WILLIAM H. TAFT none of the charges showed Campbell to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, while one of the Judges found one charge sufficiently established even by that test. The com munity was shocked again and even news papers believed to be friendly to Campbell did not refrain from severe criticism of the finding. The result was the same as if the prosecu tion had been technically successful. Camp bell's power was broken and he soon left Cincinnati. No man ever did a more beneficial service to his native town than did William H. Taft in the prosecution of Campbell. He showed the same fearlessness, the same disregard of consequences personal to himself that have characterized his conduct ever since when called upon to do service for the public. Mr. Taft opened his four hours' speech in that case in this way : "The relators in this case have been actuated by no other motive than a desire that the profession should be purged of a man whose success in this community threat ens every institution of justice that is dear to us or necessary to good government. "We admit the ability, the energy, the shrewdness of the respondent and his power in the community. It is no small reason that would lead to the prosecution in this case with the lifelong hostility that it must engender and the danger that there is in incurring the undying enmity of a man as powerful as the respondent has grown in this community." He was at this time but twenty-eight years of age. In January, 1885, he undertook, without leaving the general practice, the duties of Assistant County Solicitor, to which office he was appointed by Rufus B. Smith, then County Solicitor and afterwards Judge of the Superior Court of Cincinnati. It was his duty chiefly to advise the various county officers of their duties, and he became thoroughly familiar with all the details of the system of the government of the state
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and of its subdivisions, and particularly with all laws affecting taxation. No subject for his consideration was passed without com plete mastery of it. His industry, thorough ness and ability had already marked him as the most promising young man at the Bar. To such an extent was this recognized that Governor Foraker, in March, 1887, appointed him to fill the vacancy on the Superior Court Bench caused by the resignation of Judson Harmon. At the end of a year, in the spring of 1888, he was nominated as its candidate for the Superior Court Bench by the Repub lican City Convention and was elected by a majority very large for that time, being over five thousand. This is the only time, to this date, his name has been submitted to the suffrages of the people. With the exception of the two years from January, 1883, to Janu ary, 1885, Mr. Taft has been in public office since January, 1881, in each instance, except when elected to the Superior Court Bench, having been called to an appointive office, and never through any solicitation of his own. When on that Bench, so great had his reputation for fairness, thoroughness and knowledge of the law become that leading lawyers sought to time the trial of important and close cases so that they might come before him. It was even then his custom to write his decisions in almost all of the cases which he decided. For conciseness and strength of statement, laborious research, penetrating analysis and inexorable logic, his decisions, young as he was, cannot be excelled by the monuments of legal learning found in the reports from the pens of great lawyers who at times have been incumbents of that Bench. The reports of his decisions as Judge of that Court and as Judge of the Circuit Court of Appeals are mines of apt precedents of great assistance now to mem bers of the profession in the preparation of their cases. Perhaps his most important decisions as Judge of the Superior Court of Cincinnati were the Southern Railroad cases, involving questions arising from the over
