CHAPTER XXII.

“The Unwritten Law”--The Defense Ends.

DELMAS IN FINAL BURST OF ELOQUENCE CONCLUDES STORY OF EVELYN THAW’S SAD FATE--DECLARES STANFORD WHITE A MONSTER WHOM THAW WAS JUSTIFIED IN PUTTING OUT OF THE WAY--CRAZED BY WRONGS DONE TO EVELYN--REMARKABLE SERIES OF LETTERS--DEFENDANT PICTURED AS A BENEFACTOR TO SOCIETY--“I NOW, WITH ALL SOLEMNITY, LEAVE IN YOUR HANDS THE FATE OF HARRY K. THAW.”

In a final burst of eloquence seldom equaled before the American bar, Attorney Delmas concluded his pitiful tale of the wrongs of Evelyn Thaw and her husband, and concluded dramatically:

“I now, with all solemnity, gentlemen of the jury, leave in your hands the fate of Harry K. Thaw.”

Mr. Delmas made a direct appeal to the unwritten law. He said:

“Let me call the ‘insanity’ of Thaw ‘Dementia Americana.’ It is the species of insanity that makes every American man believe his home to be sacred; that is the species of insanity which makes him believe the honor of his daughter is sacred; that is the species of insanity which makes him believe the honor of his wife is sacred; that is the species of insanity which is him believe that whosoever invades his home, that whosoever stains the virtue of his threshold, has violated the highest of human laws and must appeal to the mercy of God, if mercy there be for him anywhere in the universe.”

The point of Delmas’ whole argument was that Stanford White deserved his fate; that Harry Thaw in shooting the architect had acted as the champion of purity and goodness, and that he had slain a foul monster that had preyed upon the virtue of women.

The closing part of the summing up by Delmas was as follows:

“I will relieve the long suspense which has been occasioned by your labors by announcing that I will shortly leave the fate of this defendant in your hands. Before entering upon the remarks which I propose making it may be useful to cast a rapid glance over what I have already said, so that you may connect what I shall have to say with what I have already said.

“I have endeavored to lay before the eyes of the jury the picture of the fate of these two young people. I had tried to show the unfortunate occurrence which befell her when she narrated to him in the summer of 1903 her awful story of what had happened. I have shown, or at least have endeavored to convince you, first, that the facts which she swears she then related were true and, secondly, that it was true that she did relate them to the defendant at that time.”

Here Mr. Delmas endeavored to prove these facts.

“Gentlemen, I shall prove to you from a number of sources, and first, without adding any words of my own, in the very language in which it was told by Evelyn when she was testifying before you.

“She says, after narrating what took place in Paris in June, 1903: ‘The effect of this story on Mr. Thaw was terrible. To think of me--I was so young--and to think of this big, great yellow brute. It must have been frightful. He could not think of it. He would walk up and down the room exclaiming, “Oh, God; oh, God,” and kept sobbing, not like an ordinary sob, but a terrible sob. He kept saying, “Go on, tell me the whole story.” He said it was not my fault--that I was simply a poor unfortunate little girl; that he didn’t think any the less of me on account of it, and he said that no matter what happened he would always be my friend. He renewed his proposal of marriage two months after. He said that I was not to blame--that it was not my fault.

“‘I told him that if I did marry him the friends of Stanford White would always laugh at him--that they knew about it and would be able to sneer at him after our marriage; that it would not be right for us to get married; that it would not be a good thing because of his family; it would get him into trouble in his social relations. He kept saying that he could never care for or love anybody else. He said he never could marry another woman and that he wanted to make me his honorable wife. He said I was an unfortunate person and he thought just as much of me.

“‘He kept pressing me to become his wife, but I said I could go on the stage. I said that if he ever met some one he wanted to marry he would be perfectly free to do so.

“‘I loved him so dearly, but during the whole period I was refusing his offers of marriage because I loved him. And I also respected him.’

“‘Sublime renunciation,’ says the sneering district attorney. ‘Sublime refusal on her part to accept the hand of a wealthy man when he offered her an honorable union.’

“Incredible, he would lead you to believe.

“‘Impossible!’ the district attorney says, and in the same breath intimates that it is a falsehood from beginning to end.

“I shall prove to you by evidence that will convince you beyond every doubt that this renunciation by Evelyn was sincere. But, thank God, the great Creator has placed in the breast of gentler woman the noble sentiment and renunciation for the consolation of the home and of the world.

“But I shall prove to you that it is true. I shall prove to you beyond the slightest doubt that she did refuse him, and refused him for that reason alone.

“Man, it may be, has not that great power of renunciation, but in the gentler breast of woman do we find that great gift of God, and in the breast of this little girl existed this great strength that enabled her to put aside her one love when she knew it was for the good of the one she loved.

“Sublime renunciation! Ah, it indeed is. Do you remember the letters he wrote three months after this sublime renunciation? He says in a letter written in September, 1903: ‘Three months ago I asked her point-blank. She thought, but said she would not; that it would shut me out,’ etc.

“The genuineness of this letter is not disputed; that it was written to Mr. Longfellow is not denied; that Mr. Longfellow was the trusted friend and adviser of Harry Thaw is admitted. Three months before September, 1903, when this was written, was in the early summer of 1903. Is not that true? Is it not true that she had refused him? In this letter he says she thought she did not want the man she loved to become an object of scorn.

“She looked up to the man she loved and she did not want the man she loved to be pointed at with the finger of scorn.

“In her little heart she said, ‘Oh, Harry, I love you. I love you so much that I will not drag you down. I want to leave you free, and the moment you say so I shall return to my own sad way. You shall be free and happy and I will go down until I, like many others, have disappeared from the world.’

“The sneer, then, is unjustified. The sublime renunciation did take place, although we men may not rise above our sordid occupations to realize it. Do you remember how his mother saw him holding his vigil in his room; heard him sob and moan, and how he told her about the awful wrongs done to a little girl whom he loved?

“And he told her he desired to protect the child from the vile wrong that had been done her; that he had proposed marriage, and that she--I quote the very words of the mother--that she had refused because she would not drag him down.

“Has this gray-haired and venerable mother in Israel come here to perjure herself, or did he deceive her when he told her that he wanted to extend his protecting arm over the girl whom the other had betrayed; that she, the poor little girl who was earning her living by the talents God had given her--she refused the man, not because she did not love him, but because she thought it would not be fitting to wed the man she so dearly loved.

“Sublime, indeed, was the renunciation of this girl, unless the mother of Harry Thaw has not told the truth upon the stand. I return to her story as told in her own words. She says: ‘He talked altogether too much of this thing. He did not sleep nights. He cried too much about it. It was not crying, but terrible sobbing. He would sit for hours without speaking or moving, and it was terrible, terrible. He got worse about it. He would sit for hours in a chair, just biting his nails. And then, in the midst of it, he would suddenly ask me about Stanford White. It seemed to be something that was ever present.’

“This, gentlemen, was the condition of Harry Thaw when, in 1903, he parted from Evelyn Nesbit and sent her back ahead of him to New York. You have the first faint dawn of that mental condition which manifested itself three years after. The tower in which reason held its seat did not topple over, but its foundations were already beginning to be undermined.

“The storm had not burst forth, but the dark clouds were gathering from the four quarters of the horizon, from which lightning and thunder were three years afterwards to burst forth.

“She says that he called upon her as soon as he arrived in New York--the middle of November. She had got to this city in the latter part of October. In the meantime such things had happened here that when the man whom she loved and whose hand she had refused called upon her she declined to see him alone, and she says: ‘I saw him at the Navarre. I would not see him alone. He came into the room and sat beside me and said: “What is the matter with you?” and I said: “I don’t care to speak to you because I have heard certain things about you.” He said he did not understand, and wanted me to tell him.

“‘I told him that I had heard terrible stories. He said, “Poor Evelyn! They have deceived you!” I told him that Mr. White had taken me to Abraham Hummel’s office and that they had showed me papers which they said were filed in a suit by a young woman against him. He said, “Poor little girl! You can believe them if you wish.” The interview lasted ten minutes. I persisted I did not want to have anything to do with him. At the parting he kissed my hand and said no matter what happened he would always love me and I would be an angel to him.’

“Gentlemen, I ask you to picture yourself in the state of mind Harry Thaw was in when he received such a greeting from the woman he loved--the one he had parted from but a few weeks ago; the one he had sworn to devote his whole life to. I ask you to imagine what his condition of mind was when he returned to New York and found that she had had her mind so poisoned against him again by the man who had been the cause of all her misfortune.

“She would allow White to fill her mind with these terrors of Harry Thaw to such an extent that she refused to see Harry Thaw alone. And what must have been the condition of mind of that poor man when he exclaimed, ‘Oh, poor, deluded Evelyn!’ and stooped and kissed her and then parted, as she believed, forever from her.

“Gentlemen, what was the condition of his mind is pictured to your eyes by documents of immeasurable worth, telling the story of this epoch in Harry Thaw’s life.

“The series of letters that voiced the wail that came from his suffering soul is unparalleled in history from the time of the Greeks to the present day.

“He wrote to her the day after he had kissed her hand and parted from her--she thought for all time--he wrote: ‘Yesterday I saw you--you believed everything false people told you. Poor little Evelyn! You have fallen back into the hands of the man who poisoned your life--who poisoned your mind. I have no reproaches to heap on your head, for I know you are honest.

“‘I must fight this battle alone.’ his letter went on. ‘I should have bet every cent in the world three weeks ago that no hypnotism in the world could have made you turn on me.’

“If this man (Hummel) who sat upon that chair and perjured himself in your presence--had he kept away with his smooth tongue and professional tricks and devices, poor little Evelyn Thaw would not have turned away from her the man who loved her and who was ready to sacrifice his life for her.

“She would not have broken the vow which she pledged. She would have kept the purest thing from the pollution of those double-minded, lying, deceitful, treacherous persons.

“‘I am changed, but not in truth or faithfulness. Alone I cannot settle down. I am not responsible now, so I am frivolous and not at all as I was before. I can do no more than make the best of it, which was far from bad except for regrets--every loss, every illness, every opportunity missed--all these together are but as the raging sea of water to a battling ship. Everything is trivial to me now.’

“Pages neither of poetry nor oratory contain a more simple story of anguish than the one of this young man, seeing the object of his affections won from him by this man who had wrecked her life.

“All was lost to him and the world appeared to him flat. He had nothing to live for--all the ambitions of his life were gone and whatever could happen was but as a glass of water in the sea in which a ship was battling. He left New York in November for his mother’s home in Pittsburg in this condition.

“Up to that time Harry Thaw had been a man of cheerful and sanguine temperament. His mother saw a change had come over her son the moment he crossed the door. His manner was entirely different. He had an absent-minded look, as if he had lost everything.

“She told how she then in the dark of night had found him sitting up on his bed fully dressed--how she questioned him. ‘It’s no use,’ he said, ‘I cannot sleep.’ The mother was allowed to peep into the heart of the suffering son by the story she brought out, little by little.

“But even then he would not tell the girl’s name, and then you remember the scene in the church and while the organ pealed; how the sob broke from his throat and the tears gushed from his eyes, and how when his mother asked him why he had sobbed he answered, ‘But for him she might have been with us today.’

“That was the condition of his mind; that one thing was ever in his mind.

“He could not, he would not forget--great, courageous, indomitable man, who believes he has a mission to fulfill, to make one more effort to rescue her from the hands of vice into which Stanford White had lured her. He came back to New York and met her in a drug store, where the artificial means were found to supply the beauty she possessed, and he said: ‘Oh, these things are not for you.’ And you remember how, afterward, they met as mere acquaintances in the street and passed the time of day.

“Here again no words of mine could supply the picture that is furnished by the words of the wife herself as they fell from her lips on the stand. She says that when they met at the Cafe Beaux Arts: ‘I said I was going to a play, and Mr. Thaw said I looked badly and wished I would not go to the play. He would pay me my salary I would lose--that he would send it through a third party. He begged me merely for the sake of my health not to go to the theater.

“‘But I said that I would go; that I had no other means of livelihood.’ You remember they met a couple of days afterward and he asked her to tell him of the stories that had been told about him. ‘I told him then,’ she said, ‘all they had said about him and that he was addicted to morphine and had many other vices, and he said he could easily understand that they had made a fool of me. He urged investigation.’

“She could find nothing in the stories. ‘I never lie,’ Thaw told her. ‘You never told me a lie in your life,’ she said. And while she was investigating these stories spread by Abraham Hummel for the protection of Stanford White, he told her all these things had been disseminated by Stanford White and his friend.

“When she discovered that these awful stories were untrue--learned that they had been disseminated by Stanford White and Abe Hummel for the purpose of separating her from the man who loved her and whom she loved--hope began once more to dawn upon him.

“The hour of reconciliation was at hand. The barriers which had been set up between them were one by one falling to ruin and the two persons whom God and nature had intended to be united were drawing nearer to each other.

“That night in December, 1903--that night might have been, gentlemen, the beginning of another tragic chapter in the life of this poor child--the night when Stanford White in the lofty room in the tower where he had spread a banquet in celebration of the birthday of his child victim--the night in which he was to lure her once again if possible, and bring her under his influence--the night in which, amid the glare of the lights and the splendor of the treasures he had planned to renew his power over the child victim.

“And the little girl, who had resisted the pleadings of rescuing her came to her and snatched her from the clutches of Stanford White--snatched her from the snares set for her--from the man whose very existence had been a menace to her and the curse of his whole life.

“He folded her in his arms; he snatched her away from the old man. And that night began another series of events. It was on that night that Stanford White, baffled, his plans disconcerted, went about that theater in Madison Square hunting for his victim, and, finding her not, pistol in hand and with impotent rage in his heart, threatened to shoot the man who had baffled his schemes.

“And that night Harry Thaw, as he walked the streets of New York, found that his footsteps were being dogged by hired malefactors in the pay of Stanford White, and he learned in a few days of the threat of Stanford White and his hirelings. From that moment the dread of his life being taken away by this man added a grim specter to the one that already had been haunting him.

“And he from that time, as she relates to you, began to think himself persecuted by Stanford White. The scurrilous stories circulated in newspapers and elsewhere he attributed to him. He expressed apprehension of personal violence and impressed upon her mind that if he died she was to have his death investigated and to spare no pains.

“He told her he would probably be set upon in New York by some one in the employ of Stanford White. He said the Monk Eastman gang had been hired to kill him and the fear of death constantly haunted him.

“Consider in this connection, consider the strange clause in his will--if you will not take it from Evelyn--the strange clause appropriating the sum of $50,000 to be devoted to the investigation into his death, should it occur.

“In 1904, in the latter part of the year, or the beginning of 1905, a second operation was performed on Evelyn. And when she was convalescent the man who for two years had loved her, the man who had told her sad story to his mother in 1903, who had been refused by her because she thought their union would interfere with his family relations--that man, I say, such was the constancy and fervor of his love, persuaded his mother to come to the little girl whose sad story she knew and whom in her heart she could not but revere.

“And she came to New York--she, embodiment of all that a good wife and mother means--she came and saw the little girl and assured her that she would be welcome to her home; that no allusion would ever be made to her sad story.

“And the little girl, who had resisted the pleadings of the man who had loved her and because she loved him, could not resist the pleadings of the mother, and on April 4, 1905, they were united at the altar, when he in return for her love pledged to her before Almighty God that he would protect her. And these two were then made one.

“And after a trip westward they returned to the shades of Lyndhurst, the old family homestead. They were happy in each other’s love, happy in each other’s confidence, forgetting the past.

“But social or business exigencies would not prevent them from coming to New York, and one day while riding down one of your streets there appeared the form of the man who had been the cause of so much anguish, and he, though she was the wife of another man, stared at her, and had the audacity to call her by her first name.

“She went back to the hotel where her husband was, and told him what had happened. And he, in his anger, exclaimed: ‘The dirty blackguard had no right to speak to you--no right to speak your name.’ And he extracted from her the promise that no matter what happened she would tell him all.

“‘He made me,’ she says, ‘promise that if I ever saw Stanford White I was to come home and tell him of it.’

“They next met in New York when she was going to a physician. Their hansoms crossed at Thirty-fourth street. He stared at her, pulled at his mustache, and stared and stared. She did not speak to him, but looked away and turned into Twenty-second street.

“He also turned, and as she ran up the stairs of her doctor’s he followed her. She became frightened, and ran down the steps and jumped into a hansom and drove to the Lorraine, where she told her husband.

“‘He got excited,’ she said, ‘and bit his nails.’ In May, 1906, not long before the hour which was to be Stanford White’s last on earth, this is the story that she related to her husband. She told him that Miss Mae MacKenzie had told her that Stanford White had been to the hospital to see her. That she, Mae MacKenzie, had said to him, ‘Isn’t it nice the way Harry and Evelyn really do care for each other?’ and that she said that she had found it out, and that Stanford White said: ‘Pooh! I don’t believe it.’ And Miss MacKenzie had replied: ‘Oh, yes; it is true. I know it myself, and I think it is so nice,’ and Stanford White had remarked: ‘Well, it will not last long. I will get her back.’ All this she related to her husband.

“Then, when she told her husband what Mae MacKenzie had told her, he became wild, and began to gnaw his finger nails. Did he not have cause to get wild, to lose that reason which in a civilized community one is supposed to stifle?

“‘I stole her once from her mother, I will steal her now from her husband,’ Stanford White said. But between him and the consummation of that act there remained the strong arm of that young man to protect her from his snares.

“You remember how at Daly’s Theater Harry Thaw and his wife saw Stanford White in a box opposite, and how when he saw him, he became enraged.

“When he looked into those eyes, into which so many a young girl had looked before she went down to her ruin, his eyes grew wild and he just sat there and stared and stared at the object of his thoughts. She says, describing another meeting: ‘At another time, when Harry and I were passing Herald Square in a hansom, we saw Stanford White on the street. Mr. Thaw grew white and his eyes glared. He talked so fast that I could not understand him. He carried on in this way for about fifteen minutes. I believe Harry had a fit then and there. He shook violently. He moaned and clenched and unclenched his hands, and that was the way he acted when he saw Stanford White.

“‘One Sunday,’ said Evelyn, ‘he was sitting in a chair in my room and suddenly he began to sob and cry without any warning whatever, apparently gazing upon vacancy.’

“His mind was always on this man. He cried until at last his own wife could not but believe this subject--the thought of Stanford White--had preyed so on his mind that he had become insane.

“The man who had brooded over those pictures of horror for three years--this man would have been more than human if he could have preserved a calmness of reason. Now, gentlemen, place yourselves in the position of this defendant.

“Recall the time, those of you who have wives, recall the time that you led the one you loved to the altar, and if possible do this defendant justice. You remember when the little lady tells you that her husband on this subject had lost his mind--do you remember in this connection the spontaneous exclamation of the friend who, on hearing the shots fired on the Madison Square Roof-garden, made the exclamation: ‘This is the act of an insane man.’

“Gentlemen, nothing now remains for me to do but to call your attention to the events of the night of the tragedy. With a view simply of elucidating the great point, fix your attention on this point--that is, the condition of mind of the defendant on that fateful night--you recall that Mr. Thaw, his wife and two friends were seated at dinner at the Cafe Martin, a place of public entertainment in this city. The time was summer, the evening doubtless was sultry. Tables had been set upon the balcony, the veranda on the outside for the accommodation of those who desired a cooler spot.

“Now, while this party of four were seated at the table, Stanford White, by accident or design, came into the room in which they were seated. He came in through such an entrance that Harry Thaw himself could not see him. After White went out on the veranda on the Fifth avenue side and remained there a considerable time.

“The wife, seeing him, forbore at the time to call her husband’s attention to him, and only when he was gone did she call his attention on paper. She wrote upon it, ‘The B----’ (meaning blackguard) ‘was there, but has gone out again.’

“As denoting the condition of mind of the defendant at that time, he turned to his wife and said to her, ‘Are you all right?’ and her answer that she was mastered every emotion he had in that public place and the incident had no further consequence. Now, you will remember that during the afternoon Thaw had procured four tickets for the performance that was to take place that night at the garden. He took with him his party and on the way took along another friend to whom he gave his own seat. He went about with his busy, nervous activity which characterizes him until he found a seat beside the witness Smith.

“He sat by Mr. Smith for half an hour engaging in such idle conversation as so-called men of the world indulge in--men whose minds are not seriously engaged in the serious problems of life.

“When Thaw saw White he walked quietly and slowly down the aisle until he faced White and then fired three shots.

“He then slowly and deliberately turned away--and I wish to call your attention especially to this circumstance, apparently slight, but to my mind of the utmost importance, and testified to by the defense. Mr. Meyer Cohen, one of the witnesses, said that as soon as he heard the shots he looked and saw Thaw standing facing the audience with his arms spread out in the form of a cross, a circumstance which has not been dwelt upon by any of the learned experts for the State.

“Mr. Thaw stood as a priest might have stood after some ceremony of sacrificial offering, saying, ‘All is over,’ and dismissing the congregation. He turned his pistol barrel down to indicate to the audience that there was no danger to them.

“He then walked slowly to where his wife stood, and when she said, ‘Oh, Harry, what have you done?’ he replied: ‘It is all right, dearie, I have probably saved your life.’ As he said this he stooped and kissed her. When he was disarmed he said, ‘He has ruined my wife.’ When the policeman came he said: ‘He has ruined my wife.’

“I have dwelt upon these acts and declarations of Mr. Thaw at that time to call your attention to the fact that the safety of his wife was menaced by the man who had followed her to the garden, the same man who had followed her to Dr. Delavan, the same man who had said to Mae MacKenzie he would get this young wife away from Thaw.

“What condition of mind must Harry K. Thaw have been in when walking down the aisle he turned and suddenly saw the form--the hideous form--of the man who had caused so much unhappiness.

“If you have been near death you know that at such a time the mind travels with the rapidity of lightning. The mind goes back over the past like lightning. Then Thaw, as he looked upon the hideous form of this man, saw the whole panorama of White’s life. He saw him making his way into the family where poverty dwelt; saw him laying bare his plans to ingratiate himself; saw him giving the mother money to absent herself from the city that he might perpetrate the deed of shame he had planned; saw him inflaming her youthful imagination; plying her with wine; saw her mind wandering under the fatal drug; saw her losing consciousness; saw her in her shame; saw him next day kissing the hem of her dress; heard his thousand protestations of love; heard her refusing, and saw that chamber in Paris where she told him the story of her wrongs; heard again his oft proposals to her; he saw that terrible night when she had told him her story; he saw himself as he walked the floor and cried, ‘Oh, God! Oh, God!’

“He saw her return to New York; he saw her meet this man who had wronged her; he saw her about to fall into this villain’s hands, and he saw himself rescue her from this man. He saw himself again at the altar marrying her.

“He saw her when her mind was poisoned against him by the same man who had ruined her; he saw her rescued from the man; he went over the happy months he had lived with her in his mother’s house; he saw this monster and he heard his words, ‘I will get her back,’ and he knew not, he reasoned not, he struck as does the tigress to protect her home--struck for the purity of American homes--struck for the purity of American maidens--struck for the purity of American wives. He struck, and who shall say he was not right?

“He had appealed to the Pinkertons, to the district attorney, and that night he appealed to God, and God that night answered that cry--the cry of the fatherless child. And God then redeemed the promise He had made thousands of years ago when He said He would hear the cries of the afflicted and that He would make the wives of the oppressors widows and their children orphans.

“Ah, gentlemen, what was his condition of mind at that time? Men, judge your fellow-man as ye would be judged. Place yourselves as far as in your power lies in the place he stood.

“It is for the district attorney to prove that the defendant was sane, and if he fails to do this he has not established his case. He must establish that he was sane at the time.

“And I ask you not to violate any law, and I ask you to judge by that law which bids you do unto others what you desire others to do unto you.

“Send this young man to his death for what he did when goaded into frenzy by the persecution he had suffered? He turned at last as the weakest of created things will turn--as a worm, it is said, will turn against his tormentors--send him to his death for that?

“Ah, gentlemen, recall the language of the great book in which is contained the wisdom and religion of the people of old, and I say to you, Is Jonathan to die for ridding Israel of its pollution?

“Is Jonathan to die for working this great salvation in Israel?

“God forbid! Not a hair of his head shall fall to the ground, for he walked with God on that day.

“I now with all solemnity leave in your hands the fate of Harry K. Thaw.”