eleven o'clock
Last of all , the terms of the bargain between the League and the Ring were produced , signed by the late President and the Secretary of State , and countersigned by the Russian Minister at Washington . The Court sat for three days , and reassembled on the fourth to deliver its verdict and sentence . Fifteen members of the late Government , including the President , the Vice-President , and the Secretary of State , and twenty-four great capitalists composing the Ring , were found guilty of giving and receiving bribes , directly and indirectly , and of betraying and conspiring to betray the confidence of the American people in its elected representatives , and also of conspiring to make war without due cause on a friendly Power for purely commercial reasons . At eleven o'clock on the morning of the 9th of October the President of the Federation rose in the Senate House , amidst breathless silence , to pronounce the sentence of the Court . `` All the accused , '' he said , speaking in slow , deliberate tones , `` have been proved guilty of such treason against their own race and the welfare of humanity as no men ever were guilty of before in all the disreputable history of state-craft . In view of the suffering and misery to millions of individuals , and the irreparable injury to the cause of civilisation that would have resulted from the success of their schemes , it would be impossible for human wit to devise any punishment which in itself would be adequate . The sentence of the Court is the extreme penalty known to human justice -- Death ! ''