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firm of Sullivan & Cromwell he has been in timately connected with most of the great corporate reorganizations. Their work has re cently been in the public eye in the affairs of the Panama Canal Company and the reorgani zation of the American Ship Building Company. Few crimes have presented more baffling elements of mystery than the murder of Mabel Page and few trials have attracted a keener public interest than that of Charles L. Tucker forthat murder at Cam bridge, Mass., in Jan uary last. Those who followed the news paper reports seem to have confidently ex pected his acquittal. So startled indeed was the public at the ver dict that a reputable Boston paper in an editorial said:— 1 ' What evidence has WILLIAM J. CURTIS the government been able to produce with all the skill, all the experience, yes, all the cunning of the chief prosecuting officer of the commonwealth, that would justify this verdict that condemns Tucker to the electric chair?"
- * * "It is our opinion that justice demands
that a new trial be given and that the verdict of murder in the first degree that has been rendered by the jury should not be allowed to stand as a finality." In view of these criticisms of the jury's decision and of the evidence of handwrit ing and medical ex perts which played a conspicuous part in the trial it has seemed that an account of the trial by a lawyer and eye witness would be of value to the pro fession. Mr. Bancroft HUGH BANCROFT is a member of the firm of Stone, Dailinger & Bancroft and one of the most successful of the younger practitioners of Boston. He bears the rare distinction of
having rowed on a winning Harvard crew and he ranks as Lieutenant Colonel in the State Militia. Since graduation from the Harvard Law School in 1901 he has been constantly engaged in the trial of cases both as one of the counsel for the Boston Elevated Railroad and as Assistant District Attorney for Middle sex County, in which latter capacity he ser ved as junior counsel for the prosecution of the Tucker trial. The busy lawyer who takes time from his practice to prepare an analysis of the life and labors of one of his predecessorsd eserves the thanks of his less public spirited ADRIAN H. JOLINH brothers. The account of the legal side of Van Buren which is published in this num ber is founded upon a recent address by the author before the New York State Bar As sociation. Mr. Joline was formerly of the well-known admiralty firm of Butler, Notman, Joline and Mynderse. He is now the senior member of Joline, Larkin and Rathbone of New York City. The increasing resort to the courts in our conflicts, social and political, seems to some a panacea, to others a menace, but at the least the precedents from Colorado which are treated in Mr. Hutton's article, suggest a tremendous advance in jurisdiction that deserves our serious consideration. Mr. Hutton graduated from Harvard College WILLIAM E. HTTTON in 1895 and from Har vard Law School in 1898, where he was a prominent debater. He has always had a deep interest in constitutional law, and as one of the organizers of The League for Honest Elections, he has been active in the campaign against election frauds in Denver.
