Chapter XXI: Delmas Moves Jurors

DECLARES HE BASES DEFENSE ON LAW--EXPRESSES SYMPATHY FOR WHITE’S
WIDOW--“SADDEST STORY EVER HEARD IN A COURT OF JUSTICE”--“BETTER
FOR STANFORD WHITE HAD HE NEVER BEEN BORN”--SCORES EVELYN THAW’S
MOTHER WITHOUT MERCY.

“If your honor please, and you, gentlemen of the jury, we have no
more right, if the real facts were known, to be here trying this
prisoner at the bar than if it was prohibited by statute,” declared
Mr. Delmas in opening his masterful address.

“Had you heard these words from any irresponsible persons, instead
of having heard them from an official charged with a public duty;
had you heard them from a man given to irresponsible talk, instead
of in this court of justice and solemnity; had the occasion on
which they were uttered been some trivial discussion about an
insignificant topic, instead of where the discussion is one of life
or death--these words might not have filled you with amazement, but
this was a statement made by the district attorney.

“To show the falsity of that, it will be necessary to call upon all
the energy in my power to reach a conclusion. And to reverse, at
least in a general way, the same points of the evidence which you
have heard for so many days I shall make no attempt to inflame your
passion, no appeal to make your feelings warp your judgment.

“I shall rely on no such unstable thing as the supposed unwritten
law. I will base the fate of this defendant on the law of this
state--the law of the books, the written law.

“In the performance of my task it will become my duty to speak of
the dead. I shall not be unmindful of the injunctions of the
departed. Only that which is good should be spoken, but I cannot
forget the circumstances under which the protection of the living
demand that the truth shall be told, no matter how it blights the
memory of the dead or how painful to the survivors.

“Under that law we find ample protection for his rights and life
and to that law I shall resort as to the horns of the altar, for
his safety. In the performance of my task it will be my imperative
duty--unshunable duty--to speak of the dead.

“I shall not be unmindful of him and shall speak in no other
terms--if possible--than those of praise. I shall not forget that
for the protection of the living the truth must be told, no matter
how painful to the dead or those who survive him.

“Of those survivors I can speak in no other terms than those of the
most profound sympathy. For the widow who mourns and the son who
survives I have no words than those of sympathy. Gladly would I
remove from them, were it in my power, the cloud which must
henceforth accompany their life, and gladly would I remove from the
young man the sentence that the sins of the father must be visited
upon their children to the second and third generations.

“Gentlemen, the story you have listened to is the story of two
young persons whom fate, by inscrutable decree, had destined to
link together, that they could walk through life together. It is a
story--the saddest, most mournful and tragic which the tongue of
man has ever uttered or the ear of man has ever heard in a court of
justice.

“Let me begin briefly with the story--one filled with incidents
with which a volume might overflow and a tragedy might be filled,
as though it were written by the hand of a Shakespeare.

“She was born on Christmas, 1884, in the state of Pennsylvania, in
the city of Pittsburg. The first years of her childhood saw her
lose her father and natural protector and left her in charge of a
mother who early manifested a character of frivolity and
extravagance which was later to be attended with such fatal
consequences.

“At ten years of age the family began to feel the pangs of want,
the sufferings of poverty and the gnawing of hunger. At twelve she
began to be the family drudge, assisting her mother in such acts as
she could perform. And thus the family continued moving from place
to place without any fixed habitation on the face of the earth.

“But nature having endowed her with beauty which showed in early
youth, we find her looking to it for the support of the family. At
fourteen we find her in Philadelphia, already embarked upon the
perilous seas of an artist’s model’s life. But New York was the
market in which such gifts were most eagerly sought and would be
dearly paid for. And to New York the family came, and by the
efforts of the mother the employment begun in Philadelphia was
continued here and the beautiful child went from studio to studio
and at the end of the week paid into the hands of the mother the
scant few dollars she had earned to support the mother, the brother
and the child.

“But the large metropolis afforded broader avenues of gain than the
mere studios of artists--the stage, with all its tinsel and glare
of dazzling lights lay before them and the tempter came.

“The theatrical manager found the girl at fifteen and employed her
at $15 a week, where she slaved at night as she did by day--posing
for artists--but at night she appeared on the boards of the stage.

“It could not be long, for the beauty with which she was gifted
attracted attention and the tempter came. He saw, he desired to
have, with the consummate cunning of a man whose head had already
grown gray. He had a wife and an accomplished son. He fixed his
eyes upon the fated child and determined to make her his.

“To win her he had none of the graces which a man of her own age
might present. He was already married and had a family of his own
and any such thought of love--legitimate love--between him and this
child was out of the question. He introduced himself into the
family in the guise of a protector.

“His tender solicitude manifested his intentions to ameliorate
their condition. He won his way into the confidence of the mother;
established himself in the position of a protecting attitude toward
the family. When his purpose was secured he persuaded the mother to
absent herself from the city, assuring her the child would be safe
in his hands in her absence, telling the family that they should
rejoice that they had such a careful eye to watch over the
beautiful child. She went. The child was left alone.

“I wish, gentlemen, it were in my power to pass over the scene
which followed. I wish it did not have to be embodied in the
argument I have to make to you.

“To one of those dens fitted with all the splendor and dazzling
beauty with which this man of genius endowed his places, this child
was one evening lured, under the pretense that there were to be
others there to share the supper that had been prepared, and when
she arrived she found herself alone with the man who had promised
to be her protector.

“Need I recount to you how the child was led from one step to
another until plied with wine and plied with drugs she became
unconscious and this man, who had promised to protect the child,
accomplished her ruin and downfall? Need I recall to you the
terrible scenes which you heard told from the lips of this tortured
victim?

“Oh, better for Stanford White had he never been born.

“Better that his ears had never been opened that he could not have
heard the words of anguish of the victim.

“For what had he--a man whose hair was already gray--what had he
done? He had perpetrated the most horrible crime that can deface
the human heart. He had lured the poor, innocent flower that was
struggling forth to life. He had committed a crime which is a
felony--which the President of this republic in his last message to
Congress said should be punished by death.

“He who had erected altars and sanctuaries and churches crowned
with the emblem of the Redemption--had he forgotten the words.

“‘Who so receiveth such a little child in my name receiveth me, but
whosoever offendeth such a little one, it were better that a
millstone were tied around his neck and he were cast into the sea.’

“Oh, ye who have erected temples to the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, have ye forgotten the words of Jehovah, when upon the return
from Egypt He said:

“‘Ye shall not afflict a fatherless child. I will surely hear that
cry, and I will kill you with the sword and your wives shall be
widows and your children fatherless.’

“Oh, Stanford White, in the entirety of your hardened heart, you
imagined that the cry of the fatherless child which that night was
heard in the darkness of the great city, where good citizens were
at rest, the child without a father, the child deserted by her
mother, the child left alone in this city of millions, would not be
heard.

“Did your hardened heart imagine that God would not hear that cry?
Did you imagine that He had forgotten the promise He made--that any
one who afflicted a fatherless child would surely die?

“Did you believe that the retribution would be omitted?

“Better had it been for him had he died before that day, for then
he might have died in glory--he might have died when public
mourning would have attended his obsequies; he might have died
before his name had become a byword; before his genius had become
an aggravation.

“But fate had decreed it otherwise. The poor child, returning to
her senses, not realizing what had been done, was taken back to her
home, there to sit in lonely vigil until he went back the next day
to complete the pollution he had but partially begun the night
before. It remained for him to destroy the last vestige of womanly
honor in her mind, and he performed that task after daylight that
day.

“He went there--he, the strong man, kissed the hem of her garment;
told her to dry her tears, and to stifle her moans; told her that
what she did was not wrong, that it was but what all women did;
that the only sin was to be found out, and that if she would but
keep the dread secret pent up in her breast and not tell her mother
all would be well; that all women were wicked; that the only
distinction was that some succeeded in concealing their vices,
while others were found out.

“And so he left her. And so he lured her again and again, plying
her with wine in the same dens for a couple of months.

“Is this story true, gentlemen, or, rather, is the story I have
related to you the story Evelyn Nesbit told Harry Thaw in June,
1903, in Paris--that, gentlemen, is one of the main questions which
you have to decide in this case and in the elucidation of which I
may be permitted to occupy a little of your attention.

“The prosecution says this story is a clever lie--the result of the
imagination of this defendant’s wife. Your first inquiry must be
into the veracity of Evelyn Nesbit. If she never told Thaw this
thing, then she has been an untruthful witness before you.

“She gave this testimony: ‘And those things you told Mr. Thaw of
the outrages at the hands of White were true?’ Her answer was,
‘Those things were true.’

“In corroboration of the statement that these things did take
place, I beg to refer to the evidence and to the things that have
occurred before your eyes. You have seen Evelyn on the stand for
four days. You are men of the world--men accustomed to looking
through the souls of men and analyzing their conversations--you are
asked to judge if she were a clever actress as she sat in that
chair and related the horrors of that night.

“You saw when she came to the final occurrence of that night--you
saw her countenance--how the shadow of horror overspread it.
Although the story was to save the life of the one person whom she
loved, you saw how she shrank from telling it. You saw the drawn
face, you saw the brave little girl struggling that she might save
her husband, that she might overcome the objectionable features of
the story.

“For days and days you have seen her undergoing torture of an
examination unparalleled in the jurisprudence of this or any other
country.

“Did the District Attorney of your city, to whom I gave the
greatest acknowledgment of talent, confuse her? You saw him using
all the arts, resorting to all the strategies of a practiced master
to entrap a girl who had never testified before. Was she caught in
a single falsehood, or contradiction?

“You have seen learned men on the stand--tell me, if you have ever
seen a witness who has stood the excruciating tests of
cross-examination as well as this child?

“Gentlemen, in that cross-examination the merciless District
Attorney--I say merciless without offense, because his office is
not one of mercy--you saw him extort from her truthful but
unwilling lips the confession that the misdeeds of Stanford White
did not stop with the first wrecking of her life, but continued
until God asserted himself in her and she would no longer be the
plaything and toy of this man.

“I ask you, on your oaths, if this girl had fabricated this story,
would not she or the others who prompted the story have for the
sake of sympathy, said that the first drugging was the only
occurrence and that she had shrunk from further dealings with such
a man.

“Upon any other theory than that the story is true I ask you the
question, why did Stanford White just at that moment see fit to
remove the mother--the only protector left this child--from her
post as sentinel? Why was the mother sent to Pittsburg with money
furnished by Stanford White? Why was the brother sent to school?

“Gentlemen, I desire to call your attention to this point. During
this time Stanford White made a contract to pay Evelyn the sum of
$25 a week during the time she should be unable to obtain her own
living on the stage. And during that one year we have
discovered--by a strange fatality which ever seems to assist the
cause of justice and to disconcert the cause of injustice--there
appears certain checks on which the name of the mother was
indorsed.

“And, according to a computation made by some gentleman in court,
the mother, for the year following the ruin of the child, received
$2,500, in round numbers, $200 a month. And yet the District
Attorney tells you that at the same time Stanford White was in
embarrassed circumstances.

“One circumstance I desire to call to your attention. It relates to
the assistance which the prosecution draws in its attempt to
deprive Evelyn of her husband. You will recall that when the name
of the mother was spoken I disclaimed having said anything that
would cast upon the mother any shame that would cast reproach upon
her.

“Gentlemen, at the time I made that declaration, I wish you to bear
in mind that three things had not been developed:

“First. That the mother had been in receipt of $200 a month from
White.

“It had not been developed at that time that the mother was
assisting the prosecution in the work of this case.

“It had not been developed at that time that the mother had given a
written statement to the District Attorney by which he might
torture the soul of her daughter, a daughter who had been left
alone in the world except for a most unnatural mother.

“And when I saw the District Attorney with that paper in his hand,
when I heard him read from it on the cross-examination of this
girl, when I learned that every shaft which he aimed at her heart
came from a quiver furnished by her mother, when I learned that
every sore in her poor soul had been pointed out to the District
Attorney, that it was a mother who was pointing out those sores,
and when I learned that the poor little girl had been sent away to
school so that she might get the money she desired from Stanford
White--I now retract what I then said.

“Oh, most unnatural mother, you, who left the girl a victim of the
lust of this gray-haired man! You who received the wages of her
downfall, funds with which you bedecked yourself with diamonds and
finery, now in the hour of her supreme agony this mother assists
the prosecutor of her husband!

“Why, a beast that wants reason protects her young! I have seen a
poor little bird no larger than your fist while I was out hunting.
A number of young ones were playing in the dust around her and I
have seen a pointer come running upon them and I have seen the
little bird ruffle its feathers until it looked as big and old as
an eagle, making the dog pause and return abashed.

“I have now laid before you in outline what was given you in
evidence. I propose to prove by evidence that will demonstrate the
truth, which will leave no hook upon which to hang a doubt, that
Evelyn Nesbit told the story she swears she did in Paris in 1903.

“In the first place, you have the undoubted, undisputed fact that
Mr. Thaw in September of that year, when Evelyn’s mother returned
to New York--that Mr. Thaw narrated that story in a letter to his
counsel, Mr. Longfellow. In the first letter he says:

“Mistress Nesbit sails to-morrow for New York. Her daughter can’t
be with her, because Miss N. was beguiled by a blackguard when she
was but fifteen years of age. The child was drugged.

“And in a later letter to Mr. Longfellow he says: ‘Her position
could not be worse. She was poisoned at fifteen and three-quarters.
Also since.’

“Now, gentlemen, bear in mind that these two letters were written
by Mr. Thaw in Paris to his counsel, Mr. Longfellow, in New York. I
ask you who is the blackguard referred to in these letters if not
Stanford White? What is the superhuman negligence of the mother, if
not her trip to Pittsburg, leaving her daughter alone in New York?

“How was the child beguiled, if not by Stanford White’s paternal
kindness and show of parental goodness?

“I leave it to you as to what these two letters can refer to if not
to the story Evelyn Nesbit says she told Harry in Paris in June,
1903.

“She told how she had learned this young woman’s name. He said he
desired to shield her from the awful consequences of the deed. What
was it the child that had come from Pittsburg, that had first posed
as an artist’s model, and had then gone on the stage--what was it
she had told Harry Thaw and what had he told his mother?

“The learned prosecutor says that he invented it all. After
inventing did he go home and tell his mother--the mother who had
given him birth, who had nourished him at her breast, who had
watched him in his sleepless bed at night as he was giving evidence
of the troubles which were to have such a bearing on this case?

“When he broke down in church and tears fell from his eyes and a
groan broke from his lips was he telling, was he acting a lie?

Harry Thaw loved Evelyn. He had loved her ever since he saw her in
1901. He had loved and wooed her honorably, and honorably sought to
make her his wife.

“I make these assertions just before seeking to make any deductions
from them. It is meet and proper that I establish them as facts. As
early as 1901, when he found her on the stage, he realized that was
not a fit place for a young girl like her. He was contemplating
sending her to school--that is to say for three years. Then she
might come out and take her station in the world as his wife.

“And if not, even though she did not become his wife, he would be
amply repaid by the nobility of the act he had performed. Evelyn
Nesbit says he met her in 1901 and called upon her frequently, but
was not always at that time a welcome visitor. It seems her mind
had been poisoned by the same persons who afterward poisoned her
mind against him again. He says of her: ‘When I first knew her she
was the most active, laughing, strong and fair child I ever saw.’

“That was the time when she was the support of the family, going
about in the daytime from studio to studio and appearing on the
stage at night and pouring into the lap of her mother her scant
wages.

“And what was the nature of the foul wrong done to this child?

“What was the fatal deed which he said he would gladly have
purchased with his life if it could be undone?

“I say to you, these letters refer to no other transaction than
the story she related on the witness stand--the story she told you
she told him in June, 1903. The letters were private. They were to
be locked up in Mr. Longfellow’s breast. Then ask yourself whether
it is possible that Mr. Thaw was telling his lawyer in September a
falsehood or an invention of his own brain?

“That is not all. You remember Thaw returned to New York in
November and shortly thereafter went to his home in Pittsburg and
told his mother the selfsame story he told his lawyer then in these
two letters.

“I desire to give you the mother’s testimony and ask you whether I
am not telling you exactly what occurred.

“Not only that but I invite interruptions if you desire to set me
right if I omit or tell anything that was not part of the
testimony.

“Now, the mother whom you have seen on the stand and of whose
veracity I believe not even the prosecution has any doubt, this
mother says that after he arrived home she found him awake at
night, and when she went to his room he said it was because of a
wicked man--perhaps the most wicked man in New York.

“She learned before Thanksgiving that this was said about a young
girl, but did not at that time learn her name. Her son told her he
was interested in that girl. This she learned one night when the
mother found him in his room at dawn. He had not been able to get
sleep surcease from his tortured brain.

“She said, the son said, that this girl had the most beautiful mind
he had ever known, that she had been neglected, that if she had a
chance and anyone looking after her she would be all right. And
then you remember, gentlemen, Thanksgiving came. And the mother and
the son went to church together, and there, while the solemn anthem
was peeling, she heard tears dropping upon the paper which he was
holding in his hand, a stifled sob.

“In 1903 he intended to marry her. Writing to Longfellow, he says:

“‘Miss N. and I may be married after Lady Yarmouth comes. We could
have been married without a row. If I die, all my property goes to
my wife.’ And, writing to her, he says: ‘Mr. and Mrs. George
Carnegie should be your loving brother and sister-in-law.’
Gentlemen, no man of his years, of his temperament, ever wooed a
woman in a manner more respectable than Harry Thaw did Evelyn
Nesbit.

“There is nothing to show that everything and every bit of
testimony does not confirm the statement of Evelyn that in June,
1903, he proposed honorably to make her his wife.

“In corroboration of these facts told by Evelyn Nesbit, that she
told this story of Stanford White, that he, Thaw, asked her to
marry him, that it is not a cunningly devised tale told by Harry
Thaw for his own purposes. I ask you these questions: Does a man
who loves a woman, who has lavished upon her for two years all the
affections of his heart, does a man who loves a woman honorably and
sought to make her his wife and besought her mother’s consent--does
a man like that deliberately invent a story of this kind to defile
the object of his adoration?

“Until you can take from this case the fact that Harry Thaw loved
Evelyn Nesbit, if any man says to you that he deliberately invented
this story to degrade the object of his affections--the most
degrading story any man could tell--it is not in the human heart
but to revolt from the allegation.

“If I mistake not, I have established to your satisfaction the
great, simple fact--that this story about Stanford White is not an
invention and that the statement that Evelyn Nesbit did tell the
story to Thaw is true.

“As against this assertion, what evidence is there in this case?
What is there to contradict this statement of Evelyn Nesbit, the
statement that she told this story to Thaw?

“Nothing except the testimony of Abe Hummel. I will not speak of
that unfortunate man in any harsher term than the exigencies of
this case require. But it is a melancholy sight to see a man in the
declining years of his life, when soon the sun must set for him
forever, and he will appear to give that account of his life that
we are all called upon to give after death--I say it is a
melancholy sight to see a man whose pathway has been wreathed with
dishonest acts, crowning his acts with perjury--resorting to
perjury in order to deprive a fellow of his life.

“Gentlemen, is this censure deemed excessive? Listen. Mr. Hummel is
not lacking in intelligence--certainly is not lacking in cunning.

“Let me recall to your mind the photograph of the alleged
affidavit. You remember what weight the prosecution attached to it
and of what importance they considered it. Let me call your
attention to all the points in Hummel’s testimony regarding this.

“Thaw’s lawyer then tore Hummel’s evidence to bits, showing that in
one place he swore positively he sent for the photographer and in
another he swore as positively that he did not. Continuing Delmas
said:

“Which of these stories is true? They both come from the witness
sitting in that chair. They both have the sanction of his oath--the
oath of a man already convicted for subornation of perjury and
conspiracy. Both of these stories cannot be true. Which one is
true? One of these two stories is a deliberate falsehood, and which
it is I care not. They probably are both false.

“Abe Hummel testifies that this thing, miscalled ‘affidavit,’ was
dictated by him in the latter part of October, 1903, in his office,
to a stenographer whose name he does not remember and even whose
individuality he has forgotten.

“Listen: If Abe Hummel dictated this illegal affidavit, as he
swears he did, in the latter part of October, 1903; if this is his
work; if these are his words, this his dictation, then he committed
deliberate perjury, gentlemen, and the proof of this perjury was in
the hands of the learned interrogator. He held the paper before him
while the witness was in the chair and could not but know that at
that time the witness was swearing the proof of his perjury was
lying before him.

“In order that Abraham H. Hummel could testify at all--before his
lips could be unsealed--it was necessary for him to swear he was
not acting in an official or professional capacity for Evelyn
Nesbit when he dictated this statement. Hence the absolute
necessity that this wretched old man should swear that he was not
acting as her attorney.

“Hence he says, ‘I was not acting for Evelyn Nesbit. There was no
action contemplated by her. She did not consult me in my official
capacity.’

“Hence there could exist no professional relations. He said so.

“This is the famous paper by which Abraham Hummel hoped to help the
District Attorney send Harry Thaw to the electric chair. Who
dictated these words, which lay open before the District Attorney
as he questioned Hummel?

“‘I received many cablegrams from Mr. Thaw, which I turned over to
my counsel, Abraham Hummel.’

“Who dictated these words, if the paper was dictated at all?
Abraham Hummel, who came upon the stand and swore he had never
acted as her attorney--Abraham Hummel!

“‘Howe & Hummel, attorneys for plaintiff,’ are the words that
appear on the indorsement of this paper. And who was the plaintiff?
Evelyn Nesbit.

“And the same man who tells you no action was contemplated is the
man who dictated the first words of this affidavit, which read,
‘Evelyn Nesbit, plaintiff, vs. Harry K. Thaw, defendant.’

“This is in letters as legible as I have ever looked upon. Perjured
when he tells you he was not counsel for Evelyn Nesbit, when he
tells you no legal action was intended, when he dictated this
affidavit.

“You are called upon to convict her of perjury.

“You are called upon to do so upon the strength of Hummel. And on
that testimony you are called upon to deprive a human being of his
life.

“How did this paper have its birth? Miss Simonton, as I have told
you, came here after hearing in Paris the story you have all heard.
Arriving here, she went to Mr. White in order to get confirmation
or denial of that story. His body turned icy cold when she told her
story you have heard.

“He knew that what he had done would not only disgrace him, but
would send him to prison.

“She was told that Harry Thaw was a married man and that she should
be protected against Harry Thaw, and he took her to Hummel’s
office. What was White’s object in taking her to Hummel’s office?
It was to get from her by some monstrous deception her statement of
her story about herself that would neutralize their efforts should
they ever attempt to bring up against him their story of his
outrage, of his acts.”

At this point Mr. Delmas had spoken two and one-half hours, and court was adjourned, with another day of supreme effort ahead for the brilliant general in command of the defense.