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LEFT TO RIGHT: LOEB, DARROW, AND
LEOPOLD - CHICAGO 1924
The Book of Love
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Clarence Darrow.
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Clarence Darrow's closing argument.
It follows the full text transcript of
Clarence Darrow's closing argument in the case
Illinois versus Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, delivered at
Chicago, Illinois - August 22, 1924.
This is page 2 of 2. Go here for
page 1 of this speech.
Now, these facts are beyond dispute. He early
developed the tendency to mix with crime, to be
a detective; as a little boy shadowing people on
the street; as a little child going out with his
fantasy of being the head of a band of criminals
and directing them on the street. How did this
grow and develop in him? Let us see. It seems to
me as natural as the day following the night.
Every detective story is a story of a sleuth
getting the best of it; trailing some
unfortunate individual through devious ways
until his victim is finally landed in jail or
stands on the gallows. They all show how smart
the detective is, and where the criminal himself
falls down.
This boy early in his life conceived the idea
that there could be a perfect crime, one that
nobody could ever detect; that there could be
one where the detective did not land his game; a
perfect crime. He had been interested in the
story of Charley Ross, who was kidnapped. He was
interested in these things all his life. He
believed in his childish way that a crime could
be so carefully planned that there would be no
detection, and his idea was to plan and
accomplish a perfect crime. It would involve
kidnapping, and involve murder.
They wanted to commit a perfect crime. There had
been growing in this brain, dwarfed and twisted,
not due to any wickedness of Dickie Loeb, for he
is a child. It grew as he grew; it grew from
those around him; it grew from the lack of the
proper training until it possessed him. He
believed he could beat the police. He believed
he could plan the perfect crime. He had thought
of it and talked of it for years. Had talked of
it as a child; had worked at it as child, and
this sorry act of his, utterly irrational and
motiveless, a plan to commit a perfect crime
which must contain kidnapping, and there must be
ransom, or else it could not perfect, and they
must get the money.
We might as well be honest with ourselves, Your
Honor. Before would tie a noose around the neck
of a boy I would try to call back my mind the
emotions of youth. I would try to remember what
world looked like to me when I was a child. I
would try to remember how strong were these
instinctive, persistent emotions that moved
life. I would try to remember how weak and
inefficient was youth in presence of the
surging, controlling feelings of the child.
But, Your Honor, that is not all there is to
boyhood. Nature is strong and she is pitiless.
She works in her own mysterious way, and we are
her victims. We have not much to do with it
ourselves. Nature takes this job in hand, and we
play our parts. In the words of old Omar
Khayyam, we are only
Impotent pieces in the game He plays
Upon this checkerboard if nights and days,
Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,
And one by one back in the closet lays.
What had this boy to do with it? He was not his
own father; he was not his own mother; he was
not his own grandparents. All of this was handed
to him. He did not surround himself with
governesses and wealth. He did not make himself
and yet he is to be compelled to pay.
For God's sake, are we crazy? In the face of
history, of every line of philosophy, against
the teaching of every religionist and seer and
prophet the world has ever given us, we are
still doing what our barbaric, ancestors did
when they came out of the caves and the woods.
Your Honor, I am almost ashamed to talk about
it. I can hardly imagine that we are in the
twentieth century. And yet there are men who
seriously say that for what Nature has done, for
what life has done, for what training has done,
you should hang these boys.
I say this again, without finding fault with his
parents, for whom I have the highest regard, and
.who doubtless did the best they could. They
might have done better if they had not had so
much money. I do not know. Great wealth often
curses all who touch it..
I catch myself many and many a time repeating
phrases of my childhood, and I have not quite
got into my second childhood yet. I have caught
myself doing this while I still could catch
myself. It means nothing. We may have all the
dreams and visions and build all the castles we
wish, but the castles of youth should be
discarded with youth, and when they linger to
the time when boys should think wiser things,
then it indicates a diseased mind. "When I was
young I thought as a child, I spoke as a child,
I understood as a child; but now I have put off
childish things," said the Psalmist twenty
centuries ago. It is when these dreams of
boyhood, these fantasies of youth still linger,
and the growing boy is still a child, a child in
emotion, a child in feeling, a child in
hallucinations that you can say that it is the
dreams and the hallucinations of childhood that
are responsible for his conduct. There is not an
act in all this horrible tragedy that was not
the act of a child, the act of a child wandering
around in the morning of life, moved by the new
feelings of a boy, moved by the uncontrolled
impulses which his teaching was not strong
enough to take care of, moved by the dreams and
the hallucinations which haunt the brain of a
child. I say, Your Honor, that it would be the
height of cruelty, of injustice, of wrong and
barbarism to visit the penalty upon this poor
boy.
This boy needed more of home, more love, more
directing. He needed to have his emotions
awakened. He needed guiding hands along the
serious road that youth must travel. Had these
been given him, he would not be here today. Now,
Your Honor, I want to speak of the other lad,
Babe.
Babe is somewhat older than Dick, and is a boy
of remarkable mind, away beyond his years. He is
a sort of freak in this direction, as in others;
a boy without emotions, a boy obsessed of
philosophy, a boy obsessed of learning, busy
every minute of his life.
He went through school quickly; he went to
college young; he could learn faster than almost
everybody else. His emotional life was lacking,
as every alienist and witness in this case
excepting Dr. Krohn has told you. He was just a
half boy, in intellect, an intellectual machine
going without balance and without a governor,
seeking to find out everything there was in life
intellectually; seeking to solve every
philosophy, but using his intellect only.
Of course his family did not understand him; few
men would. His mother died when he was young; he
had plenty of money, everything was given to him
that he wanted. Both these boys with unlimited
money; both these boys with automobiles; both of
these boys with every luxury around them and in
front of them. They grew up in this environment.
Babe took to philosophy. I call him Babe, not
because I want it to affect Your Honor, but
because everybody else does. He is the youngest
of the family and I suppose that is why he got
his nickname. We will call him a man. Mr. Crowe
thinks it is easier to hang a man than a boy,
and so I will call him a man if I can think of
it.
He grew up in this way. He became enamored of
the philosophy of Nietzsche. Your Honor, I have
read almost everything that Nietzsche ever
wrote. He was a man of a wonderful intellect;
the most original philosopher of the last
century. Nietzsche believed that some time the
superman would be born, that evolution was
working toward the superman. He wrote one book,
Beyond Good and Evil, which was a criticism of
all moral codes as the world understands them; a
treatise holding that the intelligent man is
beyond good and evil, that the laws for good and
the laws for evil do not apply to those who
approach the superman. He wrote on the will to
power. Nathan Leopold is not the only boy who
has read Nietzsche. He may be the only one who
was influenced in the way that he was
influenced.
At seventeen, at sixteen, at eighteen, while
healthy boys were playing baseball or working on
the farm, or doing odd jobs, Babe was reading
Nietzsche, a boy who never should have seen it,
at that early age.
Nietzsche held a contemptuous, scornful attitude
to all those things which the young are taught
as important in life; a fixing of new values
which are not the values by which any normal
child has ever yet been reared. Nietzsche's
attitude is but a philosophical dream,
containing more or less truth, that was not
meant by anyone to be applied to life.
Nietzsche says, "The morality of the master
class is irritating to the taste of the present
day because of its fundamental principle that a
man has obligation only to his equals; that he
may act to all of lower rank and to all that are
foreign, as he pleases."
In other words, man has no obligations; he may
do with all other men and all other boys, and
all society, as he pleases. The superman was a
creation of Nietzsche.
The supermanlike qualities lie not in their
genius, but in their freedom from scruple. They
rightly felt themselves to be above the law.
What they thought was right, not because
sanctioned by any law, beyond themselves, but
because they did it. So the superman will be a
law unto himself What he does will come from the
will and superabundant power within him.
Here is a boy at sixteen or seventeen becoming
obsessed with these doctrines. There isn't any
question about the facts. Their own witnesses
tell it and every one of our witnesses tell it.
It was not a casual bit of philosophy with him;
it was his life. He believed in a superman. He
and Dickie Loeb were the supermen. There might
have been others, but they were two, and two
chums. The ordinary commands of society were not
for him.
Many of us read this philosophy but know that it
has no actual application to life; but not he.
It became a part of his being. It was his
philosophy. He lived it and practiced it; he
thought it applied to him, and he could not have
believed it excepting that it either caused a
diseased mind or was the result of a diseased
mind.
Here is a boy who by day and by night, in season
and out, was talking of the superman, owing no
obligations to anyone; whatever gave him
pleasure he should do, believing it just as
another man might believe a religion or any
philosophical theory.
You remember that I asked Dr. Church about these
religious cases and he said, "Yes, many people
go to the insane asylum on account of them,"
that "they place a literal meaning on parables
and believe them thoroughly"? I asked Dr.
Church, whom again I say I believe to be an
honest man, and an intelligent man, I asked him
whether the same thing might be done or might
come from a philosophical belie£ and he said,
"If one believed it strongly enough."
And I asked him about Nietzsche. He said he knew
something of Nietzsche, something of his
responsibility for the war, for which he perhaps
was not responsible. He said he knew something
about his doctrines. I asked him what became of
him, and he said he was insane for fifteen years
just before the time of his death. His very
doctrine is a species of insanity.
Here is a man, a wise man, perhaps not wise, but
a brilliant, thoughtful man who has made his
impress upon the world. Every student of
philosophy knows him. His own doctrines made him
a maniac. And here is a young boy, in the
adolescent age, harassed by everything that
harasses children, who takes this philosophy and
believes it literally. It is a part of his life.
It is his life. Do you suppose this mad act
could have been done by him in any other way?
What could he have to win from this homicide?
A boy with a beautiful home, with automobiles, a
graduate of college, going to Europe, and then
to study law at Harvard; as brilliant in
intellect as any boy that you could find; a boy
with every prospect that life might hold out to
him; and yet he goes out and commits this weird,
strange, wild, mad act, that he may die on the
gallows or live in a prison cell until he dies
of old age or disease.
He did it, obsessed of an idea, perhaps to some
extent influenced by what has not been developed
publicly in this case-perversions this case were
present in the boy. Both signs of insanity,
both, together with this act, proving a diseased
mind..
Is there any question about what was responsible
for him?
What else could be? A boy in his youth, with
every promise that the world could hold. out
before him, wealth and position and intellect,
yes, genius, scholarship, nothing that he could
not obtain, and he throws it away, and mounts
the gallows or goes into a cell for life. It is
too foolish to talk about. Can Your Honor
imagine a sane brain doing it? Can you imagine
it coming from anything but a diseased mind? Can
you imagine it is any part of normality? And
yet, Your Honor, you are asked to hang a boy of
his age, abnormal, obsessed of dreams and
visions, a philosophy that destroyed his life,
when there is no sort of question in the world
as to what caused his downfall.
I know, Your Honor, that every atom of life in
all this universe is bound up together. I know
that a pebble cannot be thrown into the ocean
without disturbing every drop of water in the
sea. I know that every life is inextricably
mixed and woven with every other life. I know
that every influence, conscious and unconscious,
acts and reacts on every living organism, and
that no one can fix the blame. I know that all
life is a series of infinite chances, which
sometimes result one way and sometimes another.
I have not the infinite wisdom that can fathom
it, neither has any other human brain. But I do
know that if back of it is a power that made it,
that power alone can tell, and if there is no
power then it is an infinite chance which man
cannot solve.
Why should this boy's life be bound up with
Frederick Nietzsche, who died thirty years ago,
insane, in Germany? I don't know. I only know it
is. I know that no man who ever wrote a line
that I read failed to influence me to some
extent. I know that every life I ever touched
influenced me, and I influenced it; and that it
is not given to me to unravel the infinite
causes and say, "This is I, and this is you." I
am responsible for so much; and you are
responsible for so much. I know that in the
infinite universe everything has its place and
that the smallest particle is a part of all.
Tell me that you can visit the wrath of fate and
chance and life and eternity upon a
nineteen-year-old boy! If you could, justice
would be a travesty and mercy a fraud.
There is something else in this case, Your
Honor, that is stronger still. There is a large
element of chance in life. I know I will die. I
don't know when; I don't know how; I don't know
where; and I don't want to know. I know it will
come. I know that it depends on infinite
chances. Did I make myself? And control my fate?
I cannot fix my death unless I commit suicide,
and I cannot do that because the will to live is
too strong; I know it depends on infinite
chances.
Take the rabbit running through the woods; a fox
meets him at a certain fence. If the rabbit had
not started when it did, it would not have met
the fox and would have lived longer. If the fox
had started later or earlier it would not have
met the rabbit and its fate would have been
different.
My death will depend upon chances. It may be by
the taking in of a germ; it may be a pistol; it
may be the decaying of my faculties, and all
that makes life; it may be a cancer; it may be
anyone of an indefinite number of things, and
where I am at a certain time, and whether I take
in that germ, and the condition of my system
when I breathe is an accident which is sealed up
in the book of fate and which no human being can
open.
These boys, neither one of them, could possibly
have committed this act excepting by coming
together. It was not the act for one; it was the
act of two. It was the act of their planning,
their conniving, their believing in each other;
their thinking themselves supermen. Without it
they could not have done it. It would not have
happened. Their parents happened to meet, these
boys happened to meet; some sort of chemical
alchemy operated so that they cared for each
other, and poor Bobby Franks's dead body was
found in the culvert as a result. Neither of
them could have done it alone.
I want to call your attention, Your Honor, to
the two letters in this case which settle this
matter to my mind conclusively; not only the
condition of these boys' minds, but the terrible
fate that overtook them.
Your Honor, I am sorry for poor Bobby Franks,
and I think anybody who knows me knows that I am
not saying it simply to talk. I am sorry for the
bereaved father and the bereaved mother, and I
would like to know what they would do with these
poor unfortunate lads who are here in this court
today. I know something of them, of their lives,
their charity, of their ideas, and nobody here
sympathizes with them
more than I.
On the twenty-first day of May, poor Bobby
Franks, stripped naked, was left in a culvert
down near the Indiana line. I know it came
through the mad act of mad boys. Mr. Savage told
us that Franks, if had lived, would have been a
great man and have accomplished much. I want to
leave this thought with Your Honor now. I do not
know what Bobby Franks would have been had he
grown to be a man. I do not know the laws that
control one's growth. Sometimes, Your Honor, a
boy of great promise is cut off in his early
youth. Sometimes he dies and is placed in a
culvert. Sometimes a boy of great promise stands
on a trap door and is hanged by the neck until
dead. Sometimes he dies of diphtheria. Death
somehow pays no attention to age, sex,
prospects, wealth or intellect.
And I want to say this, that the death of poor
little Bobby Franks should not be in vain. Would
it mean anything if on account of that death
these two boys were taken out and a rope tied
around their necks' and they died felons? Would
that show that Bobby Franks had a purpose in his
life and a purpose in his death? No, Your Honor,
the unfortunate and tragic death of this weak
young lad should mean something. I should mean
an appeal to the fathers and the mothers, an
appeal to the, teachers, to the religious
guides, to society at large. It should mean an
appeal to all of them to appraise children, to
understand the emotions that control them, to
understand the ideas that possess them, to teach
them to avoid the pitfalls of life.
I have discussed somewhat in detail these two
boys separately. The coming together was the
means of their undoing. Your Honor is familiar
with the facts in reference to their
association. They had a weird, almost impossible
relationship. Leopold, with his obsession of the
superman, had repeatedly said that Loeb was his
idea of the superman. He had the attitude toward
him that one has to his most devoted friend, or
that a man has to a lover. Without the
combination of these two nothing of this sort
probably could have happened. It is not
necessary for us, Your Honor, to rely upon words
to prove the condition of the boys' minds, and
to prove the effect of this strange and fatal
relationship between these two boys.
It is mostly told in a letter which the state
itself introduced in case. Not the whole story,
but enough of it is shown, so that no
intelligent, thoughtful person could fail to
realize what was the relationship between them
and how they had played upon each other to
effect their downfall and their ruin. I want to
read this letter once more, a letter which was
introduced by the state, a letter dated October
9, a month and three days before their trip to
Ann Arbor, and I want the court to say in his
own mind whether this letter was anything but
the products of a diseased mind, and if it does
not show a relationship that was responsible for
this terrible homicide. This was written by
Leopold to Loeb. They lived close together, only
a few blocks from each other; saw each other
every day, but Leopold wrote him this letter:
October 9,1923.
Dear Dick:
In view of our former relations, I take it for
granted that its [sic] unnecessary to make any
excuse for writing you at this time, and still I
am going to state my reasons for so doing, as
this may turn out to be a long letter, and I
don't want to cause you the inconvenience of
reading it all to find out what it contains if
you are not interested in the subjects dealt
with.
First, I am enclosing the document which I
mentioned to you today, and which I will explain
later. Second, I am going to tell you of a new
fact which has come up since our discussion. And
third, I am going to put in writing what my
attitude toward our present relations, with a
view of avoiding future possible
misunderstandings, and in the hope (though I
think it rather vain) that possibly we may have
misunderstood each other, and can yet clear this
matter up.
Now, as to the first, I wanted you this
afternoon, and still want you, to feel that we
are on an equal footing legally, and therefore,
I purposely committed the same tort of which you
were guilty, the only difference being that in
your case the facts would be harder to prove
than in mine, should I deny them. The enclosed
document should secure you against changing my
mind in admitting the facts, if the matter
should come up, as it would prove to any court
that they were true.
As to the second. On your suggestion I
immediately phoned Dick Rubel, and speaking from
a paper prepared beforehand (to be sure of the
exact wording) said: "Dick, when we were
together yesterday, did I tell you that Dick
(Loeb) had told me the things which I then told
you, or that it was merely my opinion that I
believed them to be so?"
I asked this twice to be sure he understood, and
on the same answer both times (which I took down
as he spoke) felt that he did understand.
He replied: "No, you did not tell me that Dick
told you these things, but said that they were
in your opinion true."
He further denied telling you subsequently that
I had said that they were gleaned from
conversation with you, and I then told him that
he was quite right, that you never had told me.
I further told him that this was merely your
suggestion of how to settle a question of fact
that he was in no way implicated, and that
neither of us would be angry with him at his
reply. (I imply your assent to this.)
This of course proves that you were mistaken
this afternoon in the question of my having
actually and technically broken confidence, and
voids my apology, which I made contingent on
proof of this matter.
Now, as to the third, last, and most important
question. When you came to my home this
afternoon I expected either to break friendship
with you or attempt to kill you unless you told
me why you acted as you did yesterday.
You did, however, tell me, and hence the
question shifted to the fact that I would act as
before if you persisted in thinking me
treacherous, either in act (which you waived if
Dick's opinion went with mine) or in intention.
Now, I apprehend, though here I am not quite
sure, that you said that you did not think me
treacherous in intent, nor ever have, but that
you considered me in the wrong and expected such
statement from me. This statement I
unconditionally refused to make until such time
as I may become convinced of its truth.
However, the question of our relation I think
must be in your hands (unless the above
conceptions are mistaken), inasmuch as you have
satisfied first one and then the other
requirement, upon which I agreed to refrain from
attempting to kill you or refusing to continue
our friendship. Hence I have no reason not to
continue to be on friendly terms with you, and
would under ordinary conditions continue as
before.
The only question, then, is with you. You demand
me to perform an act, namely, state that I acted
wrongly. This I refuse. Now it is up to you to
inflict the penalty for this refusal at your
discretion, to break friendship, inflict
physical punishment, or anything else you like,
or on the other hand to continue as before.
The decision, therefore, must rest with you.
This is all of my opinion on the right and wrong
of the matter.
Now comes a practical question. I think that I
would ordinarily be expected to, and in fact do
expect to continue my attitude toward you, as
before, until I learn either by direct words or
by conduct on your part which way your decision
has been formed. This I shall do.
Now a word of advice. I do not wish to influence
your decision either way, but I do want to warn
you that in case you deem it advisable to
discontinue our friendship, that in both our
interests extreme care must be had. The motif of
"A falling out of-" would be sure to be popular,
which is patently undesirable and forms an
irksome but unavoidable bond between us.
Therefore, it is, in my humble opinion,
expedient, though our breech need be no less
real in fact, yet to observe the
conventionalities, such as salutation on the
street and a general appearance of at least not
unfriendly relations on all occasions when we
may be thrown together in public.
Now, Dick, I am going to make a request to which
I have perhaps no right, and yet which I dare to
make also for "Auld Lang Syne." Will you, if not
too inconvenient, let me know your answer
(before I leave tomorrow) on the last count?
This, to which I have no right, would greatly
help my peace of mind in the next few days when
it is most necessary to me. You can if you will
merely call up my home before 12 noon and leave
a message saying, "Dick says yes," if you wish
our relations to continue as before, and "Dick
says no," if not.
It is unnecessary to add that your decision will
of course have no effect on my keeping to myself
our confidences of the past, and that I regret
the whole affair more than I can say.
Hoping not to have caused you too much trouble
in reading this, I am (for the present), as ever
"BABE"
Now, I undertake to say that under any
interpretation of this taking into account all
the things Your Honor knows, that have not been
made public, or leaving them out, nobody can
interpret that letter excepting on the theory of
a diseased mind, and with it goes this strange
document which was referred to in the letter:
I, Nathan F. Leopold Jr. being under no duress
or compulsion, do hereby affirm and declare that
on this, the ninth day of October, 1923, I for
reasons of my own locked the door of the room in
which I was with one Richard A. Loeb, with the
intent of blocking his only feasible mode of
egress, and that I further indicated my
intention of applying physical force upon the
person of the said Richard A. Loeb if necessary
to carry out my design, to wit, to block his
only feasible mode of egress.
There is nothing in this case, whether heard
alone by the court or heard in public, that can
explain these documents, on the theory that the
defendants were normal human beings....
But I am going to add a little more in an effort
to explain my system of the Nietzschean
philosophy with regard to you. It may not have
occurred to you why a mere mistake in judgment
on your part should be treated as a crime when
on the part of another it should not be so
considered? Here are the reasons. In formulating
a superman he is, on account of certain superior
qualities inherent in him, exempted from the
ordinary laws which govern ordinary men. He is
not liable for anything he may do, whereas
others would be, except for the one crime that
it is possible for him to commit, to make a
mistake.
Now obviously any code which conferred upon an
individual or upon a group extraordinary
privileges without also putting on him
extraordinary responsibility, would be unfair
and bad. Therefore, the superman is held to have
committed a crime every time he errs in
judgment, a mistake excusable in others. But you
may say that you have previously made mistakes
which did not treat as crimes. This is true. To
cite an example, the other night you expressed
the opinion, and insisted, that Marcus Aurelius
Antonius was practically the founder of
Stoicism. In so doing you committed a crime. But
it was a slight crime, and I chose to forgive
it. I have, and had before that, forgiven the
crime which you committed in committing the
error in judgment which caused the whole train
of events. I did not and do not wish to charge
you with crime, but I feel justified in using
any of the consequences of your crime for which
you are held responsible, to my advantage. This
and only this I did, so you see how careful you
must be.
Is that the letter of a normal eighteen-year-old
boy, or is it the letter of a diseased brain? Is
that the letter of boys acting as boys should,
and thinking as boys should, or is it the letter
of one whose philosophy has taken possession of
him, who understands that what the world calls a
crime is something that the superman may do, who
believes that the only crime the superman can
commit is to make a mistake? He believed it. He
was immature. It possessed him. It was manifest
in the strange compact that the court already
knows about between these two boys, by which
each was to yield something and each was to give
something. Out of that compact and out of these
diseased minds grew this terrible crime.
I submit the facts do not rest on the evidence
of these boys alone. It is proven by the
writings; it is proven by every act. It is
proven by their companions, and there can be no
question about it.
We brought into this courtroom a number of their
boyfriends, whom they had known day by day, who
had associated with them in the club-house, were
their constant companions, and they tell the
same stories. They tell the story that neither
of these two boys was responsible for his
conduct.
Maremont, whom the state first called, one of
the oldest of the boys, said that Leopold had
never had any judgment of any sort. They talked
about the superman. Leopold argued his
philosophy. It was a religion with him. But as
to judgment of things in life he had none. He
was developed intellectually, wanting
emotionally, developed in those things which a
boy does not need and should not have at his
age, but absolutely void of the healthy
feelings, of the healthy instincts of practical
life that are necessary to the child.
We called not less than ten or twelve of their
companions and all of them testified the same:
Dickie Loeb was not allowed by his companions
the privileges of his class because of his
childishness and his lack of judgment.
As to the standing of these boys amongst their
fellows, that they were irresponsible, that they
had no judgment, that they were childish, that
their acts were strange, that their beliefs were
impossible for boys, is beyond question in this
case.
And what did they do on the other side?
It was given out that they had a vast army of
witnesses. They called. three. A professor who
talked with Leopold only upon his law studies,
and two others who admitted all that we said, on
cross-examination, and the rest were dismissed.
So it leaves all of this beyond dispute and
admitted in this case.
Now both sides have called alienists and I will
refer to that for a few, moments. I shall only
take a little time with the alienists.
The facts here are plain; when these boys had
made the confession on Sunday afternoon before
their counsel or their friends had any chance to
see them, Mr. Crowe sent out for four men. He
sent out for Dr. Patrick, who is an alienist;
Dr. Church, who is an alienist; Dr. Krohn, who
is a witness, a testifier; and Dr. Singer, who
is pretty good, I would not criticize him but
would not class him with Patrick and with
Church. I have said to Your Honor that in my
opinion he sent for the two ablest men in
Chicago as far as the public knows them, Dr.
Church and Dr. Patrick. You heard Dr. Church's
testimony. Dr. Church is an honest man though an
alienist. Under cross-examination he admitted
every position which I took. He admitted the
failure of emotional life in these boys; he
admitted its importance; he admitted the
importance of beliefs strongly held in human
conduct; he said himself that if he could get at
all the facts he would understand what was back
of this strange murder. Every single position
that we have claimed in this case Dr. Church
admitted.
Dr. Singer did the same. The only difference
between them was this it took but one question
to get Dr. Church to admit it, and it took ten
to a dozen to get Dr. Singer. He objected and
hedged and ran and quibbled. There could be no
mistake about it, and Your Honor heard it in
this courtroom. He sought every way he could to
avoid the truth, and when it came to the point
that he could not dodge any longer, he
admitted every proposition just exactly the same
as Dr. Church admitted them: the value of
emotional life; its effect on conduct; that it
was the ruling thing in conduct, as every person
knows who is familiar with psychology and who is
familiar with the human system.
Could there be any doubt, Your Honor, but what
both those witnesses, Church and Singer, or any
doubt but what Patrick would have testified for
us? Now what did they do in their examination?
What kind of a chance did these alienists have?
It is perfectly obvious that they had none.
Church, Patrick, Krohn went into a room with
these two boys who had been in the possession of
the state's attorney's office for sixty hours;
they were surrounded by policemen, were
surrounded by guards and detectives and state's
attorneys; twelve or fifteen of them, and here
they told their story. Of course this audience
had a friendly attitude toward them. I know my
friend Judge Crowe had a friendly attitude
because I saw divers, various and sundry
pictures of Prosecutor Crowe taken with these
boys.
When I first saw them I believed it showed
friendship for the boys, but now I am inclined
to think that he had them taken just as a lawyer
who goes up in the country fishing has his
picture taken with his catch. The boys had been
led doubtless to believe that these people were
friends. They were taken there, in the presence
of all this crowd. What was done? The boys told
their story, and that was all. Of course, Krohn
remembered a lot that did not take place, and we
would expect that of him; and he forgot much
that did take place and we would expect that of
him, too. So far as the honest witnesses were
concerned, they said that not a word was spoken
excepting a little conversation upon birds and
the relation of the story that they had already
given to the state's attorney; and from that,
and nothing else, both Patrick and Church said
they showed no reaction as ordinary persons
should show it, and intimated clearly that the
commission of the crime itself would put them on
inquiry as to whether these boys were mentally
right; both admitted that the conditions
surrounding them made the right kind of
examination impossible; both admitted that they
needed a better chance to form a reliable
opinion.
The most they said was that at this time they
saw no evidence of Insanity.
Now, Your Honor, no experts, and no alienists
with any chance to examine, have testified that
these boys were normal.
Singer did a thing more marvelous still. He
never saw these boys until he came into this
court, excepting when they were brought down in
violation of their constitutional rights to the
office of judge Crowe, after they had been
turned over to the jailer, and there various
questions were asked them, and to all of these
the boys replied that they respectfully refused
to answer on advice of counsel. And yet that was
enough for Singer.
Your Honor, if these boys had gone to the office
of anyone of the eminent gentlemen, had been
taken by their parents or gone by themselves,
and the doctors had seriously tried to find out
whether there was anything wrong about their
minds, how would they have done it? They would
have taken them patiently and carefully. They
would have sough to get their confidence. They
would have listened to their story. The would
have listened to it in the attitude of a father
listening to his child. You know it. Every
doctor knows it. In no other way could they find
their mental condition. And the men who are
honest with this question
have admitted it.;
And yet Dr. Krohn will testify that they had the
best chance in the world, when his own
associates, sitting where they were, said they
did not.
Your Honor, nobody's life or liberty or property
should be taken from them upon an examination
like that. It was not an examination. It was
simply an effort to get witnesses, regardless of
facts, who might a some time come into court and
give their testimony, to take these boys' lives.
Now, I imagine that in closing this case judge
Crowe will say that our witnesses mainly came
from the East. That is true. And he is
responsible for it. I am not blaming him, but he
is responsible for it. There are other alienists
in Chicago, and the evidence shows that we had
the boys examined by numerous ones in Chicago.
We wanted to get the best. Did we get them?
Your Honor knows that the place where a man
lives does not affect his truthfulness or his
ability. We brought the man who stands probably
above all of them, and who certainly is far
superior to anybody called upon the other side.
First of all, we called Dr. William A. White.
And who is he? For many years he has been
superintendent of the Government Hospital for
the Insane in Washington; a man who has written
more books, delivered more lectures, and had
more honors, and knows this subject better than
all of their alienists put together; a man who
plainly came here not for money, and who
receives for his testimony the same per diem as
is paid by the other side; a man who knows his
subject, and whose ability and truthfulness must
have impressed this court. It will not do, Your
Honor, to say that because Dr. White is not a
resident of Chicago that he lies. No man stands
higher in the United States, no man is better
known than Dr, White, his learning and
intelligence was obvious from his evidence in
this case.
Who else did we get? Do I need to say anything
about Dr. Healy? Is there any question about his
integrity? A man who seldom goes into court
except upon the order of the court.
Your Honor was connected with the Municipal
Court. You know that Dr. Healy was the first man
who operated with the courts in the city of
Chicago to give aid to the unfortunate youths
whose minds were afflicted and who were the
victims of the law. His books are known wherever
men study boys. His reputation is known all over
the United States and in Europe. Compare him and
his reputation with Dr. Krohn. Compare it with
any other witness that the state called in this
case.
Dr. Glueck, who was for years the alienist at
Sing Sing, and connected with the penal
institutions in the state of New York; a man of
eminent attainments and ripe scholarship. No one
is his superior. And Dr. Hulbert, a young man
who spent nineteen days in the examination of
these boys, together with Dr. Bowen, an eminent
doctor in his line from Boston. These two
physicians spent all this time getting every
detail of these boys' lives, and structures;
each one of these alienists took all the time
they needed for a thorough examination, without
the presence of lawyers, detectives, and
policemen. Each one of these psychiatrists tells
this court the story, the sad, pitiful story, of
the unfortunate minds of these two young lads.
I submit, Your Honor, that there can be no
question about the relative value of these two
sets of alienists; there can be no question of
their means of understanding; there can be no
question but that "White, Glueck, Hulbert, and
Healy knew what they were talking about, for
they had every chance to find out. They are
either lying to this court, or their opinions
good.
On the other hand, not one single man called by
the state had any chance to know. He was called
in to see these boys, the same as the state
would call a hangman: "Here are the boys;
officer, do your duty." And that is all there
was of it.
Now, Your Honor, I shall pass that subject. I
think all of the facts of this extraordinary
case, all of the testimony of the alienists, all
that Your Honor has seen and heard, all their
friends and acquaintances who have come here to
enlighten this court, I think all of it shows
that this terrible act was the act of immature
and diseased brains, the act of children. Nobody
can explain it in any other way. No one can
imagine it in any other way. It is not possible
that it could have happened in any other way.
And I submit, Your Honor, that by every law of
humanity, by every law of justice, by every
feeling of righteousness, by every instinct of
pity, mercy, and charity, Your Honor should say
that because of the condition of these boys'
minds, it would be monstrous to visit upon them
the vengeance that is asked by the state.
I want to discuss now another thing which this
court must consider and which to my mind is
absolutely conclusive in this case. That is, the
age of these boys.
I shall discuss it more in detail than I have
discussed it before, and I submit, Your Honor,
that it is not possible for any court to hang
thesis two boys if he pays any attention
whatever to the modern attitude toward the
young, if he pays any attention whatever to the
precedents in this county, if he pays any
attention to the humane instincts which move
ordinary men.
I have a list of executions in Cook County
beginning in 1840, which I presume covers the
first one, because I asked to have it go to the
beginning. Ninety poor unfortunate men have
given up their lives to stop murder in Chicago.
Ninety men have been hanged by the neck until
dead, because of the ancient superstition that
in some way hanging one man keeps another from
committing a crime. The ancient superstition, I
say, because I defy the state to point to a
criminologist, a scientist, student, who has
ever said it. Still we go on, as if human
conduct was not influenced and controlled by
natural laws the same as all the rest of the
universe is the subject of law. We treat crime
as if it had no cause. We go on saying, "Hang
the unfortunates, and it will end." Was there
ever a murder without a cause? Was there ever a
crime without a cause? And yet all punishment
proceeds upon the theory that there is no cause;
and the only way to treat crime is to intimidate
every one into goodness and obedience to law. We
lawyers are a long way behind.
Crime has its cause. Perhaps all crimes do not
have the same cause. Perhaps all crimes do not
have the same cause but they all have some
cause. And people today are seeking to find out
the cause. We lawyers never try to find out.
Scientists are studying it; criminologists are
investigating it; but we lawyers go on and on
and on, punishing and hanging and thinking that
by general terror we can stamp out crime.
It never occurs to the lawyer that crime has a
cause as certainly as disease, and that the way
to rationally treat any abnormal condition is to
remove the cause. If a doctor were called on to
treat typhoid fever he would probably try to
find out what kind of milk or water the patient
drank, and perhaps clean out the well so that no
one else could get typhoid from the same source.
But if a lawyer was called on to treat a typhoid
patient, he would give him thirty days in jail,
and then he would think that nobody else would
ever dare to take it. If the patient got well in
fifteen days, he would be kept until his time
was up; if the disease was worse at the end of
thirty days, the patient would be released
because his time was out.
As a rule, lawyers are not scientists. They have
learned the doctrine of hate and fear, and they
think that there is only one way to make men
good, and that is to put them in such terror
that they do not dare to be bad. They act
unmindful of history, and science, and all the
experience of the past.
Still, we are making some progress. Courts give
attention to some things that they did not give
attention to before.
Once in England they hanged children seven years
of age; not necessarily hanged them, because
hanging was never meant for punishment; it was
meant for an exhibition. If somebody committed a
crime, he would be hanged by the head or the
heels, it didn't matter much which, at the four
crossroads, so that everybody could look at him
until his bones were bare, and so that people
would be good because they had seen the gruesome
result of crime and hate.
Hanging was not necessarily meant for
punishment. The culprit might be killed in any
other way, and then hanged. Hanging was an
exhibition. They were hanged on the highest
hill, and hanged at the crossways, and hanged in
public places, so that all men could see. If
there is any virtue in hanging, that was the
logical way, because you cannot awe men into
goodness unless they know about the hanging. We
have not grown better than the ancients. We have
grown more squeamish; we do not like to look at
it, that is all. They hanged them at seven
years; they hanged them again at eleven and
fourteen.
We have raised the age of hanging. We have
raised it by the humanity of courts, by the
understanding of courts, by the progress in
science which at last is reaching the law; and
in ninety men hanged in Illinois from its
beginning, not one single person under
twenty-three was ever hanged upon a plea of
guilty, not one. If Your Honor should do this,
you would violate every precedent that had been
set in Illinois for almost a century. There can
be no excuse for it, and no justification for
it, because this is the policy of the law which
is rooted in the feelings of humanity, which are
deep in every human being that thinks and feels.
There have been two or three cases where juries
have convicted boys younger than this, and where
courts on convictions have refused to set aside
the sentence because a jury had found it.
Your Honor, what excuse could you possibly have
for putting these boys to death? You would have
to turn your back on every precedent of the
past. You would have to turn your back on the
progress of the world. You would have to ignore
all human sentiment and feeling, of which I know
the court has his full share. You would have to
do all this if you would hang boys of eighteen
and nineteen years of age who have come into
this court and thrown themselves upon your
mercy.
Your Honor, I must hasten along, for I will
close tonight. I know I should have closed
before. Still there seems so much that I would
like to say. I do not know whether Your Honor,
humane and considerate as I believe you to be,
would have disturbed a jury's verdict in his
case, but I know that no judge in Cook County
ever himself upon a plea of guilty passed
judgment of death in a case below the age of
twenty-three, and only one at the age of
twenty-three was ever hanged on a plea of
guilty.
Your Honor, if in this court a boy of eighteen
and a boy of nineteen should be hanged on a plea
of guilty, in violation of every precedent of
the past, in violation of the policy of the law
to take care of the young, in violation of all
the progress that has been made and of the
humanity that has been shown in the care of the
young; in violation of the law that places boys
in reformatories instead of prisons, if Your
Honor in violation of all that and in the face
of all the past should stand here in Chicago
alone to hang a boy on a plea of guilty, then we
are turning our' faces backward, toward the
barbarism which once possessed the world. If
Your Honor can hang a boy at eighteen, some
other judge can hang him at seventeen, or
sixteen, or fourteen. Someday, if there is any
such thing as progress in the world, if there is
any spirit of humanity that is working in the
hearts of men, someday men would look back upon
this as a barbarous age which deliberately set
itself in the way of progress, humanity, and
sympathy, and committed an unforgivable act.
I do not know how much salvage there is in these
two boys, hate to say it in their presence, but
what is there to look forward to? I do not know
but what Your Honor would be merciful if you
tied a rope around their necks and let them die;
merciful to them, but not merciful to
civilization, and not merciful to those who
would be left behind. To spend the balance of
their days in prison is mighty little to look
forward to, if anything. Is it anything? They
may have the hope that as the years roll around
they might be released. I do not know. I will be
honest with this court as I have tried to be
from the beginning. I know that these boys are
not fit to be at large. I believe they will not
be until they pass through the next stage of
life, at forty-five or fifty. Whether they will
be then, I cannot tell. I am sure of this; that
I will not be here to help them. So far as I am
concerned, it is over.
I would not tell this court that I do not hope
that some time, when life and age has changed
their bodies, as it does, and has changed their
emotions, as it does, that they may once more
return to life. I would be the last person on
earth to close the door of hope to any human
being that lives, and least of all to my
clients. But what have they to look forward to?
Nothing. And I think here of the stanzas of
Housman:
Now hollow fires burn out to black,
And lights are fluttering low:
Square your shoulders, lift your pack
And leave your friends and go.
O never fear, lads, naught's to dread,
Look not left nor right:
In all the endless road you tread
There's nothing but the night.
I care not, Your Honor, whether the march begins
at the gallows or when the gates of Joliet close
upon them, there is nothing but the night, and
that is little for any human being to expect.
But there are others to be considered. Here are
these two families, who have led honest lives,
who will bear the name that they bear, and
future generations must carry it on. Here is
Leopold's father, and this boy was the pride of
his life. He watched him, he cared for him, he
worked for him; the boy was brilliant and
accomplished, he educated him, and he thought
that fame and position awaited him, as it should
have awaited. It is a hard thing for a father to
see his life's hopes crumble into dust.
Should he be considered? Should his brothers be
considered? Will it do society any good or make
your life safer, or any human being's life
safer, if it should be handed down from
generation to generation, that this boy, their
kin, died upon the scaffold?
And Loeb's, the same. Here is the faithful uncle
and brother, who have watched here day by day,
while Dickie's father and his mother are too ill
to stand this terrific strain, and shall be
waiting for a message which means more to them
than it can mean to you or me. Shall these be
taken into account in this general bereavement?
Now, I must say a word more and then I will
leave this with you where I should have left it
long ago. None of us are unmindful of the
public; courts are not, and juries are not. We
placed our fate in the hands of a trained court,
thinking that he would be more mindful and
considerate than a jury. I cannot say how people
feel. I have stood here for three months as one
might stand at the ocean trying to sweep back
the tide. I hope the seas are subsiding and the
wind is falling, and I believe they are, but I
wish to make no false pretense to this court.
The easy thing and the popular thing to do is to
hang my clients. I know it. Men and women who do
not think will applaud. The cruel and the
thoughtless will approve. It will be easy today;
but in Chicago, and reaching out over the length
and breadth of the land, more and more fathers
and mothers, the humane, the kind, and the
hopeful, who are gaining an understanding and
asking questions not only about these poor boys
but about their own, these will join in no
acclaim at the death of my clients. But, Your
Honor, what they shall ask may not count. I know
the easy way. I know Your Honor stands between
the future and the past. I know the future is
with me, and what I stand for here; not merely
for the lives of these two unfortunate lads, but
for all boys and all girls; for all of the
young, and as far as possible, for all of the
old. I am pleading for life, understanding,
charity, kindness, and the infinite mercy that
considers all. I am pleading that we overcome
cruelty with kindness and hatred with love. I
know the future is on my side. Your Honor stands
between the past and the future. You may hang
these boys; you may hang them, by the neck until
they are dead. But in doing it you will turn
your face toward the past. In doing it you are
making it harder for every other boy who in
ignorance and darkness must grope his way
through the mazes which only childhood knows. In
doing it you will make it harder for unborn
children. You may save them and make it easier
for every child that some time may stand where
these boys stand. You will make it easier for
every human being with an aspiration and a
vision and a hope and a fate. I am pleading for
the future; I am pleading for a time when hatred
and cruelty will not control the hearts of men.
When we can learn by, reason and judgment and
understanding and faith that all life is worth
saving, and that mercy is the highest attribute
of man.
I feel that I should apologize for the length of
time I have taken. This case may not be as
important as I think it is, and I am sure I do
not need to tell this court, or to tell my
friends, that I would fight just as hard for the
poor as for the rich. If I should succeed in
saving these boys' lives and do nothing for the
progress of the law, I should feel sad, indeed.
If I can succeed, my greatest reward and my
greatest hope will be that I have done something
for the tens of thousands of other boys, or the
countless unfortunates who must tread the same
road in blind childhood that these poor boys
have trod, that I have done something to help
human understanding, to temper justice with
mercy, to overcome hate with love.
I was reading last night of the aspiration of
the old Persian poet, Omar Khayyam. It appealed
to me as the highest that can vision. I wish it
was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts
of all:
So I be written in the Book of Love,
Do not care about that Book above.
Erase my name or write it as you will,
So I be written in the Book of Love.
This is page 2 of
2. Go here for
page 1 of this speech.
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