President McKinley’s visit to the Pan-American Exposition was originally scheduled for the second week of June 1901. The plan was put on hold, however, when his beloved wife, Ida, a chronic invalid who suffered from a host of maladies, including petit mal epilepsy, fell seriously ill in mid-May.
At his sprawling home in Buffalo, John G. Milburn, the McKinleys’ designated host, received the news with mixed feelings. Though distressed to learn of the first lady’s condition, he privately welcomed the postponement. Without the presidential party to attend to, he would be able to concentrate all his energies on a pressing legal matter.1
After nearly a year and a half of unprecedented delay, the Molineux case had finally been placed on the calendar of the Court of Appeals. Arguments would begin on Monday, June 17.
A crowd many times larger than the courtroom could accommodate packed the hallway that morning. Bailiffs barred the door, admitting only the “privileged few” by a private entrance. Accompanied by Bartow Weeks and George Gordon Battle, General Molineux made his way to the defense table, walking with a pronounced limp. He had arrived in Buffalo the previous night and had twisted his ankle so badly while alighting from the train that he had to be carried to a cab.2
John Milburn entered a few minutes later alongside his opponent, David B. Hill. A former United States senator, ex-governor of New York, and a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in 1892, Hill had been enlisted by the district attorney to argue the case for the state. Like prizefighters shaking hands before a bout, the two lawyers exchanged greetings at the doorway before taking their respective places.
At ten, the seven black-robed judges filed in and seated themselves at the bench. Preliminaries were quickly dispatched. Both Milburn and Hill requested—and were granted—extensions of the two-hour limit usually allotted for arguments. At 10:37 A.M., Milburn rose from his seat, and the “battle of giants”—as newspapers touted the event—was under way.3
Milburn’s address would continue uninterruptedly until the 2:00 P.M. adjournment and not conclude until the following day. After describing the key figures in the case (with special mention of General Molineux, “a gallant soldier who never fought a braver battle than this last fight he is making for the life of his son”), the famed Buffalo attorney spent nearly two and a half hours in an attempt to dismantle the arguments that James Osborne had made at the trial.
He ridiculed the notion that the “little club squabbles” between Molineux and Harry Cornish would have driven Roland to murder; denounced the letter box man, Nicholas Heckmann, as a mercenary fraud; disparaged the testimony of the handwriting experts; and even while insisting that he “was not seeking to indicate that any other person is guilty of this crime,” cast suspicion on Harry Cornish by suggesting that the athletic director had been conducting an illicit affair with Florence Rodgers and thus had a motive for wanting her mother, Mrs. Adams, out of the way. He also pointed out that, according to the sworn testimony of Emma Miller, Molineux had not been the purchaser of the silver holder and insisted that the embossed robin’s-egg-blue stationery to which the prosecution had attached so much significance was “in general use” and might have belonged to anybody.
Proceeding to the legal phase of the appeal, Milburn argued strenuously that Henry Barnet’s death should never have been brought up in the trial, the two cases having no connection. It was the admission of evidence relating to Blanche Molineux’s moral character, however, that drew Milburn’s bitterest words. His voice ringing with outrage, he excoriated Recorder Goff for allowing Rachel Greene, the former chambermaid at Mary Bell’s boardinghouse, to testify that Blanche and Roland had lived together as husband and wife months before their marriage.
“No incident in this trial,” he cried, “dealt such a blow to this defendant as this, which went straight at the woman he had married and blasted her reputation for the purposes of this case. On what ground was it admissible? This—this is on the verge of the horrible!
“This defendant,” said Milburn, “had not a fair trial.”4
Altogether, Milburn would address the judges for slightly more than five hours. It was nearly noon on Tuesday, June 18, before ex-senator David Hill rose to speak.
Like Milburn, he began by acknowledging General Molineux’s presence in the courtroom. Instead of paying the usual tribute to the old soldier’s gallantry, however, Hill insisted that the father’s eminence should have no bearing on the case. “This court, we know, is a court of justice,” he said, “in which the meanest pauper in the land stands just as high and has just as many rights as the son of a general or the son of a judge.”
The thrust of Hill’s argument was that the conviction should not be overturned because of technicalities. The key issue was Molineux’s guilt, which had been established during the trial by “overwhelming evidence.” Even John Milburn had not claimed “that his client is innocent.” During the five hours he had addressed the court, “the word innocent never once passed his lips.”
Recognizing that the appeal would hinge, to a large extent, on the issue of the Barnet evidence, Hill insisted that the state “had a perfect legal right to show the facts connected with the death of Barnet. Here was a man who was a member of the Knickerbocker Athletic Club, where Cornish was employed. The poison that killed him was sent through the mails, just as it was sent to Cornish. It was the same poison in both cases. All the circumstances were alike. The lives of both men were plotted against by the same assassin. Who was it who desired to destroy them? Someone who was jealous of them. Someone who had quarreled with them. And who was that man? This defendant. He was jealous of Barnet; he had quarreled with Cornish.”
As for the testimony related to Blanche that had elicited such outrage from Milburn, Hill declared that the state had every right to introduce it during the trial. In scathing tones, Hill read aloud the notorious letter Blanche had written to Barnet on his deathbed and declared it to be the communication of “a lover.” He then read portions of a note that Roland had sent to a friend shortly after Barnet’s death, announcing his engagement to Blanche. “It is all so sudden a romance,” Roland had written. “I am so happy.”
“Romance,” snorted Hill, tossing the letter onto the table. “It was no romance. It was a tragedy. His rival had been removed.”
At that moment, General Molineux abruptly rose from his seat. The relentless attack on his son’s character by a man as prominent as David Hill had shaken him badly. Tears streaming down his face, the old man made his way out of the courtroom.
Hill, however, was unmoved by the piteous spectacle. Addressing a question that Milburn had raised—why would Roland have tried to murder Cornish over some petty “club squabbles”?—Hill offered a psychological explanation, suggesting that Roland’s “malady,” sexual impotence, had driven him into a state of “melancholia” that had mentally unbalanced him.
Despite the defense’s efforts to “avert suspicion from their client” by casting it onto Cornish, there was no mistaking the true culprit.
“If it was not Molineux,” Hill declared, “it was nobody.”5
Hill ended his argument at 1:35 P.M. on Wednesday. After a fifteen-minute reply by Milburn, the appeal was formally submitted. The court’s decision would be handed down during its fall session.
Afterward, General Molineux—who refused to speak to ex-senator Hill when the two encountered each other as they were leaving the building—made a statement to the press. For the first time, there seemed to be a heartbreaking vulnerability about the old soldier, “whose loyalty to his son,” wrote one observer, “has been pathetic.”6 “I must be patient,” said the General softly, as though addressing himself. “It will come out all right. I must get my boy back.”7 A few minutes later, he boarded the train back to Manhattan, while John G. Milburn returned to his duties as president of the Pan-American Exposition, the great world’s fair designed to showcase Buffalo as one of the nation’s leading cities.