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T would be impossible to reconcile the conflicting opinions of the friendly and the unfriendly critics of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis. To one set of fellow-citizens, he is the embodiment of the Good Samaritan. To the other set he is a poseur, more interested in advertising his unique personality than making himself a credit to his high office of judge of the United States District Court for the northern district of Illinois. Since this much-discussed judge accepted the position of High Commissioner of Baseball at a salary of $42,500, and extra allowances, without resigning his public office with its salary of $7500 a year. the friends and foes of Judge Landis are further than ever apart. But, while they are disputing whether the judge should be impeached, or promoted to higher public office, let us cast a glance at his antecedents.

He was born fifty-five years ago in Butler county, Ohio, and was given the name of Kenesaw Mountain by his father, Abraham Landis, who had been wounded at that famous battle place and had returned home as an invalid soldier the day before the future Federal judge was born. So Kenesaw Mountain Landis he became on the baptismal records. He was the youngest of seven sons.

The Landis family moved to Indiana, and five of them grew to be men, at Delphi, Indiana. Some clerked in the postoffice, or taught school, and the youngster, Kenesaw, "carried a route" for a local paper during his school days. After a year at high school he got a job as a clerk in a grocery store and worked there for six months before his father found out that he had left school. The father stormed over the change. The son won his point. Then he took up shorthand and became a court reporter at Crown Point, Indiana. He eventually studied law at Cincinnati and was graduated from the Union Law College of Chicago.

From law to politics is an easy transition for young and briefless attorneys, and Kenesaw Mountain Landis became private secretary to Walter Q. Gresham, who was secretary of state under President Cleveland and had commanded the corps in which Landis, senior, had served and been wounded. That was how young Landis got in line for a position in the judicial system of the United States. He was not appointed to a judgship until Theodore Roosevelt became president, but he had an opportunity to cut such a figure in politics. He no doubt inherited a talent for that line of activity, as four.

Judge Landis never attained a prominent place at the bar. More training as a practicing attorney might have formed habits calculated to make him less unique as a judge. His chief stock in trade is said not to be legal lore, but "a streak of originality," which has made his tribunal one of the most noted in America. A prominent Eastern newspaperman has remarked of this quaint jurist:

"Judge Landis is the Caliph Haroun al Raschid, and Chicago is his Bagdad. He is the friend of the oppressed, the scourge of the oppressors; his court reflects every phase of the life of the city and is a field of wonderful adventure. It was in 1907 that he fined the Standard Oil Company $29,000,000 in the morning and in the afternoon haggled with a loan shark over a few pennies of interest due from a poor man. He ended up by paying the loan shark out of his private purse and telling him to be gone out of his sight before he forgot himself and gave him a thrashing.

"One day he is tracing the missing millions of an old man; another he is threading his way through an amazing blackmail plot, publicly shaming the guilty and shielding the innocent victims, and on the third he exposes, in the course of an hour, organized gambling in Chicago, although the police have denied its existence for years.

"How all these things manage to happen in Judge Landis's court is the wonder of it all."

While all this sort of notoriety is delightful to sensational reporters, and makes Judge Landis' name a household word, in the city of pork packers, learned lawyers shake their heads dubiously when his remarkable deeds are discussed.

One of his recent performances was to discharge a young bank embezzler, because the offender had been paid a miserable salary. That was regarded by many people as “playing to the gallery." It was morally and legally erroneous, for honesty should not be made dependable on salary and a poorly paid criminal jus

ployers might be shamed. That principle, if adopted, would classify various types of thieves some proof against moderate temptation, some adamant against even greater temptation, and cashiers with princely salaries whom no amount of money would make embezzlers. But as a matter of fact, some highly paid cashiers make off with large sums. Honesty is not so much impulse as character. A thief is generally one, no matter how much he may be paid by his employers. An honest man is one, though the heavens should fall.

A Chicago reporter has told how pleased it made Judge Landis to hear that some of his fellow-citizens approved of his action with regard to the young bank thief.

Passing rapidly down the street en route to the railroad station the other afternoon, a citizen stopped Judge Landis to shake hands.

"I want to shake hands with you," said the citizen, "for the way you handled that young bank thief, Carey."

The speaker wore the garb of toil. "We are proud of you in Chicago," added the man.

"I will try to see that you are not disappointed in the future," replied the Judge.

Then turning quickly to the reporter, he said: "Great Lord! And they tell me that there is nothing in the approval of these people. Why, I would rather have the people of that man's type looking upon me as a man who would protect the public interest than to have all the money in the world. I tell you, that the greatest position any man can achieve is the one upon which his fellow-man looks with approval. The meanest man in the world is the man who destroys the faith of any human being in anything."

The most ridiculous part of the affair was that the young thief with whom the judge sympathized had filched a large sum from the bank, proving conclusively that it was not sore need of the necessaries of life that drove him to crime, but willingness to filch a fortune when the opportunity of

ered..

Since that remarkable affair another young bank thief has walked off with enormous plunder—almost a million dollars and attributed his fall from grace to the bad influence of Judge Landis' decision.

The Judge questions the truth of the statement, that the juvenile thief had made such a charge of his own free-will, but whatever doubts there may be on that score, there can be none on the indiscretion of turning a thief loose because he had not been paid a decent salary.

Judge Landis is more popular with the mob than his superiors of the United States Supreme Court, who have annoyed him grievously by reversing several of his rulings. The less judicial a judge, the quicker is he to quarrel with a higher court and attribute its adverse rulings to prejudice or ignorance.

The impressions that one obtains from Judge Landis erraticisms is that he is constitutionally unsuited for position.

He lacks some of the qualities essential in a calm judge, with sound judgment and a minimum of prejudice. He is more of a politician than a lawyer. Public opinion has rather cooled towards Judge Landis since he accepted the post of High Commissioner of Baseball, for a large salary of $42,500, and made no attempt to resign his position as United States judge.

The indictment of several noted baseball players for bribery has placed professional baseball under a cloud, and Landis has appeared to the baseball magnates as the best person to help the reinstatement of the game in public confidence. His acceptance of such a position places him in a new light. Money which he probably affects to despise, must have a potent attraction for him, or he would have declined the private sideline with its large pay. Were his desire solely to reinstate baseball in favor, he could have done the work for nothing, as he evidently has time enough. He thinks he can perform the duties of judge and of baseball commissioner, or he would not have accepted the outside job. The Judge

is in danger of being regarded henceforth as a popular idol with feet of clay.

A Chicago reporter has furnished the following description of the celebrated judge:

"It is off the bench that one sees the real character of the man that is reflected in his decisions. As the eye photographs him, he is a live wire. His small, wiry frame is encased in garments that hang with careless abandon. In all my years of news-hunting I found Judge Landis neither hard to meet nor difficult of acquaintance. He has the eye of a Theodore Hook and the visage of a Yankee clock peddler. His movements are quick, jerky and nervous.

"No jewelry serves to betray personal vanity. His hair is long, shaggy and unkempt. It is as white as silver. A faded fedora hat with a Pittsburg shade is his pet headdress. He loves to knock the fedora out of his hat by punching it into every rude, fantastic shape.

"With coat collar turned up, stand-up collar with string necktie half unbowed, cuff unlinked, the much punched fedora on the back of his head-a picture of studied carelessness is the Judge's idea of correct street attire.

"Personally, the Judge is a most genial companion. Admitted that his fedora hat is full of irregular lines and careless indentations, the hat tells the story that less thought is given to that article than to what is under it. In personal conversation with his friends he is frank and open. When it is sought to bring him into public discussion he guards the judicial dignity with care.

"Simple but excellent surroundings give a cue to the home tastes of the Judge. Since the marriage of their two children, the Judge and Mrs. Landis have lived in a modest suite of rooms at the Chicago Beach Hotel, where the windows overlook Lake Michigan and Jackson Park. Books make themselves perfectly at home about the place; so do visitors. There is an easy grace about the whole establishment that wipes out formality and makes the newest caller feel that he has been there all his life.