Memorabilia from the Roosevelt-Barnes trial donated to the Onondaga County Court House
By Laura Hand
Tuesday, June 09, 2009 at 8:26 p.m.
It was THE event of 1915: former president Teddy Roosevelt on trial for libeling Albany publisher William Barnes.
The New York Times called it a political convention, as politicians from all over the state gathered in Syracuse to watch the trial, which really aimed to settle Republican leadership in New York.
Syracuse lawyer Bill Andrews' grandfather was the judge: Andrews says Justice W.S. Andrews had known Roosevelt from Harvard, and had the job of controlling Roosevelt when he took the stand, which wasn't easy. Andrews says that the trial led to his grandfather's appointment to the New York State Court of Appeals, the state's highest court.
Retired Court of Appeals Judge Stewart Hancock also has a connection: his father, Stewart Hancock, Senior, was one of Roosevelt's lawyers, an assignment that gave him a lot of publicity and helped firm his position in the legal community here, as well.
Both men contributed their families' collections of newspaper clippings, legal notes and other trial memorabilia for permanent display in the Onondaga County Courthouse. Fifth District Administrative Judge James Tormey says the display (which also includes the chair Roosevelt sat in during the trial) will stay in the 'public' courtroom, the one where naturalization ceremonies are done. As the courthouse is restored to its original 1906 look, Judge Tormey says this is an historical addition that they just could not pass up.
Roosevelt, who had lost popularity with his big business busting strategies, won the case, but ultimately lost his goal of regaining a political career. The trial's front page headline news was replaced by news of the Lusitania's sinking, and American involvement in World War One.
But for that month in the spring of 1915, Syracuse's new courthouse was packed, and the trial was the talk of the town.
