The Trial of Judge Hoyt

Even so lean a man as Judge Hoyt has not escaped the attentions of the partisans of the several factions concerned, who have been putting in circulation monstrous lies. Particular stress is laid upon the charge of him favoring the Northern Pacific Railroad while a judge of the territorial court. It is alleged that in a suit where the Northern Pacific was defendant against a claim of cutting timber unlawfully, Judge Hoyt decided in favor of the company, although the timber was two hundred miles from the line of the road and far outside the limits prescribed in the charter. The facts of the case are that the timber was cut two hundred miles from the point where it was actually used, but from land lying adjacent to the railroad line and within the limits prescribed by the charter, and further, that although two hundred miles distant from the site where it was used, the timber taken was the nearest available on the line. In this decision, Judge Hoyt followed a ruling of the Colorado supreme court. That it was approved by the attorney general at Washington is demonstrated by the fact that when the United States district attorney asked for instructions, he was directed not to appeal the case. Another falsehood concerns the claim that Hoyt denied the right of appeal to the anti-Chinese rioters who were convicted at Olympia in 1886. This is monstrously absurd. The law gives the right of appeal. No judge can take it away. Judge Hoyt did not attempt such a thing; he imposed the lightest sentence which the law allotted—six months' imprisonment. Against these and other monstrous lies, Judge Hoyt's record is his best defense. After four years of service on the bench in this territory, every attorney, Republican and Democrat, in the twelve counties which made up his district signed a petition for his reappointment.