Darrow’s eloquent closing address
Darrow’s closing statement spanned three days. His speech still stands as one of the most eloquent arguments against capital punishment advanced in a US courtroom:
“Your Honor, if in this court a boy of 18 and a boy of 19 should be hanged on a plea of guilty, in violation of every precedent of the past, in violation of the policy of the law to take care of the young, in violation of all the progress that has been made and of the humanity that has been shown in the case of the young; in violation of the law that places boys in reformatories instead of prisons,—if your Honor in violation of all that and in the face of all the past should stand here in Chicago alone to hang a boy on a plea of guilty, then we are turning our faces backward toward the barbarism which once possessed the world. If your Honor can hang a boy of 18, some other judge can hang him at 17, or 16, or 14. Some day, if there is any such thing as progress in the world, if there is any spirit of humanity that is working in the hearts of men, some day men would look back upon this as a barbarous age which deliberately set itself in the way of progress, humanity and sympathy, and committed an unforgivable act.”
“I have heard in the last six weeks nothing but the cry for blood. I have heard from the office of the state’s attorney only ugly hate. I have seen a court urged almost to the point of threats to hang two boys, in the face of science, in the face of experience and all the better and more humane thought of our age...
“They say we come here with a preposterous plea for mercy. When did any plea for mercy become preposterous in any tribunal in all the universe? Mr. Savage [assistant state’s attorney] tells the court that if these boys are hanged there will be no more boys like these. Mr. Savage is an optimist. If these two boys die on the scaffold, which I can never bring myself to imagine, if they die on the scaffold the details of this will be spread over the world. Every newspaper in the United States will carry a full account. Every newspaper of Chicago will be filled with the gruesome details. It will enter every home and every family. Will it make men better or make men worse? How many will be colder and crueler for it? How many will enjoy the details? And you cannot enjoy human suffering without being affected for the worse. What influence will it have on the millions of men who will read it? What influence will it have on the millions of women who will read it, more sensitive, more impressionable than men? What influence will it have upon the infinite number of children who will devour its details as Dickie Loeb has enjoyed reading detective stories?
“Do I need to argue to your Honor that cruelty only breeds cruelty; that hatred only causes hatred...”
It is noteworthy, especially in light of the reported impact of the Gulf War on the thinking of Timothy McVeigh, that Darrow pinpointed war and militarism as a major stimulant to violent, anti-social behavior. Referring to the impact on popular consciousness of World War I, which had ended just six years earlier[/B], he declared, “We read of killing one hundred thousand men in a day. We read about it and rejoiced in it—if it was the other fellows who were killed. We were fed on flesh and drank blood. Even down to the prattling babe. I need not tell your Honor this, because you know; I need not tell you how many upright, honorable young boys have come into this court charged with murder, some saved and some sent to their death, boys who fought in this war and learned to place a cheap value on human life. You know it and I know it. These boys were brought up in it. The tales of death were in their homes, their playgrounds, their schools; they were in the newspapers that they read; it was a part of the common frenzy—what was a life? It was nothing. It was the least sacred thing in existence and these boys were trained to this cruelty.”
He went on, “Crime has its cause. Perhaps all crimes do not have the same cause, but they all have some cause. And people today are seeking to find out the cause...
“If a doctor were called on to treat typhoid fever he would probably try to find out what kind of milk or water the patient drank and perhaps clean out the well so that no one else could get typhoid from the same source. But if a lawyer were called on to treat a typhoid patient he would give him thirty days in jail, and then he would think that nobody else would ever dare to take typhoid again.”
In conclusion, Darrow expressed optimism that the tide of history was running against the death penalty and other barbaric relics: “I know the future is on my side. Your Honor stands between the past and the future. You may hang these boys, you may hang them by the neck until they are dead. But in doing it you will turn your face toward the past. In doing it you are making it harder for every other boy who in ignorance and darkness must grope his way through the mazes which only childhood knows. In doing it you will make it harder for unborn children. You may save them and make it easier for every human being with an aspiration and a vision and a hope and a fate. I am pleading for the future, I am pleading for a time when hatred and cruelty will not control the hearts of men; when we can learn by reason and judgment and understanding and faith that all life is worth saving, and that mercy is the highest attribute of man.”
) is zwaarder dan de dood.
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