Autobiography of Charles Clinton Nourse / Prepared for use of Members of the Family

by Charles Clinton Nourse

The constitution of the state required, in order to convict the defendant, a vote of guilty by two-thirds of the members of the senate. Instead of this the highest vote against the defendant upon any article was fifteen votes, or less than one-third, and upon the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth articles that embraced the original controversy with Governor Sherman, upon which he refused to approve the Auditor's bond and appointed his subservient commission, there was not a single vote of guilty against the Auditor, but he was unanimously acquitted. Upon several of the articles it appears that some of the senators voted "guilty" upon a very slim and unwarranted basis. For instance one of the articles of impeachment was against the Auditor for drawing a warrant in behalf of his clerk for the month's salary, the warrant specifying the particular section and chapter of the law that made an appropriation for the purpose of paying this clerk. The fact of the service being within the personal knowledge of the Auditor, and the receipt of the clerk being upon the stub of the warrant issued, and yet the managers insisted that there ought to have been a paper filed stating the account as between the clerk and the Auditor, and because it was not drawn out and filed among the papers of the office, six of the senators voted to find him guilty and to impeach him. It was a mere technicality, extremely, finely drawn out, and showed a disposition to try and ruin a man and his reputation without conscience or any regard to their duty as men and their oath as senators. The vote of fifteen upon the Bremer County Bank question against the Auditor may be justified upon the theory that a public officer situated as the Auditor was, having an important duty to perform, should not accept of any gift or favor or money that might be construed as something he had hoped for or expected when he performed his official duty. The act of receiving the money under the circumstances, though not criminal, was one of those acts of doubtful propriety that could scarcely be justified in a public officer.

The acquittal of Mr. Brown was beyond question a righteous and just act. Governor Larrabee, the newly elected Governor, had already restored Mr. Brown to his office and discharged the appointee to fill the created vacancy, and the people of the state retired Mr. Sherman from public employment permanently. After retiring from office he engaged in managing an insurance company at his former place of residence in the state, in which he was unsuccessful.

The state of Iowa paid to the attorneys in the case selected by Mr. Brown the sum of six dollars a day. I charged Mr. Brown, however, one thousand dollars for my entire services in connection with his impeachment, and he gave me his note for the balance, deducting the amount I had received from the state. This note was signed by S. F. Stewart. Some months afterwards I received from Stewart's wife a very remarkable letter, full of tears and sympathy for Brown, begging me to remit the amount on the note as Mr. Brown was poor and had been much wronged and abused. I ascertained that Stewart at or about the time he signed the note, had obtained from Mr. Brown a transfer to some valuable stock in the Iowa Homestead newspaper at much less than the real value of the stock, and that they had counted the amount due me on this note as part of the consideration of the transfer. Estimating Mrs. Stewart's sympathy for Mr. Brown at its true value, I insisted on my note being paid in full, which Mr. Brown cheerfully did.

Mr. Brown was further vindicated by the subsequent action of the general assembly of the state in making a reasonable appropriation to reimburse him for his expenses and attorney's fees paid out in making his defense against the articles of impeachment. The result of the investigation before the senate also had a very beneficial effect upon the home insurance companies in that it gave public confidence as to their solvency, and gave assurance that the proper department of state would make the investigation of their transactions from time to time thorough and real, and not as before merely nominal.

CHAPTER XV

MORE LAW CASES

In the summer of 1874 the city of Des Moines was thrown into a state of considerable excitement by the fact of finding the body of a murdered man on the sidewalk near the corner of Walnut and Second street. There was a house of bad repute in the vicinity, and the coroner's jury made a thorough investigation, seemingly as far as practicable, as to the cause and origin of the death. The inhabitants of the house referred to were examined under oath, and the women who boarded there denied any knowledge whatever of the cause of the man's death. The Governor of the state offered a reward of five hundred dollars for the discovery and conviction of the murderer. At the next session of the grand jury of Polk county two of the women boarders at the house of bad repute referred to, and who had denied all knowledge of the murder, appeared before the grand jury and testified with much detail that Charles Howard, a man who had frequented their house, had been guilty of the murder and had carried out the dead body and laid it upon the sidewalk. The grand jury indicted Howard accordingly for murder in the first degree. The trial came on at the December term of the Polk county district court, and in view of the public excitement, which was largely kept alive by the daily press, Howard, by his attorney, made a motion for a change of venue on the ground of prejudice of the inhabitants of the county. Under the peculiar provisions of our statute, counter affidavits were permitted for the purpose of showing that there was no feeling in the community that would prevent Howard from receiving a fair trial. The sheriff informed me that in walking two squares from the court house he had met two hundred men who were willing to sign such counter affidavits, and had obtained a large number of them, which were filed accordingly. The district judge, H. W. Maxwell, overruled the motion for a change of venue, and the trial proceeded. The only testimony introduced in the conviction of Howard was that of the two bad women who had testified before the coroner's jury that they had no knowledge whatever in regard to the killing of Johnson. I was not personally engaged in any way as an attorney in this case, but about ten o 'clock at night after the jury had retired to consider their verdict, Judge Maxwell sent for me to come to the court house for consultation. I found he had also sent for a like purpose for Mr. D. O. Finch, one of the oldest members of the Polk county bar. The judge advised us that the jury had not agreed upon their verdict, but that some one had through the bailiff sent a note in to the jury room threatening the jury with violence in case they failed to convict the defendant. Judge Maxwell was much excited and asked Mr. Finch and myself what he ought to do under the circumstances. We advised him by all means to have the defendant conveyed for safe keeping to some place outside of the county, in charge of the sheriff, and to have it done secretly and immediately lest the mob might seize the accused and commit violence. We also advised him to discharge the jury from a further consideration of the case, as their verdict found under the influence of threats would be worthless, and that he ought also in vindication of his own court to thoroughly investigate the question as to who was guilty in sending or permitting a threat to be communicated to the jury. Instead of being influenced by our advice Judge Maxwell had the jury brought into the courtroom for further instructions, and told them that great excitement and feeling prevailed in the community in regard to the case, and that it was important that the jury should not disagree but should find a verdict in the case. The next morning the jury brought in a verdict of guilty, and the defendant waiving time for sentence, Judge Maxwell had the prisoner brought into court. The courtroom was crowded by an excited mob, and the judge took occasion to harangue the prisoner, denouncing his conduct in the most vehement manner. He then sentenced the prisoner to imprisonment in the penitentiary for life. That night the excited mob broke open the jail, took the prisoner from his cell with a rope tied around his neck, and hung him to a lamp post in the court house square. The opinion of most of the persons who paid any attention to this trial was that there was no reliable evidence of Howard's guilt, and that the probabilities were that the whole case was manufactured for the purpose of securing the reward offered for his conviction. Whether or not the reward was ever paid I have not been able to ascertain, but certain it is that the cowardice of the court and the indiscretion of the public press were responsible for the murder of a man who, to say the least of it, was never proved guilty by any competent evidence.

We had among the distinguished judges that acted as teachers in our law school at Transylvania University a very eminent jurist who sometimes when he felt merry treated the class to that which was not only instructive but also entertaining. On one occasion he delivered to the class the following:

Young Gentlemen: You will find that the general principles of the law are few and easily comprehended, but in their application to the ever-varying transactions of human life the best of minds will differ, hence arises what we denominate the glorious uncertainties of the law whereby we have our bread.