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I, FRED KOHLER Forty Years of Cleveland Politics BY N. R. HOWARD. CHAPTER XXII-THE TRIAL THE trial, before Civil Service Commissioners Samuel H. Holding, Democrat, but no Johnson Man: John T. Bourke and M. Mooney, Republicans, started in the City Council chamber, City Hall, the first week in June. Aware that the S. R. O. sign would have to be hung out, the city councilmen reserved the best seats for themselves and their friends. Revelation of the specific charges against Kohler resulted in the hearing being mobbed. Among the charges were: That+ Kohler had been drunk in public. once at the Board of Elections the night of Johnson's defeat. once on Prospect once at 105th and Euclid: that he had beaten man in an argument over remark to woman one of the downtown taverns: that he had directed his detectives to beat up an unfriendly newspaper reporter; that he had tried to woman into going through with the purchase of house in segregat. ed district, all because Frank Penney, saloonkeeper friend of Kohler's was interested in the property: that he had been callous and insulting to citizen came in to ask police to that he had been seen in brotherly pose with notorious woman divekeeper watching one of the downtown fires: that he had slugged young West Sider outside the Hollenden Hotel: that he had told his policemen to "go easy" in arrests for vice and drunkenness; that he had behaved in unseemly fashion in house in the segregated district one evening and that guilty of plagiarism in lifting Molyneux's story for his Birmingham speech. secret strategist of the Kohler defense was Burr supplied an agile mind chief's cause partly out of friendship. partly because he himself that the charges were all part of Republican conspiracy against one of the stanchest of the Johnson household. The Air of Triumph. Kohler's forthrightness and the and talent of lawyers, William H. Boyd and D. C. Westenthe of triumph to gave the case from the start of the hearing. When the prosecution completed its case the civil service commissioners threw out ten of the 21 charges. and before the defense was concluded dropped eight of the remaining eleven In verdict written by a Republican-controlled commission. in which jauntiness and elegance of language struggled with the customary impassive tone of such opinions, it disposed of the final three charges in way to gladden the hearts of Kohler's most partisan adherents Attorneys and McMahon essayed Kohler was drunk at the elections board on the night of Baehr's victory over Johnson. They offered ten witnesses some of them were positive. On cross-examination some could not be sure of more than that Kohler stag gered little and had been queer in his manner. The defense started with Law Director Newton D. Baker, who said he did not notice that Kohler had been drunk, and put on parade to Kohler's sobrieuntil the called halt. So with the attempts to establish drunken Kohler. In the E. 105th incident a policeman was revealed to have been "shadowing" Kohler, raising surmises as to the policeman's animus: and defense witnesses through with testimony almost proving that policeman liar anyway On the night of one of the alleged escapades. was proved that Kohler and Mrs Kohler were witnessing the "Follies of 1909" at the Opera House opening, in the most unimpeachable company social circles afforded. The Opera House manager, George Gardner, remembered did the usher who showed the chief and his wife their seats, one Phil Selznick who fixed the matter in his mind by "wondering if Kohler was there for fun or to censor show" lies were considered daring in 1909). Just Mistaken Identity. One of the worst blows suffered by the came in its ex. pected witness. the slugged West Side youth, who, when asked, after his narrative. to point out the man who slugged him, pointed to young patrolman who number of times had been taken for Kohler's double. And then the young patrolman took the stand and corroborated the slugging story. Just mistaken identity. The greatest crowds turned out on days when the young lady of commerce who had flirted with the idea of opening house her own, and lady who was chambermaid in house where it had been charged Kohler somewhat informaltook the stand Then that the girl with an eye on of her really had visited Chief Kohler to sound out the chance of non-molestation by police if she did go into the venture; and the Civil Service regretfully determined that the chambermaid could hardly be trusted, under the law, to give So, too, with the woman with whom Kohler, it was alleged, had watch the conflagration: it seemed he and other police were realand the of other dwellings near the fire to the danger they in Citizens of accepted prominence took the stand character witnesses for the chief- William McLauchlan, of Pickands Mather, Myron T. Herrick, E. Holden, James Thompson, of the Hollenden. and others. Col. Herrick spoke enthusiastically of the way Chief Kohler had handled crowd that had threatened run on the Society for Savings in 1909 suppose he stopped the run on the bank?" was the ironic question of Mr. Dawley Ex-sheriff Edwin D. Barry was called to refute report that he had had to rebuke Kohler one night while they were dining in Chinese restaurant. Barry testimony that reads characteristically today. He crisply never in Chinese restaurant my Kohler or anybody wouldn' go in one. not with Kohler or anybody. In Wing Collar. The case was settled before Chief Kohler took the stand, dressed in dark gray suit and wing collar; his appearance put sledge blow on the scattering hopes the antiKohler crusade. He was composed and thoughtful; his candor was when Dawley was leading carefully up to hints that Kohler's youthful background might not have been conductive to temperance, the chief interrupted, "Oh, you're trying to get at the fact that my family