sort of men that I meet everywhere in the
ordinary walks of life, doing an honorable American business in
an honorable American way. Now, gentlemen of the jury [he was very
soft-spoken now], all I have to say is that if, after all you have heard
and seen here to-day, you still think that Mr. Frank A. Cowperwood is
an honest, honorable man--that he didn't steal, willfully and knowingly,
sixty thousand dollars from the Philadelphia city treasury; that he had
actually bought the certificates he said he had, and had intended to put
them in the sinking-fund, as he said he did, then don't you dare to do
anything except turn him loose, and that speedily, so that he can go
on back to-day into Third Street, and start to straighten out his
much-entangled financial affairs. It is the only thing for honest,
conscientious men to do--to turn him instantly loose into the heart of
this community, so that some of the rank injustice that my opponent, Mr.
Steger, alleges has been done him will be a little made up to him. You
owe him, if that is the way you feel, a prompt acknowledgment of his
innocence. Don't worry about George W. Stener. His guilt is established
by his own confession. He admits he is guilty. He will be sentenced
without trial later on. But this man--he says he is an honest, honorable
man. He says he didn't think he was going to fail. He says he used all
that threatening, compelling, terrifying language, not because he was
in danger of failing, but because he didn't want the bother of looking
further for aid. What do you think? Do you really think that he
had purchased sixty thousand dollars more of certificates for the
sinking-fund, and that he was entitled to the money? If so, why didn't
he put them in the sinking-fund? They're not there now, and the sixty
thousand dollars is gone. Who got it? The Girard National Bank, where he
was overdrawn to the extent of one hundred thousand dollars! Did it get
it and forty thousand dollars more in other checks and certificates?
Certainly. Why? Do you suppose the Girard National Bank might be in any
way grateful for this last little favor before he closed his doors? Do
you think that President Davison, whom you saw here testifying so kindly
in this case feels at all friendly, and that that may possibly--I
don't say that it does--explain his very kindly interpretation of Mr.
Cowperwood's condition? It might be. You can think as well along that
line as I can. Anyhow, gentlemen, Preside