.MTM3NA.MTE2ODQ2
[notation in top margin in pencil: [no transcription] ]
letterhead 140 NORTH DEARBORN STREET CHICAGO
Jan? 29th 1918
Dear Mary
It has been a long long time since I have even tried to write you which I hope you will forgive. I dont know why. not that I have forgotten or was ?unwell? but I didnt. then too I have been very busy but not so busy that I could not have written. For three months to a day I have been defending a graft case. When they tried to get the Chief of Police for grafting with the vice ring - as if it was not better to be able to pay for a little ? than not to have it. If we could only kill the good people before they kill us Still if they kill us & live they will breed others who could stand for some freedom - if they breed, which they will. I wish you could have heard the case with its short witnesses & its long one with its detectives & dictographs & tapped telephone wires. with its stool pigeons & informers ? for immunity & I shut them up in a five hour talk at the end of it the ? much to the surprise of the town & the disgust of the good. The list of witnesses would make you laugh ?