case, and the Judge that presided over the case, to get that young man released from the Ohio penitentiary. Finally Governor Herrick of our city pardoned him, and he is today a free man here in the City of Cleveland, leading an exemplary life.

The practice of criminal law ought to be considered as the most sacred of all branches of the law, and those who point the finger of scorn at men working for the lives and liberties of the citizens, their conduct is more reprehensible than those who enter the lists in their defense.

Now you sue a man for a debt, and he goes forward to a trial with a jury impaneled who never heard anything about the case. They are supposed to come there with their minds like blank paper, and entirely without prejudice. As soon as a citizen is arrested, notwithstanding the fact that there has been no indictment against him by the grand jury, the papers begin to talk about it and everybody says, “Oh, I always thought there was something wrong with that fellow." Before that everybody had thought well of him, and after that they said "I always thought that man wasn't quite right."

Now again here is one of the infirmities of human nature, and that is, that we are so much more prone to listen to things said against a man, than for him, and as soon as a man is put under arrest, he is under another disability, because if you say something good of a man nobody cares to hear it, his most intimate friends and neighbors will not read it. But just somebody say something bad against him, that he has been arrested for a criminal act or charged with some misconduct, and you can't run the newspapers out fast enough to supply the demand upon the public thoroughfares.

Now, when a party is to be arrested the law says they are presumed to be innocent until they are proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. But how contrary to that is it in the case of practice. Just as soon as a man is arrested, no matter how high he has stood, and he is brought by his jailor in the court room to confront the jury, everybody says "Behold the criminal," and if that man takes his seat at the

trial table in a modest way by the side of his attorney or counsel and looks upon the floor or does not gaze boldly into the face of the judge and jury, immediately everybody in the room says: "Why, of course, you may know he is guilty, what a hang-dog look he has; he can't look the jury and judge in the face." On the other hand, if he comes in apparently a free man and takes his place at the trial table. and looks into the face of the court and jury and looks at them like an innocent man, everybody says, "Why, of course he is guilty, he hasn't any shame about him.”

Now, again, a man is supposed, when brought to a court to be convicted by the evidence, and what have we! If it is in Cleveland we have the newspapers publishing everything against him, publishing every item of testimony against him, leaving out something that a witness said and putting in something that he did not say, if it would qualify, and those papers are printed and left upon the door steps of the jury trying the case, and they are prejudiced by those printed statements. And when you go to a court to reverse a case on the ground that the newspapers did not give you a fair trial, and they published these things, and they say, "Oh, well, the jury is not supposed to read the newspapers," when as a matter of fact we know they do read the newspapers.

The earliest criminal case I ever knew of was in the little town where I lived, and I used to hear my grandfather tell about it, and I call your attention to the uniqueness of the sentence. In the little town of Ravenna was a forest. Somebody had committed some trivial crime, and his sentence was that he should go out where the old court house now stands and cut down a tree. And that was the clearing up of a penal offense.

The next case I remember was the case of the famous McKisson trial in Portage County, and the excitement that grew out of the trial of that case. One man had taken the life of another, and you heard no talk except upon that subject. How different it is today! Murder after murder is committed in the city of Cleveland, and in the largest cities of the United States, and you simply read the headlines of it perhaps, and no one thinks about it or gives it any more

thought whatever. It shows you that in the minds of the early settlers of this country, life was held sacred to a degree that I fear does not pertain at the present time. They were a law-abiding and a God-fearing people. And to take not only the property of a man, but much more, to take his life, was to bring down upon his head the damnation of everybody and to make it the subject of conversation paramount to anything and everything else.

With some of these considerations before us, and with the consideration of the people that are here assembled today, people who were instrumental, they and other ancestors in the early settlement of this country,-Notwithstanding the fact that we have progressed to an unexpected degree from the ox team down to the automobile, the flying machine in the air and the telephone and wireless telegraph, I ask every one of you, from your experience as you sit here today, whether the sum of human happiness is greater now than it was in the good old-fashioned days?

The President: I see we have with us today Mr. L. E. Holden, and we should like very much to have him say a few words today. He has not prepared anything, perhaps, but he doesn't need to. He has enough in his mind to talk to us about without preparation, and we shall be glad to hear from him.

Mr. L. E. Holden: Mr. President, for more than fifty years I have been a friend of yours. I have known you ever since I came to the City of Cleveland. I have nothing. but the kindest of remembrances, and I am indebted to you for many kinds words in my behalf. It is a great pleasure for me to be here today. I came up from my farm down in Mentor, where I have been spending the summer, on purpose to attend this meeting.

I love the old associations. I remember so well what Longfellow said: "You can't buy with gold the old associations; they are the inheritance that is beyond price. They are the associations that mark our footsteps all along the way of human life." What is nearer, what is dearer than the familiar association? Nothing beneath the arch of Heaven.

What is nearer, what is better, what is purer, than the memories of the pioneers of our country? Oh, how clearly I remember the talk, the stories that used to be told me by the old Revolutionary soldiers in the State of Maine when I was a boy! I would walk any distance to sit down by an old soldier and have him tell me the story of his life, and if I were to leave a legacy to any child of mine, or the children of others, it would be this: "Study biography, study the stories of your fellowmen, study the lives of those who have done something and who have felt something for their fellowmen."

Oh, what a record we have behind us! How I now love to read the history of our country, for the history of our country is the history of the lives of men and women who have done something. Why, how such a life illuminates the pathways of human life! It is everything. Study your fellowmen, study their acts and be inspired from what they have done and what they have felt. Oh, these associations are the dearest things! They are all there is in the latter years of our lives, the associations of our childhood, our boyhod, our manhood, and the memories that come to us in our older age.

I didn't come here to talk, Mr. President; I came here because I wanted to come; I wanted to hear others talk. I wanted to look into the faces of those, who, like myself, are fast stepping downward where the shadows are longer. But, as the years go by and we read the records of the stepping aside of those we have known in life, like Gen. Barnett, and other distinguished gentlemen, that have graced the pages of our history, we will see just what will come to us all. Let it stand in the name of God, stand out bravely, truly, and with clear and fervent and loving memories for the associations of this life which we have lived.

The President: The next thing on the program is poetry, fresh from the farm. Mr. Leonard G. Foster has written some very funny things, and some things that are very interesting, and he has published a book also. You know I have been publishing two books of reminiscences of Cleveland, and if you buy those two books of mine, and Mr. Foster's book, you will have a most excellent library.