A Secret Life_ The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland - Charles Lachman [152]
Sitting at the defense table, Ball was confounded. He could not believe that Bull and Lewis were not backing his story.
Milbank recalled Edwin Godkin to the stand. The Post editor swore under oath that before writing the articles about Ball, he had dispatched a reporter to Buffalo to look into the preacher’s background. Godkin said the research had established that Ball had been a political operator in Buffalo and had a record of making “inquisitive” investigations into the affairs of other people, which could be interpreted as prying. He called Ball a “fussy, credulous person who dabbled in politics.” As for the Maria Halpin story, Godkin said he believed it had been “substantially true” but that all the rest of the allegations regarding Grover Cleveland and his licentious behavior had been a “pack of lies.” Godkin said the Post articles had been written and published “entirely without malice.”
Milburn was done with Godkin. Now it was Moot’s turn to take a crack at the editor. He faced the defendant and showed him the 1884 Post articles that had been introduced into evidence. “I see that you wrote that, ‘The accounts [about] Dr. Ball grow worse and worse.’ What can you recall that is detrimental to Dr. Ball’s character?”
“I considered that the slanders he was spreading of Grover Cleveland were detrimental to the highest degree.”
“If the story Dr. Ball tells in the Abbott letter were true, would you still have a feeling against him?”
Godkin considered this. “I should, for I think a minister is unqualified to pursue such a line of business. I think that on such lines as the Maria Halpin story, ministers are especially disqualified, for they are very credulous and not likely to conduct an investigation in a judicial manner.”
Moot pointed out that in one Post article, Ball had been referred to as a “politico-clerical adventurer.” Could not the venerated Henry Ward Beecher be subject to the same insulting characterization? Godkin shook his head. Beecher, he said, was too great an orator and his thoughts were too “well defined.”
“This phrase you use was a direct thrust at Dr. Ball’s character?”
“It was.”
Moot hammered away at the witness. Regarding the incident in Owensville, Godkin acknowledged that when the Indianapolis Sentinel had accused Ball of “insulting a Christian lady,” he had jumped to the assumption that Ball had committed a morally offensive act of a sexual nature. “Did you think that Dr. Ball had been undertaking something in the line that Mr. Cleveland was accused of?”
“I thought it very likely,” said Godkin. “I thought it all went together with what Dr. Ball was doing in Buffalo,” Godkin sneered; his contempt for Ball was evident to everyone in the courtroom. Moot asked Godkin about his charge that Ball had an aptitude for “ferreting out low, disgusting scandals.” Godkin admitted that outside of the Halpin scandal, he could not find any evidence that Ball was involved in investigating political scandals.
In the Post article under the headline, “Dr. Ball and His Kind,” Ball was called a “miscreant.” Did Godkin regret using that word?
Godkin said it was a strong word but warranted.
“Guttersnipes,” said Moot, reading from the same article. “Doesn’t this make charges of low character to Dr. Ball and his kind?”
“It refers to people engaged in low occupation,” Godkin agreed.
“Vampires,” Moot read. “These are bloodsuckers, spirits that return after death and roam over the earth.” He wanted to know whether Godkin still believed Ball could be compared to such a creature.
Godkin would not back down.
“Rascals,” Moot said, still reading from the article. “Do you know that the term a rascal indicates a criminal?”
Godkin retorted that sometimes it did and sometimes it did not.
Moot said that based on the testimony he had just heard, he could only conclude that in Godkin’s estimation, George Ball was all these things: a miscreant, a guttersnipe, a vampire, and a rascal. If this