The Jan/Feb issue of THE FEDERAL LAWYER includes a review, by Nicholas J. Patterson, of a recent biography of Clarence Darrow, the renowned early 20th century trial lawyer. The review discusses the Steunenberg/Haywood murder trial briefly, and my thoughts while reading it stuck on that. Frank Steunenberg had been the Governor of Idaho from 1897 to 1901. (The officeholder received a two-year term in that state in those days, so this entailed one re-election.) Though he was elected largely through labor support, near the end of his second term he took management's side of a labor conflict, asking President McKinley to send federal troops into Idaho to break a miners' strike. He did not seek a third term in the 1900 election, and seems not to have continued to be active in politics in the years left to him. In 1905, Steunenberg died. Somebody -- probably former miner Harry Orchard -- had rigged explosives to the gate outside his h...