OMAHA WAS a bustling city by the spring of 1879. Within another decade it would boast a population of around 150,000, a far cry from the handful of pioneers who twenty-five years ago had established a log cabin township beside the Missouri as a supply station for emigrants heading west. Westward expansion quickly turned Omaha from a wild frontier town that attracted hard-drinking gamblers and hard-living pioneers to a rich city: a railroad terminus and home to massive warehouses that stockpiled goods brought up the Missouri by paddle wheeler, a city that attracted cultivated, liberal-minded emigrants from the eastern states and Europe. Omaha had a university, its wooden churches were being replaced by cathedrals of brick and stone, and its cultural life and institutions were beginning to gain stature.
It inspired a certain pride in the people of Omaha that the court case set to open on Wednesday, April 30, 1879, in the federal courthouse above the post office in downtown Omaha was attracting national attention and putting Omaha on the map, even if few realized the potential that the case had to shake the very foundations of U.S. Indian policy. Not even the instigators of the case anticipated the eventual repercussions. John G. Bourke wrote that “the case of the Poncas was, beyond question, the most important one occurring within General Crook’s jurisdiction after the pacification of the Sioux.”138 But none of the Ponca crusaders fully realized what a floodgate they were tampering with.
As it turned out, the case had a false start. Held up in Lincoln, Judge Dundy wired District Attorney Lambertson on the morning of April 30 that he did not expect to arrive in Omaha until that afternoon and asked him to pass on his apologies to attorneys Webster and Poppleton. In the end, the judge reached Omaha in the early evening. Calling the lawyers for both sides together for an informal meeting that night, Dundy discussed with them the procedure he intended to follow the next day.
At 10:00 A.M. on Thursday, May 1, a warm, close day, the courtroom was packed for the opening of Standing Bear et al. v. Crook. Henry Tibbles reported that the public gallery was filled with “clergy, finely dressed men and women, and deeply interested lawyers.”139 Bishops were numbered among the clergy present, alongside doctors and retired judges. Apart from Tibbles there were several Omaha and out-of-town reporters, who described the proceedings for their own readers and for scores of other newspapers around the country. Henry Tibbles was the best placed of them all, sitting up front close by lawyers Andrew Poppleton and John Webster with a fresh notebook at the ready to jot down in journalist’s shorthand all that took place during the hearing. Tibbles had done a fine job of publicizing the Standing Bear case; national press interest had swelled in the weeks and days leading up to the hearing. In the words of John Bourke, “By the time that Judge Dundy’s court was convened the attention of the people of the United States was to some extent converged upon the trial.”140
In Omaha the Daily Herald, in a brief article beneath an advertisement for Royal baking powder on April 30, urged “the large number of ladies and gentlemen who have expressed a desire to attend” the Ponca hearing to do so, as everyone was welcome. On May 1, as those large numbers of ladies and gentlemen converged on the courtroom, the paper noted that the government had not given anything away about how it would defend the matter, although, the Herald suggested, whatever the outcome in the district court the case was likely to end up in the Supreme Court.
The owner of the Herald, Dr. George L. Miller, was back in town and back in the editor’s chair, allowing Tibbles to resume his deputy editor’s duties and freeing him up to spend most of his time on the Ponca story. Since his return, Dr. Miller had endorsed Tibbles’s actions in the Standing Bear case and had taken a similar pro-Ponca stand editorially. The Herald was an unabashed pro-Democrat journal and was known for swinging its editorial weight behind liberal causes, which helps explain why Miller employed Henry Tibbles in the first place. Surprisingly, to some, the Herald’s arch rival and Tibbles’s former employer, the Omaha Daily Bee, had taken a bipartisan approach, with editor Edward Rosewater also editorializing in favor of Standing Bear. Tibbles and his fourth estate colleagues had done all they could. Now it was up to the lawyers.
All heads turned when General George Crook entered the courtroom, accompanied by his aide, Lieutenant Bourke, and the army’s judge advocate for the Military Department of the Platte, Colonel Horace B. Burnham. Knowing how much General Crook disliked wearing a uniform of any kind, Tibbles would have smiled at the sight of all three officers in full dress uniform. The general’s dress blues were adorned with two rows of brass buttons down the front and wide embroidered epaulets from which much gold braid dangled. Over his right shoulder he wore a sash, and at his side he carried a sheathed sword. As he took a seat at one of the two tables at the front of the courtroom, he placed his hat and gloves in front of him. Crook was giving every impression that he was the diligent general officer come to represent his government in this matter and contest the issuing of the writ.
Beside the general, District Attorney Genio Lambertson reached over and shook his hand. Lambertson would have been brimming with confidence. Despite the tide of press and public sympathy running with the Poncas, the facts in the case had not changed, and neither had the law. Lambertson was certain that the writ would be dismissed once he presented his legal argument. This high-profile case, and Lambertson’s expected victory in it, would be good for his career, as he would have written Jane, his fiancée in Wisconsin, hoping to impress her and his future father-in-law, Joseph Gundry. He had good reason to be confident in his abilities. Although no one in the courtroom could know it then, G. M. Lambertson would go on to build an impressive list of court victories during eight years as district attorney and several terms as Lincoln’s city attorney.
A side door opened, and this time it was Standing Bear’s turn to make an entrance. Standing Bear’s legal team and General Crook had agreed, for a variety of reasons, practical and theatrical, that just five of the twenty-six Poncas named in the habeas corpus petition would attend the hearing. Escorted by Lieutenant Carpenter, Standing Bear was accompanied by his brother Yellow Horse, Medicine Clan chief Buffalo Chip, and Standing Bear’s statuesque wife Susette (she was inches taller than Standing Bear), who carried their baby grandson, Prairie Flower’s child.
As always, the Ponca men wore the only European clothes they owned, “hopelessly tattered” clothes, as Tibbles described them.141 Standing Bear appeared in his council attire of buckskin smock, beaded belt, claw necklace, and red blanket. Calm and proud, he took a seat where Lieutenant Carpenter politely indicated, in the corner behind Poppleton and Webster, who shook hands with him. Yellow Horse sat down next to his brother. Buffalo Chip was seated next in line, and finally Susette, nursing her grandson. Lieutenant Carpenter also took a seat. The three most senior Ponca men were there to testify if required. At the lawyers’ request, Standing Bear’s wife and grandchild were there to show the gallery a softer side of the fierce Plains Indian they had heard and read so much about. The ploy worked. Picking up the story from one of the reporters present, the St. Louis Republican noted in its coverage of the case that day the presence of “Standing Bear’s handsome wife Susette.”142
Unable to communicate with Webster and Poppleton because he did not understand English, Standing Bear could only nod gravely to the attorneys when they greeted him. His fate, and the fate of his people, was now in the hands of these two white men. He would sit through the hearing impassively, hiding the fact that he had little confidence in these unfamiliar proceedings producing an outcome that would benefit his people. In all his dealings with the whites over the years, the red man came off second best. Once, when he was younger, fifteen Poncas on their way to visit relatives on the Omaha reservation were attacked in their camp by drunken 7th Cavalry soldiers who killed three of the women and a girl.143 When missionaries tried to win justice for the Poncas, they were told that white man’s law did not apply to Indians. Then there was the case of two Yankton Sioux who killed a Ponca in an argument. When missionaries tried to have the Yanktons charged with the Ponca’s murder, again the Poncas were told that white man’s law did not apply to them. Now Standing Bear was in a white man’s court, and despite the sympathy and kindness of his lawyers, nothing the bemused Ponca chief had seen to date gave him reason to expect justice in his case.
Expressing the view of all the Poncas in custody, Standing Bear’s friend and fellow clan chief Buffalo Chip had said to General Crook on March 31, “I have been told since the great war that all men were free men, and that no man can be made a prisoner unless he does wrong. I have done no wrong, and yet I am here a prisoner.”144
While in custody at Fort Omaha, Standing Bear may have seen troopers of the 9th Cavalry Regiment pass through, since the unit served in the Platte Department during this time. While the officers of the 9th Cavalry were white, the enlisted men of the regiment were black. Standing Bear might have asked whether black people were allowed by the U.S. government to choose where they buried their children. And he would have been informed that Americans had to fight a bloody civil war before black people were granted the kinds of rights that Standing Bear and his people were asking for. As kind as some whites had been to him, Standing Bear could not have imagined the entire American nation going to war on his account.
Two other Indians were present in the gallery, although Henry Tibbles didn’t mention them—Bright Eyes and her father, Iron Eye. With a large vested interest in the case, they had come down from the Omaha reservation for the hearing, with General Crook’s blessing. As one of the catalysts of the campaign in defense of the rights of the Poncas, Bright Eyes would not have missed being there. While she attended the court case, her younger sister, eighteen-year-old Rosalie, filled in for her at the Omaha reservation school. Rosalie had recently been appointed assistant teacher at the school.
For weeks Bright Eyes had written almost daily from the Omaha reservation to Henry Tibbles at the Herald office. According to Tibbles, “she had followed every word about our Ponca struggle in my Herald articles and editorials” and “had written me a lot of valuable facts from her own knowledge or from letters she received from her Ponca kinsfolk in the territory.”145
There was an interpreter present, but not to keep the Poncas informed of what was being said in court. There was no provision in U.S. law for providing translation services to an Indian litigant because no tribal Indian had previously been accepted as a litigant. Standing Bear had to sit through the entire hearing without understanding a word that was said for or against him. The interpreter was there solely to translate when Standing Bear was called to the stand to testify. A new interpreter had been engaged for the court case, as neither Henry Tibbles nor Bright Eyes had great confidence in Charles Morgan’s translation skills. For one thing, Morgan had incorrectly translated the name of one of the Poncas when the habeas corpus writ was drawn up. The new interpreter was Willie Hamilton, son of the Presbyterian minister at the Omaha reservation.
This was the scene—a colorful blend of military uniforms, Indian attire, and the well-dressed elite citizenry of Omaha—when the door to the judge’s room opened, and a U.S. marshal cleared his throat and then called, “All rise!”
Everyone in the room came to their feet, with John Webster probably tugging at Standing Bear’s sleeve to bring him to the upright position. Beside him, the other Poncas (who, like their leader, had never before been in a white man’s court) followed suit with uncertainty.
Gray-bearded Judge Elmer S. Dundy then entered the court and strode to the bench. Whether it was hunting with Buffalo Bill or presiding over a case in his court, Judge Dundy had a reputation for cautiousness. As the judge took his seat on the bench, his poker face betrayed no emotion.
Now the marshal called, “Hear ye! Hear ye! The Honorable United States District Court is now in session, His Honor Judge Dundy presiding. Be seated.”
The people in the crowded courtroom silently resumed their seats, with the Poncas raggedly and confusedly following the example of those around them. From his bench, Judge Dundy took in the sight of Standing Bear and his colleagues—this was the first time he ever laid eyes on any of them. Then he looked across to the respondent in the case, the characteristically blank-faced George Crook.
It is apparent that during the three weeks leading up to this hearing Henry Tibbles had discreetly but thoroughly briefed his friend the judge on the background to the case. As the newspaperman later admitted, he had no scruples about going to see the judge privately during the hearing itself, so a quiet chat leading up to it was not out of the question. One way or another, by the time he took his seat in court on May 11, Judge Dundy knew precisely where George Crook’s sympathies lay. Several weeks later, the judge, who described General Crook as a “brave and distinguished officer,” said that Crook “has no sort of sympathy in the business in which he is forced by his position to bear a part so conspicuous.”146
Calling the court to order, the judge required the attorneys at the bar to identify themselves. The learned and distinguished Andrew J. Poppleton announced his name and informed the judge that he and his distinguished colleague John L. Webster were representing the “relators” in the matter of Standing Bear versus George Crook. He was followed by young District Attorney Lambertson, who advised that he was present in the capacity of U.S. attorney in this matter to represent the respondent, Brigadier General Crook, and the U.S. government.
Opening the papers in front of him, the judge then began. “On the 8th of April, 1879, the relators, Standing Bear and 25 others, during the session of the court held at that time at Lincoln, presented their petition, duly verified, praying for the allowance of a writ of habeas corpus and their final discharge from custody thereunder. The petition alleges that the relators are Indians who have formerly belonged to the Ponca tribe of Indians, now located in the Indian Territory, that they had some time previously withdrawn from the tribe, and completely severed their tribal relations therewith, and had adopted the general habits of the whites, and were endeavoring to maintain themselves by their own exertions, and without aid or assistance from the general government.”
This would have surprised most spectators. The content of the petition lodged with the court was known to the lawyers on both sides and to Crook and Tibbles, but had not been made public. For the first time the world was hearing the Poppleton/Webster argument, a novel and controversial one—that Standing Bear and his companions had consciously and permanently separated from their tribe and were therefore not reservation Indians and no longer subject to the laws relating to reservation Indians and should be treated like any other person under the laws of the United States. “The petition also alleges that while they were thus engaged and without being guilty of violating any of the laws of the United States, they were arrested and restrained of their liberty by order of the respondent, George Crook.”147
The judge explained the government’s contention that Standing Bear and his companions had fled or escaped from a reservation set aside for their tribe in the Indian Territory without the permission of the government. Then, at the request of the secretary of the Interior, the General of the Army issued an order requiring Brigadier General Crook to arrest and return the band to their tribe in the Indian Territory. Pursuant to that order, the general caused Standing Bear and his Poncas to be arrested on the Omaha reservation, and they were now in the general’s custody for the purpose of being returned to Indian Territory. What the court now had to determine was whether the relators had been lawfully arrested and detained in custody.
Andrew Poppleton and Genio Lambertson then argued over legal points, Poppleton saying the government had to prove that it had the jurisdiction to hold Standing Bear and the others, Lambertson claiming the facts of the case were so self-evident he proposed to either make a motion to quash or file a demurrer. As they argued, Lambertson said that he particularly wanted to contest the claim that Standing Bear and his Poncas had severed their tribal relations. Poppleton said the government should have stated that in its return. Debate now raged over what the central issues of the case really were, and it was agreed that the government’s return was insufficient to cover all the writ’s propositions. So Judge Dundy agreed to allow the district attorney to formally add a denial of the severed relations claim to the return in due course.
All this legal talk went over the heads of 99 percent of the people in the courtroom, and the attention of many a spectator would have lapsed for a time. But now the real action began. John Webster came to his feet to launch the case for Standing Bear. Because he represented the petitioners and had to make the case for the petition to be granted and the writ exercised, a case for which he was primarily responsible, he was to speak first. When planning their courtroom strategy, he and Andrew Poppleton had previously decided that Webster would present their evidence and a preliminary summation while Poppleton would use his famed eloquence to deliver the final argument on behalf of their clients. Webster began by calling as a witness for the relators Willie Hamilton, the white clerk and interpreter from the Omaha Agency store.
When the twenty-two-year-old Hamilton took the stand, Webster established via his questions that the young man had lived on the Omaha reservation for twelve years, had worked in the agency store for the past six, and was fluent in the language spoken by the Omahas and Poncas. Hamilton testified that he had seen Standing Bear and his band arrive at the Omaha reservation, sick and with few possessions, and had witnessed some of the band who were well enough to do so commence farming on land given to them by the Omahas. For the benefit of the court he identified Standing Bear and each of his four Ponca companions.
When Lambertson cross-examined Hamilton, the young man’s knowledge of the Poncas proved imprecise at best—for one thing, he didn’t even know exactly how many of them had arrived at the Omaha reservation. More importantly for the government case, Lambertson got Hamilton to agree that not all the Ponca men had commenced farming on the Omaha reservation and that the band had received a handout of government blankets from Agent Vore and clothing from white supporters in Omaha—all of which indicated they were not entirely self-sufficient individuals as their lawyers claimed but rather members of a mendicant Indian tribe.
In redirect, Webster tried to repair some of the damage, only for Hamilton to volunteer that Standing Bear’s band had also received rations from Agent Vore on one occasion, information that would have pleased the DA. But at least Webster was able to solicit from Hamilton the fact that the Omahas had offered to sell land to the Poncas, who were not a part of their tribe, so that the Poncas could become citizens, as they were trying to be.
When Webster finished with the witness, Lambertson had more questions for him. Did the Poncas obey the Omahas? Hamilton replied that they took advice from them, they didn’t obey them, but he agreed they followed the same customs as the Omahas.
Lambertson then asked if the Omahas had a chief. Willie Hamilton knew that the case for Standing Bear relied greatly on establishing that the members of his band were now individuals, not members of a tribe. And he recognized that Lambertson had been angling to get him to say that Standing Bear’s Poncas had been incorporated into the Omaha tribe. To counter this, Hamilton tried to suggest that the Omahas were themselves no longer a tribe by replying that the Omahas no longer had chiefs. Technically this was true, or was becoming true. Indian Affairs had recently begun discouraging the Omahas from appointing clan chiefs, and Iron Eye would be the last recognized paramount chief of the Omahas. But there was no doubting that while he was alive Iron Eye led his people, or that the Omaha tribe had elders whose opinions were respected by its 1,000 or so members.
Lambertson then got Hamilton to agree that as recently as the last summer the Omahas recognized a chief and head men. John Webster quickly chimed in, asking, “They live like white men, then?”
“They try to,” Hamilton replied, before being excused.
In the gallery, Bright Eyes would have been whispering to her father beside her in Omaha or perhaps in French, telling him that their friend Willie had done more harm than good to Standing Bear’s case.
Webster now called his next witness, Lieutenant William Carpenter, the officer directly responsible for the arrest and detention of Standing Bear’s Poncas. After removing his cap and taking an oath to tell the truth, so help him God, the lieutenant took the stand and testified to the circumstances of the arrest. Webster then tried to have Carpenter testify to the band’s attempt to farm and behave like citizens on the Omaha reservation. Although Webster rephrased his questions several times, the lieutenant was prevented from answering as a result of the sustained objections of the DA because Carpenter had not personally witnessed their activities on the Omaha reservation.
In his cross-examination Lambertson attempted to have Carpenter state how many chiefs the Poncas had, but Judge Dundy would not allow that line of questioning. Carpenter was discharged without being of value to either side, and the judge adjourned the court for lunch.
At 2:00 P.M. the hearing resumed, with the most important witness of all, Standing Bear himself, being called to give evidence, as a buzz of anticipation went around the courtroom. As Standing Bear took the stand, Willie Hamilton stepped up to act as his interpreter. After both took the oath, John Webster came to his feet to commence questioning his witness. But before he could open his mouth Genio Lambertson jumped up and lodged an objection. “Does this court think an Indian is a competent witness?” Lambertson asked the judge.
Elmer Dundy scowled down at the young DA. “They are competent for every purpose in both civil and criminal courts,” he sourly advised. “The law makes no distinction on account of race, color, or previous condition.” By “previous condition” he meant previously a member of an Indian tribe. Dundy was signaling to a chastened Genio Lambertson that he had already accepted the premise that Standing Bear and his corelators were no longer members of an Indian tribe. He instructed Webster to proceed.
Webster began by asking questions, via Hamilton, about the life Standing Bear and his people lived on the Niobrara before they were sent to Indian Territory. In his answers Standing Bear told of how he and his family had worked hard and lived well from their farming efforts. His children were going to school and everything was going nicely. He said that he tried to be like a white man—a civilized white man, John Webster suggested.
Overcoming the DA’s objections, Webster had Standing Bear narrate the conditions the Poncas faced after their removal to the Indian Territory. In detail, Standing Bear told of the bad country and poor farming conditions in the Indian Territory, of the sickness and death of 158 of his people. Then Standing Bear said, “I thought to myself, God wants me to live, and I think if I come back to my old reservation he will let me live. I got back as far as the Omahas, and they brought me down here.” His eyes were on the silent, transfixed spectators. “I see you all here today. What have I done?” He came to his feet, his voice growing louder. “I am brought here, but what have I done? I don’t know. It seems to me as if I have no place on earth. I want a place where I can work and support my family, and when done with life, die peaceably!”
“Tell the witness not to get excited,” Judge Dundy cautioned from the bench, “but to take things coolly.” When the interpreter passed on the instruction, Standing Bear sank back onto his chair. John Webster continued with his questions, which focused first on the poor farming conditions in the Indian Territory, the lack of a school for the Ponca children, and then on the reasons for Standing Bear’s flight north and what he and his companions meant to achieve when they reached their old reservation. Webster then posed questions that allowed Standing Bear to say that he and his companions intended never to return to the tribe in the Indian Territory—establishing that they had permanently severed their relations with the tribe. In response to his attorney’s questions, Standing Bear also said that he no longer considered himself a chief of his tribe; he felt as poor as the rest of them. Webster had no more questions for his key witness.
All in all, Standing Bear’s supporters felt he had handled himself very well. But now it was Lambertson’s turn to question him, with Willie Hamilton again acting as intermediary. Lambertson used his opening questions to establish that in the Indian Territory Standing Bear was a leader of part of the Ponca tribe and that members of his own clan escaped north with him. When he asked how many members of other clans escaped with Standing Bear, John Webster jumped up and objected to the question as immaterial. “I just wanted to see if he could count,” Lambertson retorted facetiously.
The judge ruled against the DA on this and several similar questions before Lambertson asked pointedly if Standing Bear had been a chief of the Ponca tribe in the Indian Territory. “I don’t count myself a chief,” Standing Bear guardedly replied. He was fully conscious of the briefing he had received from his lawyers prior to the hearing that for his case to be successful he must not say that he was a chief of the Ponca tribe but was merely an individual Indian trying to live like a citizen.
Lambertson didn’t persist with that line of questioning but moved on. He succeeded in having Standing Bear admit that two of the wagons used in the escape from the Indian Territory had been provided by the government—but at the old Dakota Territory reservation, Standing Bear added. The DA then asked if Standing Bear had informed Agent Whiteman of his intent to take care of himself without government aid when he left Indian Territory.
Standing Bear answered that he had several times told the agent of his desire to go back north. “I wanted to go on my own land, land that I had never sold. That’s where I wanted to go. My son asked me when he was dying to take him back and bury him there, and I have his bones in a box with me now. I want to live there the rest of my life and be buried there.”
A wave of sympathy for the Ponca swept the gallery. Henry Tibbles would have been elated that Standing Bear went to the emotional core of his case.
Genio Lambertson would have cursed silently. He quickly threw Standing Bear a barbed question. “Do you intend living in the same manner you did before?”
John Webster knew this was a trick question—Standing Bear had previously lived as a part of an Indian tribe on a reservation, subject to U.S. government support. If he answered in the affirmative, he would destroy his claim that he had disassociated himself from life as a tribal Indian. Webster objected, but the judge ruled that the witness could answer the question.
Standing Bear was no fool. He recognized the district attorney’s intent and answered, “I might go there and go to work.” He said the Omahas wanted him to stay on their reservation and raise a crop in the summer before he continued back to the Niobrara, as he would have a hard time of it without food or farm implements.
Lambertson then had Standing Bear concede that he and the other members of his band received rations on one occasion from the government agent at the Omaha reservation, with Willie the interpreter adding that he personally weighed out the rations for the Poncas.
Several more questions from the district attorney were disallowed by the judge, after which Lambertson said that he had no more questions to put to the witness and resumed his seat. Once the judge excused Standing Bear from the witness stand, John Webster advised the court that the attorneys for the relators had no further witnesses to present.
When the judge called on the DA to present the case for the government, Lambertson surprised everyone in the courtroom by announcing that he did not intend to call any witnesses but would rely on the facts in the case, which he would discuss in summation. But before he handed the floor back to the other side, Lambertson proposed to file the addition to the return that the judge had approved of that morning and he had prepared during the lunch break.
The young DA now read aloud the additional paragraph, which stated the government’s contention that Standing Bear and his fellow complainants “are members of the said tribe of Ponca Indians” and that they had not “dissolved, but still retain their tribal relations with” the tribe and still paid allegiance to its chief, and were not “pursuing the habits and vocations of civilized life.”
To the astonishment of everyone in the room, General Crook now spoke up and voiced a strong objection. With uncharacteristic fervor he declared that he would not have this assertion entered into the return, which bore his signature, as he didn’t agree with it. When Judge Dundy told the general that he was not permitted to address the court, Crook instructed the army judge advocate, Colonel Burnham, who was seated at his side, to object on his behalf, which Burnham did.
“General,” Judge Dundy then responded, “you are not signing this amended return as General Crook but as a brigadier general of the army, and for the government.”
Still the general protested, via Colonel Burnham, that, contrary to the district attorney’s assertion, he firmly believed that Standing Bear and his Poncas had severed relations with their tribe and were attempting to live a civilized life, so he therefore could not have the assertion included on a document that bore his signature. For the first time, the stunned district attorney, the surprised audience, and, via the reporters present, the rest of the country were made aware of Crook’s true feelings in the Ponca case.
Again the judge explained that the amendment was a mere formality, and, with the attorneys for both sides agreeing to the inclusion, and General Crook still shaking his head unhappily, Dundy instructed the clerk of the court, Watson Smith, to include the additional paragraph in the return on file.
With that drama dealt with, and with the district attorney coming to terms with the fact that his client was rooting for the other side, Judge Dundy turned back to John Webster and called on him to proceed with his argument on behalf of the relators. It was now late in the afternoon. Caught unprepared by Lambertson’s failure to call any witnesses, Webster and Poppleton were reluctant to go ahead with their summations, knowing that they would have to break off part way through when the judge adjourned for the day, so they entered a motion for an adjournment. But Dundy impatiently dismissed their petition and told them to get on with it.
Slowly, unhappily, Webster came to his feet. The sun had been beating in through the naked courtroom windows all day, and the ventilation was poor. It was stifling in the courtroom. As Webster cast his eyes around the room, he saw perspiration dripping from men in the gallery; ladies in their bonnets, gloves, and high-necked dresses fanned themselves to gain some relief. The attorney began to address the court, stumbled through several sentences, then stopped in midsentence and loosened his tie. Apologizing to the judge, he claimed that he was too unwell to continue and sagged back down onto his chair, accompanied by a gasp from the gallery.
Judge Dundy scowled down from the bench, taking in Webster’s pale face and labored breathing, and with a sigh, announced, “Court adjourned until ten o’clock tomorrow morning.” He came to his feet.148
“All rise!” bellowed the marshal.