Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911 edition. Excerpt: ... VIII THE DYNAMITE EXPLOSION A Miracle by Which the Precious Life of a Great Grafter Was Spared, and Which Enabled the Regenerators to Inflame Public Sentiment At no time during the Graft Prosecution was the performance allowed to flag. Whenever public interest seemed on the point of drooping something occurred to whip it up. And invariably the something served the purposes of the pro-prosecution press. It was as though some power had contrived a preternaturally ingenious species of drama, --a piece historique, as it were, abounding in desperately conflicting events, sensational effects, picturesque situations, unlooked for rencontres, calculated to ravish the senses, fillip the imagination and keep everybody on the qui vive. The times were incessantly feverish. It was melodrama from beginning to end. Murder was always in the air. Conspiracies to kidnap or kill were of monthly occurrence--in the press, nowhere else. To the defendants were continuously imputed the most fiendish designs, thus justifying repeated admonitions to the public to be ever on the alert lest the complete subversion of government be effected with the suddenness of a bolt from the blue. All of which served to harrow up the souls of the susceptible and inspire them with hatred of the abandoned wretches who had the audacity to persist in fighting for their liberty. Never was this machinery for the firing of public sentiment so active as during the trials of Abraham Ruef. His first trial, after the repudiation of his immunity contract, was begun in April, 1908. The trial of Tirey L. Ford was then in progress before Judge Lawlor. This was the first time that two graft trials ran contemporaneously. Hitherto it was the policy of the prosecution to keep their forces united...
