ARTHUR.T Stories ------The Franklin Syndicate --V---Page 28

The District Attorney's own eyes were not entirely dry as he held out his hand to Miller.

"Miller," he replied, "I have done you a great injustice. I honor you

for the position you have taken. Were I in your place I should probably

act exactly as you are doing. I cannot promise you a pardon if you

testify against Ammon. I cannot even promise that your wife will receive

forty dollars a month, for the money in my charge cannot be used for

such a purpose; all I can assure you of is that, should you decide to

help me, a full and fair statement of all you may have done will be sent

to the Governor with a request that he act favorably upon any

application for a pardon which you may make. The choice must be your

own. Whatever you decide to do, you have my respect and sympathy. Think

well over the matter. Do not decide at once; wait for a day or two, and I will return to New York and you can send me word."

The next day Miller sent word that he had determined to tell the truth

and take the stand, whatever the consequences to himself and his family

might be. He was immediately transferred to the Tombs Prison in New York
City, where he made a complete and full confession, not only assisting
in every way in securing evidence for the prosecution of Ammon, but
aiding his trustee in bankruptcy to determine the whereabouts of some
sixty thousand dollars of the stolen money, which but for him would
never have been recovered. At the same time Ammon was re-arrested upon a bench warrant, and his bail sufficiently increased to render his
appearance for trial probable. As Miller had foreseen, the monthly
payment to his wife instantly stopped.

The usual effect produced upon a jury by the testimony of a convict

accomplice is one of distrust or open incredulity. Every word of

Miller's story, however, carried with it the impression of absolute

truth. As he proceeded, in spite of the sneers of the defence, an

extraordinary wave of sympathy for the man swept over the court-room,
and the jury listened with close attention to his graphic account of the
rise and fall of the outrageous conspiracy which had attempted to shield
its alluring offer of instant wealth behind the name of America's most
practical philosopher, whose only receipt for the same end had been
frugality and industry. Supported as Miller was by the corroborative
testimony of other witnesses and by the certificates of deposit which
Ammon had, with his customary bravado, made out in his own handwriting,
no room was left for even the slightest doubt, not only that the money
had been stolen but that Ammon had received it. Indeed so plain was the
proposition that the defence never for an instant contemplated the
possibility of putting Ammon upon the stand in his own behalf. It was in
truth an extraordinary case, for the principal element in the proof was
made out by the evidence of the thief himself that he was a thief.
Miller had been tried and convicted of the very larceny to which he now
testified, and, although in the eyes of the law no principle of _res
adjudicata_ could apply in Ammon's case, it was a logical conclusion
that if the evidence upon the first trial was repeated, the necessary
element of larceny would be effectually established. Hence, in point of
fact, Miller's testimony upon the question of whether the money had been
_stolen_ was entirely unnecessary, and the efforts of the defence were
directed simply to making out Miller such a miscreant upon his own
testimony that perforce the jury could not accept his evidence when it
reached the point of implicating Ammon. All their attempts in this
direction, however, only roused increased sympathy for the witness and
hostility toward their own client, and made the jury the more ready to
believe that Ammon had been the only one in the end to profit by the
transaction.

Briefly, the two points urged by the defence were:

(1) That Ammon was acting only as Miller's counsel, and hence was immune, and,

(2) That there was no adequate legal evidence that the thirty thousand

five hundred dollars which Ammon had deposited, as shown by the deposit slip, was the identical money stolen from the victims of the Franklin
syndicate. As bearing upon this they urged that the stolen money had in
fact been deposited by Miller himself, and so had lost the character of
stolen money before it was turned over to the defendant, and that
Miller's story being that of an accomplice required absolute
corroboration in every detail.

The point that Ammon was acting only as a lawyer was quickly disposed of by Judge Newburger.

"Something has been said by counsel," he remarked in his charge to the jury, "to the effect that the defendant, as a lawyer, had a perfect
right to advise Miller, but I know of no rule of law that will permit
counsel to advise how a crime can be committed."

As to the identity of the money, the Court charged that it made no

difference which person performed the physical act of placing the cash in the hands of the receiving teller of the bank, so long as it was
deposited to Ammon's credit.

On the question of what corroboration of Miller's story was necessary, Judge Ingraham, in the Appellate Division, expressed great doubt as to whether in the eyes of the law Miller, the thief, could be regarded as
an accomplice of Ammon in receiving the stolen money at all, and stated that even if he could be so regarded, there was more than abundant
corroboration of his testimony.

Ammon's conviction was affirmed throughout the courts, including the
Court of Appeals, and the defendant himself is now engaged in serving
out his necessarily inadequate sentence--necessarily inadequate, since
under the laws of the State of New York, the receiver of stolen goods,
however great his moral obliquity may be, and however great the amount
stolen, can only receive half the punishment which may be meted out to
the thief himself, "receiving" being punishable by only five years or
less in State's prison, while grand larceny is punishable by ten years.

Yet who was the greater criminal--the weak, ignorant, poverty-stricken

clerk, or the shrewd, experienced lawyer who preyed upon his client and through him upon the community at large?

The confession of Miller, in the face of what the consequences of his

course might mean to his wife and child, was an act of moral courage.
The price he had to pay is known to himself alone. But the horrors of
life in prison for the "squealer" were thoroughly familiar to him when
he elected to do what he could to atone for his crime. In fact Ammon had
not neglected to picture them vividly to him and to stigmatize an
erstwhile client of his.

"Everything looks good," he wrote to Miller in Sing Sing, in reporting the affirmance of Goslin's conviction, "especially since the _squealer_ is getting his just _deserts_."

With no certain knowledge of a future pardon Miller went back to prison
cheerfully to face all the nameless tortures inflicted upon those who
help the State--the absolute black silence of convict excommunication,
the blows and kicks inflicted without opportunity for retaliation or
complaint, the hostility of guards and keepers, the suffering of abject
poverty, keener in a prison house than on any other foot of earth.

It is interesting to observe that Miller's original purpose had been to
secure money to speculate with--for he had been bitten deep by the
tarantula of Wall Street, and his early experiences had led him to
believe that he could beat the market if only he had sufficient margin.
This margin he set out to secure. Then when he saw how easy it was to
get money for the asking, he dropped the idea of speculation and simply
became a banker. He did make one bona-fide attempt, but the stock went
down, he sold out and netted a small loss. Had Miller actually
_continued to speculate_ it is doubtful whether he could have been
convicted for any crime, since it was for that purpose that the money
was entrusted to him. He might have lost it all in the Street and gone
scot free. As it was, in failing to gamble with it, he became guilty of
embezzlement.

Ammon arrived in Sing Sing with a degree of eclat. He found numerous old friends and clients among the inmates. He brought a social position
which had its value. Money, too, is no less desirable there than
elsewhere, and Ammon had plenty of it.

In due course, but not until he had served more than half his sentence
(less commutation), Miller a broken man, received his pardon, and went back to his wife and child. When Governor Higgins performed this act of executive clemency, many honest folk in Brooklyn and elsewhere loudly expressed their indignation. District Attorney Jerome did not escape
their blame. Was this contemptible thief, this meanest of all mean
swindlers, who had stolen hundreds of thousands to be turned loose on the community before he had served half his sentence? It was an outrage! A disgrace to civilization! Reader, how say you?