Q. How often? A. Once.
Q. How much? A. Two thousand dollars.
And that is another instance of the corroboration of Jacob Rehm. And when a man is thus corroborated, gentlemen, his reputation for truth and veracity "spreads like sunlight all over the city of Chicago." There was not a circumstance, there was not a statement made by Mr. Rehm except it was made in the presence of Bridges, who is in Canada; of Irwin, who is in his grave, or in the presence of the defendant, who stands here with his mouth closed—not one solitary circumstance, with those exceptions, that has not been contradicted. Can you believe this man? Can you believe this man who has been contradicted by every one brought upon the stand? Can you take his word after he has sworn as he has? I tell you, gentlemen, you cannot do it, and as Judge Doolittle told you, if there is an infamous crime in the world, it is the crime of perjury. All the sneaking instincts; all the groveling, crawling instincts unite and blend in this one crime called perjury. It clothes itself, gentlemen, in the shining vestments of an oath in order that it may tell a lie.
Perjury poisons the wells of truth, the sources of justice. Perjury leaps from the hedges of circumstance, from the walls of fact, to assassinate justice and innocence. Perjury is the basest and meanest and most cowardly of crimes. What can it do? Perjury can change the common air that we breathe into the axe of an executioner. Perjury out of this air can forge manacles for free hands. Perjury out of a single word can make a hangman's rope and noose. Perjury out of a word can build a scaffold upon which the great and noble must suffer. It was told during the Middle Ages and in the time of the Inquisition, that the inquisitors had a statue of the Virgin Mary, and when a man was brave enough to think his own thoughts he was brought before this tribunal and before this beautiful statue, robed in gorgeous robes and decked with jewels, and as a punishment he was made to embrace it. The inquisitor touched a hidden spring; the arms of the statue clutched the victim and drew him to a breast filled with daggers. Such, gentlemen, is perjury, and if you take into consideration the evidence of this witness when you retire to the jury-room, you, in my judgment, will commit an outrage. Every man here should spurn that man from the threshold of his conscience as he would a rabid cur from the threshold of his house.
Is there any safety in the world if you take the testimony of these men, especially when character avails nothing? Is there any safety in human society if you will take the testimony of a perjured man? Is there any safety in living among mankind if this is the law,—if the statement of a confessed conspirator makes the character of a great and good man worthless? For one I had rather flee to the woods and live with wild beasts and savage nature.
Gentlemen, I know that you will pay no attention to that kind of testimony. I know it. I know that you cannot do it. And why? You know that that man is swearing a lie for the purpose of protection. You know that that man is swearing a lie under the smile of the Government of the United States. You know it. You know he expects a benefit from it. You know it. When the other witnesses, Burroughs and Hesing, that swear here—understand that they are swearing beneath a frown. Understand that they know that no mercy will be extended to them by the attorneys that they have offended. Understand that, and when you understand that a man is swearing to protect himself, and when he is a man that will swear to a lie for money, of course he will swear to a lie to keep himself out of the penitentiary, or to shorten his time—I say, when you know a man is placed in that condition, you have no right to give the least weight to his testimony, not one particle.
What more, gentlemen. Why, they have another witness, and he has sworn nothing. He has sworn nothing that has anything to do with this conspiracy one way or the other. Nothing! The only evidence against the defendant, I tell you, is the evidence of Mr. Jacob Rehm.
The defendant, gentlemen, was an officer of the revenue for several years. When he came to Chicago, in 1871, the district attorney said the distillers were here in full blast making illicit whiskey. If he had read the evidence he knew better; if he had not, he had no business to make any statement about it. In 1871, when the defendant came here, according to the testimony of all these men, the distilleries were running straight, and the rascality did not commence until the fall of 1872, when Jacob Rehm sold protection to these distillers. The defendant had been here a year before any frauds were committed. He was then supervisor of internal revenue up to May, 1875. During that time he did many official acts; during that time he wrote hundreds and thousands of letters; during that time he made hundreds and hundreds of visits to all these establishments. They have searched the records; they have had every nook and cranny looked at by a hired detective, and all that they can possibly bring forward is the beggarly account presented in this case: First, that there were four or five barrels of rum without the ten cent stamps, and that, you know, is a thing that ought to send a man to the penitentiary; next, twenty-five barrels of which the stamps had not been scratched, but about which there was no fraud. Ought a man to be sent to the penitentiary because he does not seize a house when there has been a technical violation without any fraud? A supervisor that will do it ought to be kicked out of office; he ought to be kicked out of the society of honest and decent men, and if this defendant was satisfied from the story of Roelle and Junker that there had been no fraud committed by leaving the stamps on the twenty-five barrels unscratched, and had seized that house, that would have been an act of meanness, an act of oppression, which I do not believe even a Government attorney would uphold unless he was hired in the case. Now, what next did he do? The next thing he did he went to Golsen & Eastman. Gentlemen, I do not care to speak much of Golsen. If there ever was a man utterly devoid of such a thing as principle, if there ever was a man that would read the statute against stealing, and stand in perfect amazement that anybody ever thought of making such a statute, it certainly must be Golsen. You heard him, and he is the man that said he told lies in business; he is the man that said he did not think it was wrong to swear lies in business, and his business now is to keep out of the penitentiary; that is his principal business, that is one of the gentlemen they have hired, that is one of the gentlemen they have brought forward here to offend the nostrils of decent men. Now, then, he went to Golsen & Eastman. Judge Bangs told you in his speech that Golsen then and there explained his infamy to Munn.
If there is anything which makes my blood boil it is to have the evidence misstated for the purpose of putting a man in the penitentiary. I never will make a misstatement to add to my reputation.
I recollect that evidence so perfectly. I recollected it so clearly that it shocked me when he stated that the man Golsen explained all his rascality and villainy to Munn. Why, I never heard of such evidence. What was it? It was said by Mr. Ayer in the opening that in the presence of Munn, Golsen said to Bridges, "It is not now all right," or something like that, "but I can make it right," or that he said in the presence of Munn, to Bridges, something that should have put Munn on his guard. I heard that, and I heard Golsen, when he came on the stand, say that he said that to Bridges, and you will bear me out when I say that I asked him in his cross-examination, "Did Munn hear it? Did you say it thinking that Munn did hear it?" and he did not pretend any such thing. He did not pretend it, and I tell you I was hurt, I was touched, I admit it, when Judge Bangs made the statement. I have an interest in this case. I am not only an attorney in this case, but, gentlemen, I am proud to say I am the defendant's friend. I am more than his attorney; I am his friend, and when an attorney makes a statement like that I must say it shocks me. Golsen did not swear that he explained his villainy to Munn—not a word of that kind or character. On the contrary he simply said he told this to Bridges, not to Munn, and that Munn did not hear it.