge, to have been wandering through a weird deal of romance in the past few days. It is not on statements such as you have listened to that the life of a human individual on the one hand nor the safety of the community on the other depends.
“And important as it is that no human life shall be put out except justly, yet it is equally important that it be put out if justice demands it.
“As to this ‘dementia Americana,’ which ‘prevails from the Canadian line to the Gulf of Mexico’—and mostly on the Gulf of Mexico—does it wait three years and glare at its enemy and then kill?