Granger, C. T. Hon.

GRANGER

Posted By: Joy Moore (email)
Date: 5/18/2020 at 09:16:57

Source: Decorah Republican Jan. 11, 1900 P 1 C 5

JUDGE GRANGER TO RETIRE.
It is announced from Des Moines, and we presume by authority, that Hon. C. T. Granger will not be a candidate for renomination to the Supreme Bench. His term expires with 1900. At its end twenty-eight of his sixty-five years will have been devoted to public service on the bench. He began as a Circuit Judge Jan. 1, 1873, and served this district continuously for sixteen years, until the people of the state said to him in a loud voice, "come up higher”. He went and for twenty-two years he will have graced and dignified a position than which there is none more honorable in the state. This decision recalls to mind a period in the Judge’s career that was a turning point. It was just when the district was swinging over to Democracy. On political questions there was a Democratic majority. The Judge was a candidate, and for twenty-four hours after election his fate hung in the balance; but his popularity was such in this county that he ran away ahead of his ticket, and the county gave him such a vote that it settled the question. The result in the county was telegraphed him at New Hampton, where he was holding court. In quick response this came back, "God bless old Winnesheik!” That settled it Judge Granger continued on and up as a Judge, instead of retiring to private life and the more obscure duties of a local lawyer. His popularity in this county never waned, but grew and grew until it spread all over the state. It was the right sort of popularity. He never truckled to any person, party or ism; but on the contrary pursued a steady, straightforward course based on principle and right. His career began with a criminal case in this county in which he, as District Attorney, prosecuted to conviction and punishment the inhuman parents of a young girl who had made her the victim of the most cruel neglect and ill treatment possible short of actual starvation and murder. The details as brought out in the trial were such as to arouse every particle of manhood in the young District Attorney. With cool headed, almost coldblooded, method he developed the testimony until jurors and auditors shuddered to think such brutality could exist. But when it came to his plea as prosecutor the cool-headed, cold-bloodedness of the lawyer, gave way to the fiery temper and the thundering energy of an avenging Nemesis. It was the opportunity of a good man’s life time, and well did Charley Granger improve it. So aroused were the people that at a word lynch law would have wiped the two paternal criminals out of existence, but with all his vehemence he so kept control of himself and his audience that “the majesty of the law” triumphed gloriously. It was that case made him judge; it begat in the breasts of hundreds the inflexible determination to always, and in every way, honor the man who had proved so faithful “in the few” things that attach to a County Attorney’s station. That was one of the reasons why this REPUBLICAN has been the unfaltering friend of Judge Granger in every honorable ambition he has had; and why we shall follow him into private life with a humble friendship that will last while life remains. God bless Judge Granger!