In person Governor Johnson is spare, but well proportioned. His countenance is grave, yet benignant; thoughtful, but unclouded, indicating a mind well stored through deep research and capable of grasping at once the most profound problems, and the most intricate details. Nor does the face belie its promise. To comprehensive sagacity he joins unfailing accuracy, and to a subtle faculty of discrimination he unites a well-nigh inexhaustible fertility of expedient. Add to this rare combination of qualities in their highest form of development an almost incredible power of long-sustained[long-sustained] application, and you have an ideal lawyer, and it is only as a lawyer that he will be considered in these pages.
Either from natural predilection, or through force of circumstances, Governor Johnson’s most pronounced professional successes have been attained as a criminal practitioner. To sway a jury is his forte and his delight, and in the accomplishment of this end he well knows how to employ the keen shafts of polished sarcasm, the scathing denunciation of fiery invective, the cold logic of convincing argument, and the impassioned appeal to tender sympathy. It has been well and truly said of him that jurors enter the box as strangers to him, but leave it with a sentiment of respect akin to regard. He has learned how to reach and touch the secret springs of the human heart, and need acknowledge no master in originality, tact or delicacy of touch, before which tears succeed mirth, and in turn yield to indignation.
His practice in the criminal courts has pitted him against such brilliant luminaries of the legal firmament as Uriel Wright (deceased), Senator George G. Vest, William Wallace, Judge Henry D. Laughlin, and Joseph G. Lodge (deceased), with a number of others equally as prominent in Missouri; Ex-Governor Palmer and William O’Brien, of Illinois; Ex-Governor[Ex-Governor] Jenkins, of Colorado; besides a long array of other eminent men. Before all these he has poised his lance like a true knight, nor can it be said of him that any of them have laid him low.
But distinguished as he is as an advocate before a jury, he has attained no less distinction as an examiner of witnesses. No fixedness of feature, no previous drilling in a cunningly-devised tale can hide the truth from his trained and watchful eye, which reads the secrets of the witnesses’ soul as though it were an open page.
Among the multitude of cases whose successful conduct has made him famous, a want of space forbids a mention of but a few.
One of his most noteworthy triumphs was obtained in the trial of the train-wreckers at Paola and Wyandotte in Kansas, when he and associates defeated the array of legal talent opposed to him by the trusted lieutenants of Jay Gould.
Another was his triumphant vindication of Fotheringham, the alleged dishonest messenger of the American Express Co., whose character he exonerated and for whom he secured the substantial damages of $20,000.
Another was in the successful defence at Gallatin, Mo., of the celebrated Frank James.
But what has always seemed to me to have been his crowning professional success was attained in the trial of Michael Horner, charged with murder in the first degree for the killing of Boswell, at Mt. Vernon, Lawrence Co., Mo. Both the accused and his victim had been farmers of Lawrence Co. for about five years before the commencement of the feud between them, which had its origin in a charge brought by Boswell against Horner (and denied by the latter) of seduction of the former’s sister. A succession of personal encounters ensued, but the combatants were always separated by mutual friends. At length, on July 18, 1885, Boswell, while at work in his field, saw Horner riding down the lane. Leaving his reaper and climbing the fence, he began a vigorous bombardment of his old enemy with fragments of rock. Horner, without dismounting, drew his revolver and emptied the contents of three chambers into the body of Boswell, who fell lifeless to the ground. In due time the slayer was arraigned, tried, found guilty of murder, and sentenced to confinement in the penitentiary for ninety-nine years. A second trial was granted, and occupied two weeks, 300 witnesses being summoned. The excitement throughout the country was intense, and the court-room was daily crowded by ardent sympathizers with either side. But Charles P. Johnson was for the defence, and so ably did he conduct and plead the cause of his client that the jury, after brief deliberation, returned a verdict of manslaughter in the fourth degree, and the penalty was fixed at a fine of $600. The scene which followed the reading of the verdict would need the pencil of a Hogarth to portray. Horner—who, despite all the efforts of his friends to secure his release on bail, had lain in jail since the killing—remained for a moment motionless through agitation; then jumping three feet into the air and wildly gesticulating, he shouted the Southern warhoop (known in the North as the “rebel yell”), which was taken up and repeated again and again by the vast crowd which packed the chamber to overflowing. In a delirium of joy, his young wife, hastily entrusting her baby to the nearest pair of arms, sprang toward the jury, whom she hugged and kissed by turns. Then both she and her husband mounted to the bench and grasped the judge by either hand, which they shook as vehemently as though they had been veritable pump-handles. In vain did the sheriff seek to restore order, but he was finally compelled to suffer the wild enthusiasm to find its vent. Horner was overwhelmed with congratulations, in which joined both friends and former foes. And in the midst of the wild confusion—in it, but not of it—stood the great advocate, whose genius, labor and eloquence had rendered such a result possible.
It may be that the reader will think that the author has been too lavish in his encomiums of this truly great man. Possibly so; yet the praise proceeds from the love of a grateful heart. Were I to find myself in the antipodes, and involved in difficulties calling for the aid of sound legal advice, the one man of all others to whom I would apply, and whose services, did my means permit, I should certainly retain, is Charles P. Johnson.