Police Didn’t Know the Great Men of Buffalo

NOTABLES HAD AS MUCH DIFFICULTY AS COMMON FOLK
IN PASSING CITY HALL CORDON.
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JUSTICE CHILDS HELD UP THREE TIMES
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SHERIFF CALDWELL, GENERAL WELCH AND EVEN
COMMISSIONER COOPER NEW FACES TO THE BLUE COATS.

     There were many cases of the police holding up persons trying to enter the City Hall during the days of the trial of Czolgosz. Every step was taken to prevent violence against the body of the assassin. The ropes and the police stopped all who had no business in the building, and the ropes and the police stopped some who had business in the building.
     Justice Childs arrived at the rear door of the building after spending Sunday at his home in Medina. It was Monday forenoon. He was told to go around to the front door. At the front of the building he was held up by the watchful police. He finally got past the outer cordon and was within the structure. There he was held up again. Explanations were made.
     “Don’t you know that man, you blankety blank? That’s Judge Childs,” and the officer collapsed.
     In a few minutes the oldest justice on the Supreme Court bench in the eighth district, was stopped in the corridor of one of the upper floors of the building as he was going to the justices’ private room. Well, justices are human after all, and Justice Childs arrived at his destination with exclamation points on his face and tongue.

Sheriff Caldwell, Too.

     Sheriff Caldwell was about the corridor on the lower floor of the hall on the second day of the trial. It was at the hour when Czolgosz was to be taken into the court rom [sic].
     “I say, there, you can’t come here,” said a bluecoat.
     “Why not?” asked the sheriff. “I guess I can.[”]
     “No, orders are that we can let no one through here.”
     “I’m going to, anyway,” but the chief executive of the county was held up and the officer grabbed him by the shoulder.
     “Let him go,” said another officer. “Don’t you know who that is?[”]
     “No.”
     “It’s the sheriff.”
     “And [sic] the first officer nearly let his rosewood club wilt in his hand.

Gen. Welch Next.

     Gen. Samuel M. Welch, head of the 4th Brigade of the National Guard, wanted to fix up a matter of taxes amounting to over $5,000 and started for the City Hall Tuesday morning with a bundle of tax bills under his arm. I suppose it was his dark complexion and his fierce moustache which made his well-known figure an object of suspicion as to possible anarchism—though he don’t look a bit like Czolgosz. But he was held up promptly by the police and his bundle of tax bills examined before he could enter the building.
     Police Commissioner John H. Cooper showed up one day. And thereby hangs a tale—a tale of a policeman who has not been up on charges before the commissioners, else he would have known Commissioner Cooper. But he didn’t and Cooper was stopped to find out what business he had in the building. It would be unfair to the officer to give publicity to his name. Let it rather be remembered, after all, the work done so thoroughly during the trying times following the shooting of the President, that there was one member of the magnificent police force who had not been up on charges.