that time neither John Burkett Ryder nor Judge Rossmore had been
idle. The former had immediately set in motion the machinery he
controlled in the Legislature at Washington, while the judge
neglected no step to vindicate himself before the public.

Ryder, for reasons of his own--probably because he wished to make
the blow the more crushing when it did fall--had insisted on the
proceedings at the board meeting being kept a profound secret and
some time elapsed before the newspapers got wind of the coming
Congressional inquiry. No one had believed the stories about Judge
Rossmore but now that a quasi-official seal had been set on the
current gossip, there was a howl of virtuous indignation from the
journalistic muck rakers. What was the country coming to? they
cried in double leaded type. After the embezzling by life
insurance officers, the rascality of the railroads, the looting of
city treasuries, the greed of the Trusts, the grafting of the
legislators, had arisen a new and more serious scandal--the
corruption of the Judiciary. The last bulwark of the nation had
fallen, the country lay helpless at the mercy of legalized
sandbaggers. Even the judges were no longer to be trusted, the
most respected one among them all had been unable to resist the
tempter. The Supreme Court, the living voice of the Constitution,
was honeycombed with graft. Public life was rotten to the core!

Neither the newspapers nor the public stopped to ascertain the
truth or the falsity of the charges against Judge Rossmore. It was
sufficient that the bribery story furnished the daily sensation
which newspaper editors and newspaper readers must have. The world
is ever more prompt to believe ill rather than good of a man, and
no one, except in Rossmore's immediate circle of friends,