By eight o'clock the next morning the great city papers were on the stands with the sprawling headlines, whichinformed every one in no uncertain terms
PROSECUTION IN GRIFFITHS' CASE CLOSES WITH IMPRESSIVE DELUGE OF TESTIMONY.""MOTIVE AS WELL AS METHOD HAMMERED HOME.""DESTRUCTIVE MARKS ON FACE AND HEAD SHOWN TO CORRESPOND WITH ONE SIDE OFCAMERA.""MOTHER OF DEAD GIRL FAINTS AT CLOSE OF DRAMATIC READING OF HER LETTERS."And the architectonic way in which Mason had built his case, together with his striking and dramaticpresentation of it, was sufficient to stir in Belknap and Jephson, as well as Clyde, the momentary conviction thatthey had been completely routed--that by no conceivable device could they possibly convince this jury now thatClyde was not a quadruple-dyed villain.
And all congratulating Mason on the masterly way he had presented his case. And Clyde, greatly reduced andsaddened by the realization that his mother would be reading all that had transpired the day before. He must askJephson to please wire her so that she would not believe it. And Frank and Julia and Esta. And no doubt Sondrareading all this, too, to-day, yet through all these days, all these black nights, not one word! A reference now and then in the papers to a Miss X but at no time a single correct picture of her. That was what a family with moneycould do for you. And on this very day his defense would begin and he would have to go forward as the onlywitness of any import. Yet asking himself, HOW COULD HE? The crowd. Its temper. The nervous strain of itsunbelief and hatred by now. And after Belknap was through with him, then Mason. It was all right for Belknapand Jephson. They were in no danger of being tortured, as he was certain of being tortured.
Yet in the face of all this, and after an hour spent with Jephson and Belknap in his cell, finding himself back inthe courtroom, under the persistent gaze of this nondescript jury and the tensely interested audience. And nowBelknap rising before the jury and after solemnly contemplating each one of them, beginning
Gentlemen--somewhat over three weeks ago you were told by the district attorney that because of the evidencehe was about to present he would insist that you jurors must find the prisoner at the bar guilty of the crime ofwhich he stands indicted. It has been a long and tedious procedure since then. The foolish and inexperienced, yetin every case innocent and unintentional, acts of a boy of fifteen or sixteen have been gone into before yougentlemen as though they were the deeds of a hardened criminal, and plainly with the intention of prejudicingyou against this defendant, who, with the exception of one misinterpreted accident in Kansas City--the mostbrutally and savagely misinterpreted accident it has ever been my professional misfortune to encounter--can besaid to have lived as clean and energetic and blameless and innocent a life as any boy of his years anywhere. Youhave heard him called a man--a bearded man--a criminal and a crime-soaked product of the darkest vomiting ofHell. And yet he is but twenty-one. And there he sits. And I venture to say that if by some magic of the spokenword I could at this moment strip from your eye the substance of all the cruel thoughts and emotions which havebeen attributed to him by a clamorous and mistaken and I might say (if I had not been warned not to do so),politically biased prosecution, you could no more see him in the light that you do than you could rise out of thatbox and fly through those windows.
Gentlemen of the jury, I have no doubt that you, as well as the district attorney and even the audience, havewondered how under the downpour of such linked and at times almost venomous testimony, I or my colleague orthis defendant could have remained as calm and collected as we have." (And here he waved with graveceremoniousness in the direction of his partner, who was still waiting his own hour.) "Yet, as you have seen, wehave not only maintained but enjoyed the serenity of those who not only feel but KNOW that they have the rightand just end of any legal contest. You recall, of course, the words of the Avon bard--'Thrice armed is he whohath his quarrel just.
In fact, we know, as the prosecution in this case unfortunately does not, the peculiarly strange and unexpectedcircumstances by which this dramatic and most unfortunate death came about. And before we are through youshall see for yourselves. In the meantime, let me tell you, gentlemen, that since this case opened I have believedthat even apart from the light we propose to throw on this disheartening tragedy, you gentlemen are not at allsure that a brutal or bestial crime can be laid upon the shoulders of this defendant. You cannot be! For after all,love is love, and the ways of passion and the destroying emotion of love in either sex are not those of theordinary criminal. Only remember, we were once all boys. And those of you who are grown women were girls,and know well--oh, how very well--the fevers and aches of youth that have nothing to do with a later practicallife. 'Judge not, lest ye be judged and with whatsoever measure ye mete, it will be measured unto ye again.
We admit the existence and charm and potent love spell of the mysterious Miss X and her letters, which we have not been able to introduce here, and their effect on this defendant. We admit his love for this Miss X, andwe propose to show by witnesses of our own, as well as by analyzing some of the testimony that has beenoffered here, that perhaps the sly and lecherous overtures with which this defendant is supposed to have lured thelovely soul now so sadly and yet so purely accidentally blotted out, as we shall show, from the straight andnarrow path of morality, were perhaps no more sly nor lecherous than the proceedings of any youth who findsthe girl of his choice surrounded by those who see life only in the terms of the strictest and narrowest moralregime. And, gentlemen, as your own county district attorney has told you, Roberta Alden loved Clyde Griffiths.
At the very opening of this relationship which has since proved to be a tragedy, this dead girl was deeply andirrevocably in love with him, just as at the time he imagined that he was in love with her. And people who aredeeply and earnestly in love with each other are not much concerned with the opinions of others in regard tothemselves. They are in love-- and that is sufficient
But, gentlemen, I am not going to dwell on that phase of the question so much as on this explanation which weare about to offer. Why did Clyde Griffiths go to Fonda, or to Utica, or to Grass Lake, or to Big Bittern, at all
Do you think we have any reason for or any desire to deny or discolor in any way the fact of his having done so,or with Roberta Alden either? Or why, after the suddenness and seeming strangeness and mystery of her death,he should have chosen to walk away as he did? If you seriously think so for one fraction of a moment, you arethe most hopelessly deluded and mistaken dozen jurymen it has been our privilege to argue before in all ourtwenty-seven years' contact with juries.
Gentlemen, I have said to you that Clyde Griffiths is not guilty, and he is not. You may think, perhaps, that weourselves must be believing in his guilt. But you are wrong. The peculiarity, the strangeness of life, is such thatoftentimes a man may be accused of something that he did not do and yet every circumstance surrounding him atthe time seem to indicate that he did do it. There have been many very pathetic and very terrible instances ofmiscarriages of justice through circumstantial evidence alone. Be sure! Oh, be very sure that no such mistakenjudgment based on any local or religious or moral theory of conduct or bias, because of presumed irrefutableevidence, is permitted to prejudice you, so that without meaning to, and with the best and highest-mindedintentions, you yourselves see a crime, or the intention to commit a crime, when no such crime or any suchintention ever truly or legally existed or lodged in the mind or acts of this defendant. Oh, be sure! Be very, verysure!"And here he paused to rest and seemed to give himself over to deep and even melancholy thought, while Clyde,heartened by this shrewd and defiant beginning was inclined to take more courage. But now Belknap was talkingagain, and he must listen--not lose a word of all this that was so heartening.
When Roberta Alden's body was taken out of the water at Big Bittern, gentlemen, it was examined by aphysician. He declared at the time that the girl had been drowned. He will be here and testify and the defendantshall have the benefit of that testimony, and you must render it to him.
You were told by the district attorney that Roberta Alden and Clyde Griffiths were engaged to be married andthat she left her home at Biltz and went forth with him on July sixth last on her wedding journey. Now,gentlemen, it is so easy to slightly distort a certain set of circumstances. 'Were engaged to be married' was howthe district attorney emphasized the incidents leading up to the departure on July sixth. As a matter of fact, notone iota of any direct evidence exists which shows that Clyde Griffiths was ever formally engaged to Roberta Alden, or that, except for some passages in her letters, he agreed to marry her. And those passages, gentlemen,plainly indicate that it was only under the stress of moral and material worry, due to her condition--for which hewas responsible, of course, but which, nevertheless, was with the consent of both--a boy of twenty-one and a girlof twenty-three--that he agreed to marry her. Is that, I ask you, an open and proper engagement--the kind of anengagement you think of when you think of one at all? Mind you, I am not seeking to flout or belittle or reflect inany way on this poor, dead girl. I am simply stating, as a matter of fact and of law, that this boy was not formallyengaged to this dead girl. He had not given her his word beforehand that he would marry her . . . Never! There isno proof. You must give him the benefit of that. And only because of her condition, for which we admit he wasresponsible, he came forward with an agreement to marry her, in case . . . in case" (and here he paused and restedon the phrase), "she was not willing to release him. And since she was not willing to release him, as her variousletters read here show, that agreement, on pain of a public exposure in Lycurgus, becomes, in the eyes and wordsof the district attorney, an engagement, and not only that but a sacred engagement which no one but a scoundreland a thief and a murderer would attempt to sever! But, gentlemen, many engagements, more open and sacred inthe eyes of the law and of religion, have been broken. Thousands of men and thousands of women have seentheir hearts change, their vows and faith and trust flouted, and have even carried their wounds into the secretplaces of their souls, or gone forth, and gladly, to death at their own hands because of them. As the districtattorney said in his address, it is not new and it will never be old. Never
But it is such a case as this last, I warn you, that you are now contemplating and are about to pass upon--a girlwho is the victim of such a change of mood. But that is not a legal, however great a moral or social crime it maybe. And it is only a curious and almost unbelievably tight and yet utterly misleading set of circumstances inconnection with the death of this girl that chances to bring this defendant before you at this time. I swear it. Itruly know it to be so. And it can and will be fully explained to your entire satisfaction before this case is closed.
However, in connection with this last statement, there is another which must be made as a preface to all that isto follow.
Gentlemen of the jury, the individual who is on trial here for his life is a mental as well as a moral coward--nomore and no less--not a downright, hardhearted criminal by any means. Not unlike many men in criticalsituations, he is a victim of a mental and moral fear complex. Why, no one as yet has been quite able to explain.
We all have one secret bugbear or fear. And it is these two qualities, and no others, that have placed him in thedangerous position in which he now finds himself. It was cowardice, gentlemen--fear of a rule of the factory ofwhich his uncle is the owner, as well as fear of his own word given to the officials above him, that caused himfirst to conceal the fact that he was interested in the pretty country girl who had come to work for him. And later,to conceal the fact that he was going with her.
Yet no statutory crime of any kind there. You could not possibly try a man for that, whatever privately youmight think. And it was cowardice, mental and moral, gentlemen, which prevented him, after he becameconvinced that he could no longer endure a relationship which had once seemed so beautiful, from sayingoutright that he could not, and would not continue with her, let alone marry her. Yet, will you slay a man becausehe is the victim of fear? And again, after all, if a man has once and truly decided that he cannot and will notendure a given woman, or a woman a man--that to live with her could only prove torturesome--what would youhave that person do? Marry her? To what end? That they may hate and despise and torture each other foreverafter? Can you truly say that you agree with that as a rule, or a method, or a law? Yet, as the defense sees it, a truly intelligent and fair enough thing, under the circumstances, was done in this instance. An offer, but withoutmarriage--and alas, without avail--was made. A suggestion for a separate life, with him working to support herwhile she dwelt elsewhere. Her own letters, read only yesterday in this court, indicate something of the kind. Butthe oh, so often tragic insistence upon what in so many cases were best left undone! And then that last, long,argumentative trip to Utica, Grass Lake, and Big Bittern. And all to no purpose. Yet with no intention to kill orbetray unto death. Not the slightest. And we will show you why.
Gentlemen, once more I insist that it was cowardice, mental and moral, and not any plot or plan for any crime ofany kind, that made Clyde Griffiths travel with Roberta Alden under various aliases to all the places I have justmentioned--that made him write 'Mr. and Mrs. Carl Graham,' 'Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Golden'--mental and moralfear of the great social mistake as well as sin that he had committed in pursuing and eventually allowing himselfto fail into this unhallowed relationship with her--mental and moral fear or cowardice of what was to follow.
And again, it was mental and moral cowardice that prevented him there at Big Bittern, once the waters of thelake had so accidentally closed over her, from returning to Big Bittern Inn and making public her death. Mentaland Moral Cowardice--and nothing more and nothing less. He was thinking of his wealthy relatives in Lycurgus,their rule which his presence here on the lake with this girl would show to have been broken--of the sufferingand shame and rage of her parents. And besides, there was Miss X--the brightest star in the brightestconstellation of all his dreams.
We admit all that, and we are completely willing to concede that he was, or must have been, thinking of allthese things. The prosecution charges, and we admit that such is the fact, that he had been so completelyensnared by this Miss X, and she by him, that he was willing and eager to forsake this first love who had givenherself to him, for one who, because of her beauty and her wealth, seemed so much more desirable--even as toRoberta Alden he seemed more desirable than others. And if she erred as to him--as plainly she did--might not-mightnot he have erred eventually in his infatuated following of one who in the ultimate--who can say?--mightnot have cared so much for him. At any rate, one of his strongest fear thoughts at this time, as he himself hasconfessed to us, his counsel, was that if this Miss X learned that he had been up there with this other girl ofwhom she had not even so much as heard, well then, it would mean the end of her regard for him.
I know that as you gentlemen view such things, such conduct has no excuse for being. One may be the victim ofan internal conflict between two illicit moods, yet nevertheless, as the law and the church see it, guilty of sin andcrime. But the truth, none-the-less, is that they do exist in the human heart, law or no law, religion or noreligion, and in scores of cases they motivate the actions of the victims. And we admit that they motivated theactions of Clyde Griffiths.
But did he kill Roberta Alden
No
And again, no
Or did he plot in any way, half-heartedly or otherwise, to drag her up there under the guise of various aliasesand then, because she would not set him free, drown her? Ridiculous! Impossible! Insane! His plan was completely and entirely different.
But, gentlemen," and here he suddenly paused as though a new or overlooked thought had just come to him,"perhaps you would be better satisfied with my argument and the final judgment you are to render if you were tohave the testimony of one eye-witness at least of Roberta Alden's death--one who, instead of just hearing a voice,was actually present, and who saw and hence knows how she met her death."He now looked at Jephson as much as to say: Now, Reuben, at last, here we are! And Reuben, turning to Clyde,easily and yet with iron in his every motion, whispered: "Well, here we are, Clyde, it's up to you now. Only I'mgoing along with you, see? I've decided to examine you myself. I've drilled and drilled you, and I guess youwon't have any trouble in telling me, will you?" He beamed on Clyde genially and encouragingly, and Clyde,because of Belknap's strong plea as well as this newest and best development in connection with Jephson, nowstood up and with almost a jaunty air, and one out of all proportion to his mood of but four hours before, nowwhispered: "Gee! I'm glad you're going to do it. I'll be all right now, I think."But in the meantime the audience, hearing that an actual eye-witness was to be produced, and not by theprosecution but the defense, was at once upon its feet, craning and stirring. And Justice Oberwaltzer, irritated toan exceptional degree by the informality characteristic of this trial, was now rapping with his gavel while hisclerk cried loudly: "Order! Order! Unless everybody is seated, all spectators will be dismissed! The deputies willplease see that all are seated." And then a hushed and strained silence falling as Belknap called: "Clyde Griffiths,take the witness chair." And the audience--seeing to its astonishment, Clyde, accompanied by Reuben Jephson,making his way forward--straining and whispering in spite of all the gruff commands of the judge and thebailiffs. And even Belknap, as he saw Jephson approaching, being a little astonished, since it was he whoaccording to the original plan was to have led Clyde through his testimony. But now Jephson drawing near tohim as Clyde was being seated and sworn, merely whispered: "Leave him to me, Alvin, I think it's best. He looksa little too strained and shaky to suit me, but I feel sure I can pull him through."And then the audience noting the change and whispering in regard to it. And Clyde, his large nervous eyesturning here and there, thinking: Well, I'm on the witness stand at last. And now everybody's watching me, ofcourse. I must look very calm, like I didn't care so very much, because I didn't really kill her. That's right, Ididn't. Yet his skin blue and the lids of his eyes red and puffy and his hands trembling slightly in spite of himself.
And Jephson, his long, tensile and dynamic body like that of a swaying birch, turning toward him and lookingfixedly into Clyde's brown eyes with his blue ones, beginning
Now, Clyde, the first thing we want to do is make sure that the jury and every one else hears our questions andanswers. And next, when you're all set, you're going to begin with your life as you remember it--where you wereborn, where you came from, what your father did and your mother, too, and finally, what you did and why, fromthe time you went to work until now. I may interrupt you with a few questions now and then, but in the main I'mgoing to let you tell it, because I know you can tell it better than any one." Yet in order to reassure Clyde and tomake him know each moment that he was there--a wall, a bulwark, between him and the eager, straining,unbelieving and hating crowd--he now drew nearer, at times so close as to put one foot on the witness stand, or ifnot that to lean forward and lay a hand on the arm of the chair in which Clyde sat. And all the while saying,"Yay-uss--Yay-uss." "And then what?" "And then?" And invariably at the strong and tonic or protective sound ofhis voice Clyde stirring as with a bolstering force and finding himself able, and without shaking or quavering, to tell the short but straitened story of his youth.
I was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. My parents were conducting a mission there at that time and used tohold open air meetings. . .