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to you, gentlemen? Was Mr. Cowperwood still an agent for the city at the time he bought the
loan certificates as here testified? He certainly was. If so, was he entitled to that money? Who is
going to stand up here and deny it? Where is the question then, as to his right or his honesty in
this matter? How does it come in here at all? I can tell you. It sprang solely from one source and
from nowhere else, and that is the desire of the politicians of this city to find a scapegoat for the
Republican party.
"Now you may think I am going rather far afield for an explanation of this very peculiar decision
to prosecute Mr. Cowperwood, an agent of the city, for demanding and receiving what actually
belonged to him. But I'm not. Consider the position of the Republican party at that time.
Consider the fact that an exposure of the truth in regard to the details of a large defalcation in
the city treasury would have a very unsatisfactory effect on the election about to be held. The
Republican party had a new city treasurer to elect, a new district attorney. It had been in the
habit of allowing its city treasurers the privilege of investing the funds in their possession at a
low rate of interest for the benefit of themselves and their friends. Their salaries were small.
They had to have some way of eking out a reasonable existence. Was Mr. George Stener
responsible for this custom of loaning out the city money? Not at all. Was Mr. Cowperwood? Not
at all. The custom had been in vogue long before either Mr. Cowperwood or Mr. Stener came on
the scene. Why, then, this great hue and cry about it now? The entire uproar sprang solely from
the fear of Mr. Stener at this juncture, the fear of the politicians at this juncture, of public
exposure. No city treasurer had ever been exposed before. It was a new thing to face exposure,
to face the risk of having the public's attention called to a rather nefarious practice of which Mr.
Stener was taking advantage, that was all. A great fire and a panic were endangering the
security and well-being of many a financial organization in the city--Mr. Cowperwood's among
others. It meant many possible failures, and many possible failures meant one possible failure.
If Frank A. Cowperwood failed, he would fail owing the city of Philadelphia five hundred
thousand dollars, borrowed from the city treasurer at the very low rate of interest of two and one-
half per cent. Anything very detrimental to Mr. Cowperwood in that? Had he gone to the city
treasurer and asked to be loaned money at two and one-half per cent.? If he had, was there
anything criminal in it from a business point of view? Isn't a man entitled to borrow money from
any source he can at the lowest possible rate of interest? Did Mr. Stener have to loan it to Mr.
Cowperwood if he did not want to? As a matter of fact didn't he testify here to-day that he
personally had sent for Mr. Cowperwood in the first place? Why, then, in Heaven's name, this
excited charge of larceny, larceny as bailee, embezzlement, embezzlement on a check, etc.,
etc.?
"Once more, gentlemen, listen. I'll tell you why. The men who stood behind Stener, and whose
bidding he was doing, wanted to make a political scapegoat of some one--of Frank Algernon
Cowperwood, if they couldn't get any one else. That's why. No other reason under God's blue
sky, not one. Why, if Mr. Cowperwood needed more money just at that time to tide him over, it
would have been good policy for them to have given it to him and hushed this matter up. It
would have been illegal-- though not any more illegal than anything else that has ever been
done in this connection--but it would have been safer. Fear, gentlemen, fear, lack of courage,
inability to meet a great crisis when a great crisis appears, was all that really prevented them
from doing this. They were afraid to place confidence in a man who had never heretofore
betrayed their trust and from whose loyalty and great financial ability they and the city had been
reaping large profits. The reigning city treasurer of the time didn't have the courage to go on in
the face of fire and panic and the rumors of possible failure, and stick by his illegal guns; and so
he decided to draw in his horns as testified here to-day--to ask Mr. Cowperwood to return all or
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