The New Colossus

by Marshall Goldberg

  The train ride made Nellie sad and even weepy. Her fondest childhood memories were of her father taking the family on long train rides through forest-covered mountains to Philadelphia or for long picnics through a quiet countryside of rolling hills and farms. Now smokestacks spewed yellow-brown ash into the gray skies, while beneath them gangs of soulless miners and equipment mutilated not only the hillside but her fondest memories of childhood as well.

  Nellie spent most of the train ride reading everything Emma Lazarus had ever written. She was in awe—that was the only word for it—at the breadth of Emma’s talent.

  She read the first set of poems Emma had published as a teenager, the ones that brought her to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s attention, about the upheaval of the war. Then, as a young woman, came book reviews about love and the mysteries of the heart. In the late 1870s, after the incident at Saratoga and the boycott of the Stewart Department Store, Emma had shifted to poetry with more religious and political themes, decrying Christian cruelty and the treatment of Jews throughout history. She made a passionate and persuasive case for a Palestine homeland for Jews, and her poem “1492,” contrasting Columbus sailing for America with Jews dying during the Inquisition, was perhaps the finest poem Nellie had ever read. Then came deeply affecting essays on the plight of immigrants to America and reviews of the Yiddish theater. Surveying this body of work, Nellie felt a profound sadness that so prodigious a writer had met death at such an early age. The writings inspired her all the more to continue her investigation once the trial was finished.

  After reaching Pittsburg, their clothes filthy and skin blackened with soot, Nellie and Mary Jane rode another two hours to Apollo, arriving just after midnight the night before the trial. Nellie had hoped to see her younger sisters, but one had married a steelworker in Carnegie, and the other worked fourteen-hour days in a sewing factory in McKeesport. If things went well, she might see them on the way back to New York.

  Manufacturing had replaced agriculture as the leading industry in Pennsylvania, but the wave of prosperity had not yet reached Apollo. That town remained a farming community with a sprinkle of textile mills, and technology was leaving the citizenry behind. Bitterness had set in, though perhaps it had always been there and Nellie simply hadn’t noticed it before. Mary Jane’s sister Lucy met them at the train station and took them to the tenement where Nellie grew up. It was not a pleasant ride. Lucy thought Nellie was wasting time, money, and Mary Jane’s health with the lawsuit and told her so. The legal world was a man’s world—no women lawyers, no women judges, no women jurors. Juries were made up entirely of white men who owned property. What was the point of all this fuss?

  But Nellie was convinced she could gain the sympathies of any jury once they heard what the bank had done to her family. Most farmers and merchants in Armstrong County had been mistreated by the First Pennsylvania Bank at one point or another, and all of them would surely find its behavior toward her family unconscionable.

  Her confidence grew the next morning when she saw the dozen men serving on the jury. Some she had known as a little girl; at least two had worked in her father’s mill, and her father had taken care of their families during hard times. She took pains to dress modestly and not put on city airs. The citizenry in Apollo resented big-city Pittsburgers, New Yorkers even more so. Nellie presented herself as pure Apollo. Her western Pennsylvania accent, which she had worked hard to lose in New York, came back loud and pronounced in Apollo. The worst thing that could be said about someone who left Apollo was “they changed.” Nellie wanted to show that she hadn’t changed at all.

  The presiding judge, Henry Ratkin, Esq., was a balding man whose stooped shoulders and pained expression accurately reflected his lack of backbone. Like many judges, Ratkin practiced law and farmed tomatoes and wasn’t very good at either. The attorney representing the bank was Frederick Shaeffer, a stiff, humorless, properly dressed man in his early fifties. The most successful lawyer in the county, Shaeffer handled most of the bank’s legal business and consequently was disliked intensely by the jury members, as nearly all of them had been sued, or had friends who had been sued, by Shaeffer and the bank at one time or another. Normally Shaeffer appeared only in front of judges, invariably a sympathetic audience, as he would throw bank legal business the judge’s way after a favorable ruling. But the fact that the current case was before a jury was of little concern to him since the judge still controlled the ground rules.

  Some things, however, Judge Ratkin could not control. The courtroom itself was circular, not to produce an intimacy or artistic effect but to maximize the warmth from the room’s centrally located gas heating lamps. This meant that both Nellie and Shaeffer were in close proximity to the jury, a factor that worked strongly in Nellie’s favor. Ratkin also could not control that all the wives in Apollo were familiar with what had happened to Mary Jane and the girls and were sure to be furious if their husbands issued a verdict for the bank. Most significant of all, however, was that while he could control what the jurors were permitted to hear and the way it was presented, Ratkin could not control what came out of the witnesses’ mouths.

  And so, as Ratkin called the proceedings to order, Nellie was far from despairing.

  “Miss Cochran,” said the judge sternly, “you are representing yourself and your sisters in this case?”

  “Yes, Judge.”

  “Please address me as ‘Your Honor.’”

  “I’m sorry, Your Honor. I’ve never been in a courtroom before.”

  “What about getting sent to Bellevue?” interrupted Shaeffer, looking to put her on the defensive.

  “Oh, that wasn’t a real courtroom. That was New York.” The jurors laughed. Ratkin started to laugh, too, but stopped when he saw Shaeffer frown.

  “Call your first witness, Miss Cochran.”

  “I call Thaddeus Jackson.”

  “Objection!” said Shaeffer, indignantly rising to his feet.

  “What’s the problem?” asked Nellie. “He embezzled our money. He admitted it.” She glanced at the jurors, who wondered the same thing.

  “But there is no evidence the bank participated in any embezzlement. And your lawsuit is against the bank,” said Shaeffer pedantically.

  “Jackson is president of the bank. And he was at the time.”

  “Simply because he was the bank president doesn’t make the bank responsible for his mistakes.” Shaeffer sat down. As far as he was concerned, that was the end of it.

  There were murmurs, even among the jurors, at the twisted logic.

  “I think we should let the jurors decide that, Mr. Shaeffer,” she said. “Unless, of course, you don’t think they’re up to the task.”

  That was exactly what Shaeffer thought and was unable to disguise it. The jurors naturally took umbrage and looked to Ratkin to see if he felt the same. Ratkin squirmed.

  “The jury will hear from Colonel Jackson,” he intoned. “Have Colonel Jackson come in.”

  Nellie glanced at the jury as the clerk went to summon Jackson. Nearly all of them were staring at her the way men stare at women. She winced. She didn’t want them fantasizing about her, not now. As a reporter, it might help on occasion, but she needed them to sympathize with her. Like a good daughter, she walked over to Mary Jane, sitting in the front row.

  “Are you okay, Mother?”

  “Yes, dear. Thank you.”

  “Do you need anything? A glass of water?”

  “No, dear. I’m fine. Thank you.”

  Suddenly the door opened, and Thaddeus Jackson walked into the courtroom. He was a tall man in his late fifties, ramrod straight, with deep-set, severe brown eyes, mutton chops flecked with gray, and the assured, condescending air of someone who routinely held the fate of others in his hands and felt perfectly comfortable crushing them. When she saw him, Nellie felt a surge of anger so intense her fists clenched. She counseled herself to stay calm.

  “Good morning, Colonel Jackson,” said the ju
dge deferentially.

  “Good morning, Mr. Ratkin,” Jackson replied, remaining standing.

  “Judge Ratkin,” corrected Shaeffer.

  “Excuse me,” said Jackson, annoyed with the charade. “Judge Ratkin.”

  “Place your hand on the Bible, please.”

  The clerk placed a Bible in front of Jackson. He placed his left hand on it and raised his right hand as Ratkin administered the oath. Jackson vowed to tell the truth and sat down. He was as remote and cold as Nellie had imagined.

  “Proceed, Miss Cochran.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” said Nellie and approached the witness stand.

  “Good morning, Miss Cochran,” said Jackson, stiffly trying to be gracious.

  “If you say so,” said Nellie, her voice dripping with contempt. That got the attention of the jurors. They were accustomed to treating Jackson as a superior.

  “Mr. Jackson, you are president of the First Pennsylvania Bank in Apollo?”

  “It’s Colonel Jackson,” he corrected.

  “No, it’s Mister Jackson,” snapped Nellie. “Anyone who steals from widows and children has forfeited his right to a military title. Even the term mister is too good for you.”

  The jurors sat up. This woman had backbone.

  “Your Honor,” protested an indignant Shaeffer. “The man was a commissioned officer—”

  “—And a convicted felon!” shot back Nellie.

  “A war hero—”

  “—who belongs in jail!”

  “Stop!” said Ratkin. “You may address the witness as mister, Miss Cochran. But get on with it.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor.” She turned to face Jackson, no more than three feet away, fearlessly crowding him. “Now, Mister Jackson,” she began, as he smoldered at the insult. “When my father died, all the money meant for my sisters and me was placed in your bank?”

  “With me. Yes.”

  “Because he knew you personally and had served in the war with you.”

  “That’s right.” Jackson squirmed. He was a proud man and did not like shining a light on his mistakes. But Nellie was in no rush to let him relax.

  “And what happened to that money?”

  He said nothing.

  “What happened to the money?” she repeated sharply.

  “I used it for myself.” He said it softly, almost inaudibly.

  “Louder, Mr. Jackson.”

  “I used it for myself.”

  “You built a new house in fact, correct?”

  “Among other things, yes.”

  “The biggest house in town.”

  “Yes.” Nellie had been by the house that very morning. Not that she needed the extra incentive, but she wanted every detail vivid in her mind.

  “And where did you live while you were building this house?”

  Shaeffer was on his feet. “Objection, Your Honor. Relevance.”

  “The relevance will be clear when he answers the question, Your Honor.”

  “I don’t think so, Miss Cochran. Objection sustained.”

  Nellie pursed her lips. She wanted the jurors to know that while Jackson was using her money and her sisters’ money to build his mansion, he was living in the house their own father had built specifically for them. It was diabolical and cruel. The jury should know all about that.

  “Miss Cochran?”

  No matter, she assured herself. Stay with the plan you rehearsed thousands of times.

  “Now, this money you used for yourself, did you ever pay it back?”

  “I did not.” He was surprisingly unabashed about it.

  “Why not?”

  “I made some poor investments and was forced to declare bankruptcy.”

  “And now you are back on your financial feet?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are even the president of the bank again.”

  “Yes.”

  “In fact, the entire time, even after your arrest, you remained the president of the bank.”

  “The stockholders showed remarkable faith in me, and I appreciate it.”

  “No doubt it helped that the shareholders were your immediate family.”

  “Objection!”

  “Sustained. The jury will disregard that remark.”

  Nellie didn’t mind the interruption. Nothing was going to slow her down now. “How many people did you steal from, Mr. Jackson?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Five? Fifty? Five hundred?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “You mean you won’t say. When you pled guilty to embezzlement, you acknowledged stealing from the accounts of sixty-five people.”

  “Yes.”

  She glanced at the jury to make sure they heard. They definitely heard. They were hanging on her every word, and despite his power, they loathed him.

  “Did you pay back anyone whose money you stole?”

  “No.”

  “That included soldiers who fought for you, their widows, my sisters, myself—”

  “That is what happens with bankruptcy, Miss Cochran,” he snapped. “It is a public humiliation. It also wipes the slate clean.”

  “Only your slate, Mr. Jackson. It wipes your slate clean, but everyone else’s is still a mess.”

  “Objection!” cried Shaeffer, getting to his feet.

  “Sustained.”

  The anger was taking over now, and her momentum increased.

  “Did the bank pay back anyone whose money you stole?” she continued.

  “No, it did not.”

  “Why not?”

  “The bank did not know what I was doing.”

  “But you were the president.”

  “I was an officer. No one else knew about it.”

  “Even your family members who worked there?”

  “That’s right.”

  “They simply enjoyed sleeping in larger rooms and wearing fancier dresses—”

  “Objection!”

  “Sustained. Miss Cochran, save your arguments for later.”

  She returned to Jackson. “Did you ask the bank to pay back any of the money you stole?”

  He swatted unconsciously with his hand as at a gnat. “Why would I ask the bank to do that? They had nothing to do with it.”

  “So you are saying the bank is not responsible for the actions of its president?”

  “Or any of its other employees. You can’t expect the bank to be responsible for everyone who works for it. Otherwise a bank could not conduct commerce.”

  Nellie suddenly walked over to the counsel table, sat down, and began writing. The only sound in the room was her scribbling on the paper.

  “Miss Cochran?” said Ratkin.

  “Just a moment, Your Honor,” said Nellie, dipping her pen in the inkwell and writing.

  “Miss Cochran. What are you doing?” asked Ratkin more sternly. She looked up at Jackson.

  “ ‘You can’t expect the bank to be responsible for everyone who works for it.’ Do I have that right, Mr. Jackson? Is that what you said?”

  “Yes.”

  “ ‘Otherwise a bank could not conduct commerce.’ Do I have that right as well?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you.”

  She wrote down a few more words and then looked up at him.

  “Your waistcoat. Would you describe that as dark gray or more of a speckled black?”

  “Objection!” said Shaeffer.

  “Miss Cochran,” said Ratkin impatiently. “What are you doing?”

  “Writing a newspaper story about how a bank employee stole all the money my father left for his family. That Mr. Jackson as the bank president takes no responsibility whatsoever for the actions of his employee—in this case himself—and shows no concern whatsoever for the financial ruin of his many depositors, including the daughters of a longtime customer and fellow Union soldier. I will be saying that every customer at the bank sh
ould expect similar treatment, and only a fool would put even a single penny into Mr. Jackson’s bank.”

  “You write that and I will sue you for everything you own,” snarled Jackson.

  “Well, that won’t be for very much, Mr. Jackson,” Nellie shot back, “thanks to your thievery. But at least everyone who reads the New York World will be aware that Thaddeus Jackson and the First Pennsylvania Bank of Apollo are nothing more than common thieves.”

  “I strongly advise you not to do that.”

  “Oh? And why is that?”

  “I shall sue Pulitzer and everyone else connected with the paper, and I will make sure the case is heard right here in Armstrong County, where there is little regard for Hungarian Jews.”

  Nellie’s jaw dropped.

  “What does Mr. Pulitzer have to do with this?”

  “He publishes your paper. He would be party to ruining the bank’s good name.”

  “Mr. Pulitzer publishes a dozen newspapers. He will know nothing about this story until he reads it along with everyone else.”

  “Then I imagine he will be very upset with you.”

  All the stuffing seemed to go out of Nellie. “That is not fair, Colonel. This is between my family and your bank. Leave Mr. Pulitzer out of this,” she pleaded. “He has been my godsend. Without him I have no work, and my family has nothing.”

  Jackson enjoyed watching Nellie squirm. He loved nothing more than an enemy begging for mercy. “I will not leave him out of this, young lady. He is accountable for the reckless actions of an ill-intentioned employee, and I intend to hold him as such.”