Leland Stanford Jr.

“ Barely one hour’s ride from San Francisco south, lies the Leland Stanford Junior University, which at the time of its foundation, in 1885, was the greatest gift ever bestowed upon humanity by any one person. ”

“ The cases under consideration today certainly do not suggest that individualized consideration at transfer and sentencing [p399] ensure that only exceptionally mature juveniles, as blameworthy for their crimes as an adult, are sentenced to death. Transferring jurisdiction over Kevin Stanford to Circuit Court, the Juvenile Division of the Jefferson, Kentucky, District Court nevertheless found that Stanford, who was 17 at the time of his crime,
has a low internalization of the values and morals of society and lacks social skills. ”

“ No one has ever struggled more loyally to do so than Mrs. Stanford. Since her husband died we have not received a dollar of his money, but the university has gone on without check or hindrance, though at times she has been forced to give up luxuries and to limit her expenses in every conceivable way. As a matter of fact, she has each year given me a personal bond for all she thinks that she can raise from the farms and from her own small personal property. Her devotion to the work is absolute and she is giving her life to it. When she loses, she will die. ”

“ In private life, Stanford was distinguished by his love of horses, and by his donations to the university founded in memory of his son. One must hold him inferior to Huntington in business affairs, vain and extravagant. Yet not only his political influence, but the virile power of the man, the attitude of mind which once led an enemy to say of him that “no she lion defending her whelps or a bear her cubs, will make a more savage fight than will Mr. Stanford in defense of his material interests,” were invaluable to the transcontinental railroad project in the years of its development. ”

“ At the age of seventeen I considered myself qualified to form a judgment of men, and I was amazed and indeed disgusted that my mother should see anything in Mr. Stanford to please her. He and my father were at the opposite ends of the sex, as far removed as the bows from the stern of a ship. He was a spare and narrow man, pale as veal, in complexion sandy, the expression of his countenance hard and acid, his eyes large and moist and the larger and moister for the magnifying spectacles he wore. ”

“ The One Hundred and First had always been celebrated for the musical talent in the rank and file of its members; and though the Graces and the Muses had been somewhat neglected of late years, they threatened now to take possession of every individual man, with truly alarming fervor. Indeed, Mrs. Stanford's life was made very pleasant at this dreaded outpost in Arizona—albeit in a little, cheerless room, with mud walls and mud floor, carpeted half with soldier blankets half with old tent-cloth. A washstand of painted pine-wood, and a table of the same material in its native color ”

“ Stressing the seriousness of petitioner's offenses and the unsuccessful attempts of the juvenile system to treat him for numerous instances of past delinquency, the juvenile court found certification for trial as an adult to be in the best interest of petitioner and the community. [p366]
Stanford was convicted of murder, first-degree sodomy, first-degree robbery, and receiving stolen property, and was sentenced to death and 45 years in prison. The Kentucky Supreme Court affirmed the death sentence, rejecting Stanford's "deman [d] that he has a constitutional right to treatment." ”

“ Stanford been the greatest nobleman or the first character in Europe. I should have abominated him as an intruder, and have yearned for the hands of a man to toss him out o’ window should he dare to occupy a house in which my father was as real a presence to my heart as though he were still alive and could kiss me and make me presents and carry me away out of the gloomy streets into the shining holiday road of the river. ”

“ The man was old, and he loved his daughter. Rumours of a wild life fly incredibly high and far and fast. Such rumours of Red Reckless's doings had come to Leland's ears, and perhaps it was natural enough that Leland believed them. Shandon had always known his neighbour as a hard man but a just. He made up his mind not to quarrel with him, but instead to so change the tenor of his life that Martin Leland would notice and would approve. If in taking Wanda to her new home he closed her old one to her he would be hurting her. ”

“ A contemptuous smile broke the rigid line of Leland's set lips.
"Your theatrical ranting won't get you anywhere with me, Shandon. It is the thing to be expected. I am the master of my own house and it is quite enough when I say that your presence is not wanted here. If you want more you can supply it yourself. Idler, spendthrift, gambler, brawler, I have until now tolerated you. But there are some things that no man can tolerate. ”

“ If id isn't dat pully young Ritter,
De hell-drivin Steinli von Slang.
"De vorldt nefer had any such man,
He vights like a sturm in its wrath:
You may call me a recular Dutchman,
If he arn't like Goliath of Gath.
He ish big ash de shiant O'Brady,
More ash sefen feet high on a string,
Boot he can't vin de hearts of my lady,
De lofely Plectruda von Sling."
De lady make welcome her gast in,
Ash he shtep to de dop of de shtair,
She look like an angel got lost in
A forest of audumn-prown hair.
Und a bower-maiden said ash she tarried:
"I wish I may bust mit a bang! ”

“ At half-past one, after all the employees had taken their last look of the man who had always been their friend,—one, seventy-six years old, who had worked with Mr. Stanford in the mine, broke down completely,—the body was borne to the quadrangle of the University by eight of the oldest engineers in point of service on the Southern Pacific Railroad. The funeral cortège passed through a double line of the two hundred or more employees at Palo Alto, several Chinese laborers being at the end of the line. Senator Stanford was always opposed to any legislation against the Chinese. ”

“ Whether Mr. Stanford saw me or not I am unable to say. He did not appear, nor did I catch a sight of him at his window.
No one knew that I had gone into lodgings at Woolwich, not even Will, though I had told him that I should be leaving my home on such and such a date, and that he was to keep a sharp look-out for me when his ship lay off the Warrior. I did not want to burden him with the obligation of telling lies. My uncle might hear that I had quitted Stepney. He’d ask his son where I was; and Will, with a clear conscience, would be able to answer on his honour he had no idea. ”

“ Don't I know it was with that miserable, degraded Frenchwoman—that disgusting Madame Millefleur—whom I would have whipped through the streets of London, if I could."
"I don't doubt it, my dear," murmured Mr. Stanford, still unruffled by his wife's storm of passion. "Your gentle sex are famous for the mercy they always show to their fairer sisters. Your penetration does you infinite credit, Mrs. Stanford. I was with Madame Millefleur."
Rose stood glaring at him, white and panting with rage too intense for words. Reginald Stanford stood up, meeting her fierce regards with wonderful coolness. ”

“ Illusion pure and simple."
"Others have tried," objected Stanford, pessimistic again. "Many others. With gadgets and machines...."
"None has tried it," said Riggs, "with the power of mind alone. With the sheer determination to wipe out five thousand years of memory."
"That will be his stumbling block," said Stanford. "The old, dead memories are the things he has to beat. He has to get rid of them ... not just bury them, but get rid of them for good and all, forever."
"He must do more than that," said Riggs. "He must replace his memories with the outlook he had when he was a child. ”

“ Stanford had to keep up appearances, and smiles, though the serpents of envy and regret gnawed at her vitals. It was very gay there! Life seemed all made up of music, and dancing, and feasting, and mirth, and skating, and sleighing, and dressing, and singing. Life went like a fairy spectacle, or an Eastern drama, or an Arcadian dream—with care, and trial, and trouble, monsters unknown even by name.
Mme. Jules La Touche played the rôle with charming grace—a little shy, as became her youth and inexperience, but only the more charming for that. ”

“ Bessie has a wonderful mind. You should give her every advantage."
"Well, talk her out of Stanford, then," compromised Mrs. Mitchell, as if in her mind she had already surrendered, as she knew she must. "She's determined to go there. Stanford is a kind of man's school, from what I hear. Lots of the Phrosos are going to U. C."
"But if I rather favor Stanford myself?" suggested Hampstead, feeling his way carefully.
The front door opened and closed, and John's heart leaped at the sound of a light footstep in the hall. ”

“ At first there came an angry look, and when that look did get,
He larft a wild and hollow larf, and said, “I take the debt.
“The brave deserve the lovely—every woman may be won;
What men have fixed before us may by other men be done.
You will lose your thousand dollars. For the first time in my life
I have gazed upon a woman whom I wish to make my wife.”
Like a terrier at a rabbit, with his hat upon his eyes
Mr. Dale, the awful masher, went head-longing at the prize,
Looking rather like a party simply bent to break the peace,
Mr. Gale, with smiles, expected just a yell for the police. ”

“ He was a shrewd, naïf, but at the same time modest and unassuming young man. He was a native of Maine, but familiar with the West. Quiet as he seemed, in three weeks he had found out everything in New York. I could illustrate this by a very extraordinary fact, but I have not space for everything. I proposed to him to continue his sketches. “Write,” I said, “a paper on the Shakers.” He replied that he knew nothing about them. I had been at Lenox, Massachusetts, where I had often gone to New Lebanon and seen their strange worship and dances, p. ”

“ When you pretend not to know you are at once a liar and a hypocrite."
"I am not a trouble seeker, Mr. Leland." Shandon's voice had grown husky as he strove with the anger within him. "But I think you know that you are the first man who has talked to me like that and got away with it. If I did not know that you are a fair minded man, and that there has been some hideous mistake somewhere, I'd not listen to those words even from you. ”

“ Stewart and Field had their men in constant training at the Mission during the six weeks preceding the contest, and such was the interest taken in the matter that thousands visited that sacred locality daily to pick up such morsels of information as they might, concerning the physical and scientific improvement being made by the gubernatorial acrobats. The anxiety manifested by the populace was intense. When it was learned that Stanford had smashed a barrel of flour to atoms with a single blow of his fist, the voice of the people was at his side. ”

“ Pleading with that quiet, gentle spirit, he felt would melt, would affect the hearts as with the very emotion of tears.
Unless you catch the idea, there is no describing it, reader. Leland was a Christian. All that day he thought upon the whole matter. That night in the privacy of his office he knelt and repeated the whole matter before God. For his boy's sake, for his wife's sake, for his own sake, for his usefulness' sake at the bar, he implored steady aid to overcome the deadly, besetting sin. ”

“ It is the same with the body as with the mind. The sorest affliction that can visit us will not occasion half the murmuring and discontent that the petty annoyances and grievances of every-day life do. Could the pain which harassed Leland, and in the end nearly drove him frantic, have been concentrated into a few moments, or even into a half-hour, he could have borne it without a murmur ”

“ And then had come the days of obscurity, working for others until Gamaliel Stanford, the big, bluff builder, had recognized his genius and given him his chance. He did fine work for Stanford.
Stanford, the self-made millionaire, wished after the fashion of his kind to patronize the genius he had found, and so he brought him here, brought him there, to his club, to golf-links, to his house. And there Lovat met Cecily, Stanford's daughter....
III
At thirty-one Lovat met people with ease, for they meant little to him, men or women. Men, outside his own profession, were mere figures to him. ”

“ The two champions got furiously angry, and used up each other thus:
No sooner did Low realize that the side of his head was crushed in like a dent in a plug hat, than he "went after" Stanford in the most desperate manner. With one blow of his fist he mashed his nose so far into his face that a cavity was left in its place the size and shape of an ordinary soup-bowl. It is scarcely necessary to mention that in making room for so much nose, Gov. Stanford's eyes were crowded to such a degree as to cause them to "bug out" like a grasshopper's. ”

“ The name of John Leland was at that time a household word. It lives now chiefly in connection with the almost Ambrosian hymn, “The day is past and gone,” and the story of the great Cheshire Cheese. He was a friend of Madison and Jefferson; at one time a member of the Massachusetts General Court,—a truly wonderful man in all relations of life. He used to travel any weather, praying along the roads, mounting the pulpit singing; always democratic, and a friend to all men.
It was an Indian summer day, calm and clear. The sun grew warm ”