erest? Did Mr. Stener have to loan
it to Mr. Cowperwood if he did not want to? As a matter of fact didn't
he testify here to-day that he personally had sent for Mr. Cowperwood
in the first place? Why, then, in Heaven's name, this excited charge of
larceny, larceny as bailee, embezzlement, embezzlement on a check, etc.,
etc.?

"Once more, gentlemen, listen. I'll tell you why. The men who stood
behind Stener, and whose bidding he was doing, wanted to make a
political scapegoat of some one--of Frank Algernon Cowperwood, if they
couldn't get any one else. That's why. No other reason under God's blue
sky, not one. Why, if Mr. Cowperwood needed more money just at that time
to tide him over, it would have been good policy for them to have given
it to him and hushed this matter up. It would have been illegal--though
not any more illegal than anything else that has ever been done in this
connection--but it would have been safer. Fear, gentlemen, fear, lack of
courage, inability to meet a great crisis when a great crisis appears,
was all that really prevented them from doing this. They were afraid to
place confidence in a man who had never heretofore betrayed their trust
and from whose loyalty and great financial ability they and the city
had been reaping large profits. The reigning city treasurer of the time
didn't have the courage to go on in the face of fire and panic and the
rumors of possible failure, and stick by his illegal guns; and so
he decided to draw in his horns as testified here to-day--to ask Mr.
Cowperwood to return all or at least a big part of the five hundred
thousand dollars he had loaned him, and which Cowperwood had been
actually using for his, Stener's benefit, and to refuse him in addition
the money that was actually due him for an authorized purchase of city
loan. Was Cowperwood guilty as an agent in any of these transactions?
Not in the least. Was there any suit pending to make him return the five
hundred thousand dollars of city money involved in his present failure?
Not at all. It was simply a case of wild, silly panic on the part of
George W. Stener, and a strong desire on the part of the Republican
party leaders, once they discovered what the situation was, to find some
one outside of Stener, the party treasurer, upon whom they could blame
the shortage in the treasury. You heard what Mr. Cowperwood testified to
here in this case to-day--that he went to Mr. Stener to forfend against
any possible actio