A Thoughtless Yes

by Helen H. Gardener

No student of average ability enters practice uninformed that there is a widespread belief that a man of social position or financial power has little to fear as a result of his misdeeds, while his less fortunate neighbor could not hope to escape the worst legal consequences of his most trivial lapse from rectitude.

Fred Mathews had made up his mind—as many a young fellow had done before him—that he would do everything in his power to hold the scales of justice level.

He determined that such ability as he possessed should be used for the benefit of society, and that neither bribe nor threat should ever entice him from the strict performance of his duty to the profession which he had entered. He would never accept a case in which he did not honestly believe. No man's money should buy him and no man's wrath intimidate. In short, he intended to be a lawyer with a conscience as well as a man of integrity, no matter what the result might be.

He made so good a beginning in the first two years of his practice that it was at the end of the third, when he found himself holding the office of Prosecuting Attorney, with a record clean, and fair sailing ahead, that a piece of news which came to him caused him to doubt himself for the first time.

The shock of that doubt thrilled every fibre in his nature, for with it came the one fear that is terrible to a brave mind which is aroused for the first time to its own possibilities—the fear to trust itself—the dread lest it betray its own higher nature under the pressure of old habits of thought or new social problems.

Right and wrong had always seemed to him to have the most decided and clear-cut outlines. He had never thought of himself as standing before them unable to distinguish their boundaries. He had felt that he could answer bravely enough the question: "What would you do if required to choose between honor and dishonor?" It was a strange thing to him that his present perplexity should grow out of a simple burglary case. There did not appear to him, at first, to be more than one side to such a case. He was the Prosecuting Attorney. A store had been robbed. Among other things a sealskin sacque was taken. By means of this cloak the burglary had been traced—it was claimed—to a certain young man high in social life. The duties of his office had led the State's attorney to prosecute the investigation with his usual vigor and impartiality until he had succeeded beyond his fairest hopes. Indeed, the chain of evidence now in his possession was so strong and complete that he—for the first time in his career—recognized that he shrank from using the testimony at his command.

He felt that it was his duty to cause to be apprehended a young man who had up to the present time borne a spotless reputation; who had been a fellow student at college; whose social position was that of a leader, and who was soon to marry one of the most charming girls in the town. The situation was painful, but Fred Mathews felt that his own honor was at stake quite as truly as was that of his old schoolfellow. Here was his first opportunity to show that he held his duty above his desires. Here was the first case in which social influence and financial power were on the side of a criminal whom it was his duty to prosecute to the end.

His professional pride, as well as his honor, was enlisted; for this was the third burglary which had been committed recently, and so far the "gang"—as the newspapers assumed and the police believed the offenders to be—had not been caught.

Fred Mathews now thought he had every reason to believe that the same hand had executed all three crimes and that the recklessness of the last—the almost Wanton defiance of perfectly natural means of precaution and concealment—had led to the discovery of this burglar in high life.

After long deliberation, however, the young prosecutor made up his mind that he would so far compromise with his conscience as to make a personal, private call upon the young man who was under suspicion and boldly accuse him of the theft of the tell-tale cloak that had been traced to him, and take the consequences.