Milburn was done with Godkin. Now it was Moot’s turn to take a crack at the editor. He faced the defendant and showed him the 1884 Post articles that had been introduced into evidence. “I see that you wrote that, ‘The accounts [about] Dr. Ball grow worse and worse.’ What can you recall that is detrimental to Dr. Ball’s character?”
“I considered that the slanders he was spreading of Grover Cleveland were detrimental to the highest degree.”
“If the story Dr. Ball tells in the Abbott letter were true, would you still have a feeling against him?”
Godkin considered this. “I should, for I think a minister is unqualified to pursue such a line of business. I think that on such lines as the Maria Halpin story, ministers are especially disqualified, for they are very credulous and not likely to conduct an investigation in a judicial manner.”
Moot pointed out that in one Post article, Ball had been referred to as a “politico-clerical adventurer.” Could not the venerated Henry Ward Beecher be subject to the same insulting characterization? Godkin shook his head. Beecher, he said, was too great an orator and his thoughts were too “well defined.”
“This phrase you use was a direct thrust at Dr. Ball’s character?”
“It was.”
Moot hammered away at the witness. Regarding the incident in Owensville, Godkin acknowledged that when the Indianapolis Sentinel had accused Ball of “insulting a Christian lady,” he had jumped to the assumption that Ball had committed a morally offensive act of a sexual nature. “Did you think that Dr. Ball had been undertaking something in the line that Mr. Cleveland was accused of?”
“I thought it very likely,” said Godkin. “I thought it all went together with what Dr. Ball was doing in Buffalo,” Godkin sneered; his contempt for Ball was evident to everyone in the courtroom. Moot asked Godkin about his charge that Ball had an aptitude for “ferreting out low, disgusting scandals.” Godkin admitted that outside of the Halpin scandal, he could not find any evidence that Ball was involved in investigating political scandals.
In the Post article under the headline, “Dr. Ball and His Kind,” Ball was called a “miscreant.” Did Godkin regret using that word?
Godkin said it was a strong word but warranted.
“Guttersnipes,” said Moot, reading from the same article. “Doesn’t this make charges of low character to Dr. Ball and his kind?”
“It refers to people engaged in low occupation,” Godkin agreed.
“Vampires,” Moot read. “These are bloodsuckers, spirits that return after death and roam over the earth.” He wanted to know whether Godkin still believed Ball could be compared to such a creature.
Godkin would not back down.
“Rascals,” Moot said, still reading from the article. “Do you know that the term a rascal indicates a criminal?”
Godkin retorted that sometimes it did and sometimes it did not.
Moot said that based on the testimony he had just heard, he could only conclude that in Godkin’s estimation, George Ball was all these things: a miscreant, a guttersnipe, a vampire, and a rascal. If this was the case, suggested Moot, then Ball must also be a cad, unfaithful to his wife, and a horrible father.
Godkin said, “I didn’t know whether he had wife or child.”
“Or to his church?”
“I think anybody who did as he did was unfaithful to his church.”
Moot was done. He seemed confident of victory. Then Milburn got up and asked Godkin one more time whether he considered the words “miscreant, guttersnipe, and vampire” too strong as applied to George Ball.
“I should not,” Godkin said.
Milburn looked at Judge Daniels. “That’s our case, Your Honor.” At the moment, the clock struck five. Court was adjourned for the day.
The next morning, a pallid George Ball sat at the plaintiff’s table. Looking around, he saw that every seat was taken, but it was disappointing to see that the clergymen who had been filling the courtroom for the past two days to show their support were not there. Ball fidgeted in his chair, and his eyes shifted to the twelve men sitting in the jury box. John Milburn was about to begin his closing argument.
In an even-toned voice no louder than was necessary to be heard in the courtroom, Milburn said it was regretful that the case of Ball vs. New York Evening Post had ever come to trial. President Cleveland had administered the affairs of state with “ability and manliness,” and he had taken a wife who had won the admiration and affection of the American people for the “dignity, courtesy, and simplicity with which she presided over the White House.” It was a nimble manipulation of the goodwill the jurors had for their hometown idol, Frances Folsom Cleveland.
The Maria Halpin scandal was “long gone by,” Milburn said, and it was unfortunate that the passions of 1884 had to be “raked over by this minister and his greed for money.” Milburn said he had considered and then rejected the idea of calling President Cleveland as a witness. “It would not be fair to him and his family,” he said.
“Now this action was brought for defamation of character, to get money, when it appears that (Ball) has not suffered at all in either character or purse. What an opportunity for a minister to be gracious, and say that as the campaign was passed and the heat of it was over, he would let the matter drop. But no, he must drag it into court and rake up things so painful to many.”
George Ball, Milburn conceded, may have stepped into the campaign of 1884 in the spirit of “public duty,” but that same spirit had moved Godkin to write his articles denouncing Ball. The two men had engaged in a war of words that required the widest privilege available under the law. “There can be nothing done about it unless a malicious motive can be shown.”
“Dr. Ball is the libeler, we are not.”
Milbank turned now to Ball’s excursion to Vine Alley when he interviewed Cleveland’s maid for evidence of drunken behavior and lewd associations. “That,” said Milburn, “is the work of a guttersnipe. Do you want such a man to officiate at your wedding, to preach the Gospel to you! He is with you to baptize your children, to visit you when you are sick, and to officiate at your funeral. His business is to do good, to lift up society and protect it from debasement. But our papers were for months filled with the scum of the gutter, scraped up by this man who now wants damages. He so debased the reputation of Buffalo that it will take a quarter century to recover.”
He poured on the bile. He compared George Ball to a “fish woman” and an assassin. He said it was shameful for Ball to have linked Cleveland to the death of Oscar Folsom. “In this an attack had been made not only upon the living but upon the dead, upon a man who had been in his grave for years.”
Court recessed for lunch, and when it went into session again at two o’clock, Milburn resumed his closing arguments. Bristling with sarcasm, he went over the Post articles sentence by sentence. They were “mild” compared to the language Ball had used in his attacks on Cleveland. And who could object to “vampire” when Ball was bringing shame on a “fellow townsman who was a candidate for high office.” If the Post had erred in accusing Ball of insulting a Christian woman in Owensville, it had done so in good faith with the best information available at the time.
Then Milburn put everything on the line. He was not interested in a compromise verdict, he told the jurors. It was all or nothing. Either his client was guilty or Ball was not entitled to a single dollar bill in damages.
Two hours after he had begun, Milburn completed his closing arguments. He had put forth a masterful performance.
It was now Adelbert Moot’s turn to face the jury. How strange, Moot said, that two-thirds of John Milburn’s closing address had been about a man who was not on trial and who had not taken the witness stand. That man, of course, was President Cleveland, now a private citizen and qualified to defend himself—“if he chose.” Fear had kept Cleveland away from the trial, Moot said. “If he did, he might speak of the boy who could never have the same chance as other boys, and of the mother who was
disgraced by her motherhood.”
The case boiled down to this, said Moot. Could a newspaper use the language aimed at Ball and “go unpunished”? What had George Ball done that had been so egregious? He had come into possession of certain facts concerning Grover Cleveland “as would prevent you or me from introducing this man to a wife or daughter.” He had communicated the information to the editors of several newspapers. Was he not entitled? Moot alluded to the illegitimate birth of Oscar Folsom Cleveland—“the boy who had no right to use his father’s name.” Moot pointed out that Cleveland was nearly forty years old when his son was born out of wedlock, so his conduct could not be excused by the irresponsibility of youth. Moot said he had not intended to raise the specter of Oscar’s birth during the trial, and only did so when the other side kept bringing it up. Why, he wondered, had the defense not called to the stand Mrs. Baker, who was still alive and could speak as a witness with firsthand knowledge of Cleveland’s illegitimate son and of the woman who had been “wrongfully” locked up in an insane asylum?
“I told you that we were not trying Governor Cleveland’s libel suit. He can do that himself. But if these stories had been lies, Dr. Ball and the others who told them could have been thrown into prison and punished.”
The question before the jury was this: “May a minister of the gospel think? May he say whether the chief magistrate of the nation shall be clean? The defendants should be made to sweat. I submit you ought to find a verdict that would teach a substantial lesson.”
A strange thing happened when Moot finished his summation. John Milburn’s law partner, Franklin Locke, announced that a surprise witness, James C. Fullerton, had come forward during a break in closing summations with evidence concerning George Ball.
“If it pleases Your Honor, we desire to reopen our side of the case for the purpose of placing James C. Fullerton upon the stand.”
Judge Daniels looked down from the bench. “What is the nature of the testimony you purpose to introduce?”
“We expect to prove by Mr. Fullerton that Dr. Ball applied to him for money during the campaign of 1881.”
The judge pondered. With so much on the line, he was inclined to give the lawyers on both sides plenty of latitude. Besides, Adelbert Moot was raising no objection to reopening the case. “I think we will hear the testimony of Mr. Fullerton,” the judge said.
James Fullerton was sworn in. He looked as if he definitely did not want to be there.
Fullerton testified that in 1881, he had considered running for city attorney of Buffalo. George Ball had come to his law office and offered to put Fullerton’s name on the ballot of the independent party that Ball controlled—if Fullerton handed over a $250 donation. If he did so, Fullerton claimed, Ball was willing to replace the lawyer who was already on the ballot with Fullerton.
“Did you give it to him?” Locke asked.
“I did not,” Fullerton answered. “I was a poor boy and did not have much money.”
“Did your name go on Dr. Ball’s ticket?”
“It did not.”
It was blockbuster testimony that appeared to stain Ball as a grubby political boss ready to sell a slot on his independent ticket to the highest bidder, just as the Post had represented in its articles.
“Well,” said Judge Daniels when Fullerton concluded his testimony. “Does the plaintiff desire to introduce any testimony?”
“Just a moment,” said Adlebert Moot. His brow was deeply furrowed as he carried on a whispered consultation with his law partner Frank Ferguson. Finally, Moot said he was recalling their client George Ball to the stand.
Ball looked nervous. Moot asked, “Dr. Ball, did you visit with Mr. Fullerton in his office during the campaign of 1881?”
“I have no definite recollection of such a visit.” But as he said this, he sounded evasive.
Franklin Locke handled the cross-examination. He asked Ball straight-out, “Will you swear that you did not have a conversation with Mr. Fullerton in his office during the campaign of 1881?”
“I think I might have had some conversation with Mr. Fullerton, but I am certain that I did not ask for money. We talked about the management and general expenses of a campaign.”
“And what possible object would you have had in talking with Mr. Fullerton about the general expenses of a campaign?”
Ball hesitated. “I would like to have the language of some of my previous answers read to see exactly what I said.” Ball had tied himself into an awkward knot of equivocation. Titters broke out in the courtroom. Judge Daniels looked sternly at the spectators, and his glare told everyone to be quiet.
It was now five o’clock. Judge Daniels cautioned the jurors not to say anything about the case and then he dismissed them for the night. His final instructions to the panel would take place the next day. Ball looked shell-shocked. Godkin was grinning for the first time in three days.
On the morning of February 7, 1890, Judge Daniels delivered his charge to the jury. Daniels had deep-set hazel eyes and a long thin mouth with a kindly expression that suggested an impish wit. He had only dim recollections of his early years and could not say when or where he was born. It could have been in 1825, which would make him sixty-five, in Wales or New York City. He just did not know. His father was an itinerant shoemaker who, as Daniels dryly recalled, “had certain habits which stood in the way of his success.” Daniels was sixteen when he happened to hear a lawyer plead a case before a jury. Then and there he was determined to become a lawyer. For the next five years, his books were lying on his cobbler’s bench as he hammered away, making shoes, to earn 25¢ a day—just enough to stay alive and buy more books. Every free hour he had he would slip into the county courthouse and watch the law play out. He lived by the adage that “labor conquered all.” He clerked nights for a Buffalo lawyer, was admitted to the bar in 1847, and elected to the bench in 1863. Frail but wiry, he hardened his body with calisthenics. Even in the coldest winter weather, he went without an overcoat and wore low shoes and thin clothes. His reputation as a jurist was one of absolute impartiality. He told his son that he could not make friends for fear his objectivity would be bent if a friend came before him in court. Railroad companies sent him free passes, but he would never use them because the railroads frequently appeared in court as litigants.
Now he was presiding over a case with historic repercussions. As usual, his charge to the jury was utterly evenhanded—“without the slightest leaning one way or the other.” He laid out the mass of evidence that had been presented. Sentence by sentence, he read for the jurors the articles in dispute and dwelled on their impact, implicit or not. He said that George Ball had a constitutional right to probe Grover Cleveland’s personal life, and it was for the jury to determine whether the investigative measures Ball had taken, such as interviewing Cleveland’s maid, warranted the Post calling him a guttersnipe. If Ball had libeled Cleveland in asserting that he had been drunk the night of Oscar Folsom’s death, that in turn was no justification for the Post to libel Ball. It was for the jury to determine whether the Post’s articles had been written with actual malice and whether they were intended to injure Ball. For ninety minutes, Daniels systematically laid everything out. Finally, at eleven ten, the jury retired to the deliberation room.
The spectators gathered into small clusters of conversation. A general consensus was reached: The jurors would either be hung or vote for Godkin and the New York Evening Post. No one expected a victory for Ball.
The panel was out for less than four hours. At 2:45 p.m., a court officer announced that the jurors had come to a verdict. Everyone scrambled to find seats. The jurors filed back into the courtroom.
“Gentlemen, have you reached a verdict?” asked the clerk of the court. A hush fell.
“We have,” said the foreman. He rose. “We find a verdict of no cause of action.”
Ball sank in his chair, crushed. Characteristically, Godkin exhibited no visible reaction, even in his moment of victory. Ball left the courtro
om without saying a word. Moot vowed to appeal. Later, it emerged that when the jurors began deliberations, they had taken a secret ballot to see where things stood. Eight men had voted in favor of Godkin and three for Ball. One ballot was blank. It had taken six more ballots before reaching a unanimous verdict.
One month later, Godkin was back at the editor’s desk at the Post in Manhattan. Before him was a check in the amount of $856.82, signed by none other than Grover Cleveland. The former president had made good on a private pledge he had made five years before to pay a substantial portion of Godkin’s legal fees. He had full faith in the editor’s eagerness to keep the transaction strictly confidential. A grateful Godkin took pen to paper.
My Dear Mr. Cleveland,
I have to acknowledge the receipt of your check for $856.82 being half the bill of Rogers Locke Milburn [the full name of Milburn’s law firm.]
Let me add that we all here think your contribution to the expense of the suit ample and in all respects satisfactory to us. Allow me at the same time to congratulate you most humbly on the result of the trial, for it was a triumph for you as well as for us.
Two years later, Grover Cleveland won the Democratic nomination for president. His running mate was Adlai Stevenson, the former congressman from Illinois who had served as his assistant postmaster general. The general election of 1892 was a replay of the 1888 campaign, but this time, Cleveland emerged triumphant, defeating President Harrison with 46 percent of the vote to Harrison’s 43 percent, and becoming the first and only United States president to serve nonconsecutive terms of office.
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A Secret Life: The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland Page 34