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.”