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of which was that a large amount of city loan was turned over to Mr. Cowperwood by Mr. Stener
for sale, and by adroit manipulation--methods of buying and selling which need not be gone into
here, but which are perfectly sane and legitimate in the world in which Mr. Cowperwood
operated, did bring that loan to par, and kept it there year after year as you have all heard here
testified to.
"Now what is the bone of contention here, gentlemen, the significant fact which brings Mr.
Stener into this court at this time charging his old-time agent and broker with larceny and
embezzlement, and alleging that he has transferred to his own use without a shadow of return
sixty thousand dollars of the money which belongs to the city treasury? What is it? Is it that Mr.
Cowperwood secretly, with great stealth, as it were, at some time or other, unknown to Mr.
Stener or to his assistants, entered the office of the treasurer and forcibly, and with criminal
intent, carried away sixty thousand dollars' worth of the city's money? Not at all. The charge is,
as you have heard the district attorney explain, that Mr. Cowperwood came in broad daylight at
between four and five o'clock of the afternoon preceeding the day of his assignment; was
closeted with Mr. Stener for a half or three-quarters of an hour; came out; explained to Mr.
Albert Stires that he had recently bought sixty thousand dollars' worth of city loan for the city
sinking-fund, for which he had not been paid; asked that the amount be credited on the city's
books to him, and that he be given a check, which was his due, and walked out. Anything very
remarkable about that, gentlemen? Anything very strange? Has it been testified here to-day that
Mr. Cowperwood was not the agent of the city for the transaction of just such business as he
said on that occasion that he had transacted? Did any one say here on the witness-stand that
he had not bought city loan as he said he had?
"Why is it then that Mr. Stener charges Mr. Cowperwood with larcenously securing and
feloniously disposing of a check for sixty thousand dollars for certificates which he had a right to
buy, and which it has not been contested here that he did buy? The reason lies just
here--listen--just here. At the time my client asked for the check and took it away with him and
deposited it in his own bank to his own account, he failed, so the prosecution insists, to put the
sixty thousand dollars' worth of certificates for which he had received the check, in the sinking-
fund; and having failed to do that, and being compelled by the pressure of financial events the
same day to suspend payment generally, he thereby, according to the prosecution and the
anxious leaders of the Republican party in the city, became an embezzler, a thief, a this or
that--anything you please so long as you find a substitute for George W. Stener and the
indifferent leaders of the Republican party in the eyes of the people."
And here Mr. Steger proceeded boldly and defiantly to outline the entire political situation as it
had manifested itself in connection with the Chicago fire, the subsequent panic and its political
consequences, and to picture Cowperwood as the unjustly maligned agent, who before the fire
was valuable and honorable enough to suit any of the political leaders of Philadelphia, but
afterward, and when political defeat threatened, was picked upon as the most available
scapegoat anywhere within reach.
And it took him a half hour to do that. And afterward but only after he had pointed to Stener as
the true henchman and stalking horse, who had, in turn, been used by political forces above him
to accomplish certain financial results, which they were not willing to have ascribed to
themselves, he continued with:
"But now, in the light of all this, only see how ridiculous all this is! How silly! Frank A.
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