"three-fourths jury" bill, studying the constitution of the State of
Colorado, comparing it with those of the other states, and making
myself certain that such a law as we proposed was possible. Unlike
most of the state constitutions, Colorado's preserved inviolate the
right of jury trial in criminal cases only, and therefore it seemed to
me that the Legislature had plenary power to regulate it in civil
suits. I found that the Supreme Court of the state had so decided in
two cases, and I felt very properly elated; there seemed to be nothing
to prevent us having a law that should make "hung" juries practically
impossible in Colorado and relieve the courts of an abuse that thwarted
justice in scores of cases. At the same time I prepared a bill
allowing parents to recover damages for "anguish of mind" when a child
of theirs was killed in an accident; and, after much study, I worked up
an "employer's liability" bill to protect men who were compelled by
necessity to work under needlessly dangerous conditions. With these
three bills in his pocket, Senator Gardener went up to the Capitol,
like another David, and I went joyfully with him to aid and abet.

Happy? I was as happy as if Gardener had been elected President and I
was to be his Secretary of State. I was as happy as a man who has
found his proper work and knows that it is for the good of his fellows.
I would not have changed places that day with any genius of the fine
arts who had three masterpieces to unveil to an admiring world.

I did not know, of course--but I was soon to learn--that the
Legislature's time was almost wholly taken up with the routine work of
government, that most of the bills passed were concerned with
appropriations and such necessary details of administration, and that
only twenty or thirty bills such as ours--dealing with other
matters--could possibly be passed, among the hundreds offered. It was
Boss Graham who warned us that we had better concentrate on one
measure, if we wished to succeed with any at all, and we decided to put
all our strength behind the "three-fourths jury" bill. Since Graham
seemed to doubt its constitutionality, I went to the Attorney General
for his opinion, and he referred me to his assistant--whom I convinced.
I came back with the assistant's decision that the Legislature had
power to pass such a law, and Gardener promptly introduced it in the
Senate.

It proved at once mildly unpopular, and after a preliminary