Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned (91 page)

9.
The appeals court noted that seven defense witnesses had sworn to seeing Bond in Gary at the time of the murder, but demeaned them as “all colored.” See
People v. Bond
, 281 Ill. 490 (1917). The
Boston Globe, New York Times, Washington Post
, and
Los Angeles Times
all carried lurid accounts of Leegson’s murder. Bond died in jail a few years later. In a letter to Mary Field in the spring of 1915, Darrow said he had just received a $250 check from a philanthropist to pay for the appeal of “a colored man’s case,” so perhaps he received something for his efforts. See Darrow,
Story of My Life
and Yarros,
My Eleven Years;
Darrow Testimony, U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations, May 1915; Darrow to Field, Apr. 27, 1915, CDMFP-NL;
Chicago Tribune
, Oct. 7, 8,16, 22, 24, Dec. 1, 1913, Jan. 14, 15, 18, Feb. 1, May 11, July 8, 11, 14, 16, 18, 1914;
Washington Post
, Oct. 7, 8, 1913;
Boston Globe
, Oct. 7, 1913;
Los Angeles Times
, Oct. 7, 1913;
New York Times
, Oct. 6, 1913; Harold Mulks reminiscence, CD-LOC; Mary to Sara, June 9, 1914, CESW-HL.

10.
Darrow worried that his presence might cause more violence; indeed, a riot would erupt when he spoke on industrial conditions in an appearance at Cooper Union in New York that spring. U.S. House Committee on Mines and Mining, “Conditions in the Copper Mines of Michigan,” Feb. 1914; U.S. Dept. of Labor, “Strike in the Copper Mining District” (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1914); Arthur Thurner,
Rebels on the Range
(Lake Linden, MI: John H. Forster Press, 1984); Steve Lehto,
Death’s Door
(Troy, MI: Momentum Books, 2006); Steve Lehto,
Italian Hall: The Official Transcript of the Coroner’s Inquest
(Troy, MI: Momentum Books, 2007);
Washington Post
, Dec. 26, 1913;
Chicago Tribune
, Dec. 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 1913, Jan. 1, 2, 6, 9, Oct. 7, 1914;
Boston Globe
, Dec. 28, 1913, Jan. 1, 2, 3, 1914;
New York Times
, Dec. 28, 1913.

11.
In the Triangle disaster of Mar. 1911, 146 garment workers were killed by the flames or when jumping from windows to escape the fire, after finding that the doors and exits had been locked by the factory owners. On Apr. 20, 1914, a few weeks after the collapse of the Michigan copper strike, the Colorado state militia, with the aid of machine guns, attacked and set fire to a colony of striking coal miners in Ludlow. At least twenty-one people died, including two women and eleven children, most of whom suffocated in a crude pit where they had taken shelter as the tent above them burned. Three union leaders who surrendered to the troops were summarily shot.

12.
Darrow testimony, Commission on Industrial Relations, May 17 and 18, 1915. He wrote Mary Field: “Had a fine time telling the Commission about everything on earth.”

13.
Darrow, “The War in Europe,” lecture before Society of Rationalism, Oct. 1914; Darrow had the speech printed as a pamphlet and gave versions of it several times in the months ahead, in Chicago and elsewhere. Darrow to Mary, July 4, 1913, CDMFP-NL.

14.
Darrow to Wood, Jan. 4, 1914, Darrow to Mary, Oct. 31, 1913, Nov. 14, 1914, CDMFP-NL; Darrow to Gerson, June 29, 1915, Perceval Gerson papers, UCLA; Karl Darrow diary, KD; Schretter, “I Remember Darrow”; Ben Hecht, “Schopenhauer’s Son” in
A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago
(Chicago: Covici-McGee, 1922); Yarros,
My Eleven Years;
Darrow, “Eulogy for John Howard Moore,” CDMFP-NL; Darrow pamphlet,
Remarks of Clarence Darrow at Memorial Services to George Burman Foster and at the Funeral of John P. Altgeld
(Chicago: J. F. Higgins, 1919).

15.
Erickson went on to serve ably in World War I and died in 1919, at the age of thirty-seven, of heart disease. George W. Hilton’s painstaking study
Eastland: Legacy of the Titanic
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995), which includes commentary from several marine experts, shows the flaws in Darrow’s theory, yet absolves Erickson of wrongdoing. See also F. W. Willard to Doubleday, Nov. 10, 1941, with attachment, Stone papers, Berkeley. The case is not mentioned in Darrow’s autobiography. Stone’s account, provided by Paul Darrow, is unreliable, with an apocryphal courtroom confrontation before a nonexistent jury. The trial was, technically, a proceeding before Judge Sessions to determine if the accused should be removed to face charges in Illinois.
Chicago Tribune
, July 25–Aug. 12, Sept. 22, 23, 24, 1915, Jan. 21–Feb. 19, 1916, July 21, 1935;
New York Times
, July 25–Aug. 12, 1915, Jan. 23, Feb. 19, 1916;
Kansas City Star
, May 17, 1925.

16.
In 1917, Darrow wrote to Daniel Kiefer, an old friend who had criticized him for abandoning the Christian ideals of
Resist Not Evil
. “I did write a book advocating non-resistance. Most of the things I said in that book I still believe. I hated war then and I do today,” Darrow wrote. “My error then, as I see it now, was the belief that you could make a general rule of life that could cover every case.” Darrow to Mary, Apr. 27, 1915, CDMFP-NL.

17.
Darrow to Paul, Feb. 7, 1917, CD-UML.

18.
Chicago Tribune
, Aug. 25, Sept. 2, 6, 8, 11, Oct. 22, 23, Nov. 2, 18, 1917, Mar. 24, July 15, 1918;
New York Times
, Sept. 16, 1917; National Security League pamphlet, “Address by Clarence Darrow,” Nov. 1, 1917; Darrow to Paul, Sept. 29, 1917, Hamlin Garland to Darrow, Dec. 21, 1917, CD-UML.

19.
Johannsen to Sara, June 16, 1917, Wright to Wood, Feb. 8, 1921, Mary to Sara, undated, CESW-HL; Gerson to Darrow, Jan. 17, 1918, Perceval Gerson papers, UCLA; Darrow to Paul, July 17, 1918, Darrow to Jessie, July 20, 1918, CD-UML;
Chicago Daily Journal
, Oct. 21, 23, 25, 28, Nov. 4, 6, 8, 1918. The long excerpt is from an unattributed manuscript in the Mary Field Parton papers, which was identified by Margaret Parton as being Darrow’s work. It mirrors the travels and observations Darrow relates in his censored newspaper reports and appears to be his writing but, like the “Miss S” letter, has an unverified provenance.

CHAPTER 15: RED SCARE

1.
Many of Darrow’s friends were also put under surveillance, including Lincoln Steffens, Anton Johannsen, Helen Todd, Mary and Lem Parton, former senator Richard Pettigrew, and architect
Frank Lloyd Wright. On Darrow, see General and Special Staff, Military Intelligence Division report, May 7, 1920, Military Intelligence Division, U.S. War Department, National Archives. For other Wilson administration reports on Darrow, see documents dated Dec. 12, 1918, and May 26, 1919, U.S. Department of Justice records, National Archives; Darrow to Mary, Feb. 13, 1922, CDMFP-NL. David Kennedy,
Over There: The First World War and American Society
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).

2.
Roger Baldwin statement, Mar. 18, 1960, ACLU;
Hearings Before the Special Committee Appointed Under the Authority of House Resolution No. 6 Concerning the Right of Victor L. Berger to Be Sworn as a Member of the 66th Congress
(Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1919); Ralph Izard memo, Jan. 8, 1918, from Federal Bureau of Investigation to Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice records, National Archives;
Chicago Tribune
, June 23, 1917;
New York Times
, July 7, 1917, Oct. 19, 1917; Kenneth Ackerman,
Young J. Edgar
(Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2007).

3.
Debs would stay in jail until a new president—Republican Warren Harding—released him. He had turned down Darrow’s offer to represent him at his original trial. Wilson to Darrow, Aug. 9, 1917, Palmer to Wilson, July 30 and Aug. 12, 1919, Darrow to Wilson, July 29, 1919, Wilson to Palmer, Aug. 1, 1919, Kent to Wilson, May 20, 1918, and Aug. 11, 1917, Woodrow Wilson papers, Library of Congress; Darrow to Mary, Jan. 29, 1918, CDMFP-NL.

4.
Darrow to Wood, Aug. 26, 1919, CESW-HL.

5.
Frank Lloyd Wright was almost as blunt. “The animosity of this false ‘morality’ has shocked and sickened me,” he said, and he lashed out at a society which “meddles in matters that can only be shown right or wrong by the hearts and consciences of those to whom they are sacred.” Sara to Wood, Nov. 7, 1915, CESW-HL; Hecht,
Gaily Gaily; Chicago Tribune
, Nov. 5, 6, 7, 14, 1915, Feb. 29, May 16, July 7, 1916, Apr. 17, 21, May 3, 1918, Dec. 23, 1919;
Chicago Daily News
, Nov. 5, 6, 1915.

6.
Masters also scorched Darrow in the poem “Louis Raguse,” in a follow-up volume of Spoon River poems in 1924: “His ethical skin was thick / From handling and reaching for fees …” Masters, unpublished chapters of
Across Spoon River
, Reedy to Masters, Feb. 23, 1916, Masters to Tietjens, July 11, 26, 1921, Masters to Harrison, Mar. 21, 1938, ELM.

7.
Masters, unpublished chapters of
Across Spoon River
, Reedy to Masters, Feb. 23, 1916, Masters to Darrow, Nov. 8, 1919, Darrow to Masters, Nov. 10, 1919, Masters to Tietjens, July 11, 26, 1921, Masters to Harrison, Mar. 21, 1938, ELM;
New York Times
, Mar. 22, 1923;
Chicago Tribune
, Mar. 22, Apr. 15, July 15, Sept. 6, 1922, Apr. 14, Aug. 19, 1923. Literary critic
Carl Van Doren thought that Masters owed an unacknowledged debt to Darrow’s novel,
Farmington
. He ranked Darrow with Mark Twain and William Dean Howells as a pioneering critic of rural American life, and Masters as a follower. “Clarence Darrow in his elegiac
Farmington
had insisted that one village at least had been the seat of as much restless longing as of simple bliss,” Van Doren wrote.
“Spoon River Anthology
in its different dialect did little more than to confirm these mordant, neglected testimonies.”

8.
Lem Parton to Wood, Apr. 29, 1918, Ehrgott to Sara, Nov. 21, 1918, and Dec. 6, 1918, Darrow to Sara, Nov. 16, 1918, CESW-HL; Darrow to Mary, Jan. 29, 1918, CDMFP-NL.

9.
Darrow, “War Prisoners” speech, Nov. 9, 1919, CD-LOC; Paul Johnson,
Modern Times
(New York: Harper & Row, 1983).

10.
Bianchi v. State
, 169 Wis. 75;
New York Times
, Sept. 10, Nov. 25, 26,1917;
Washington Post
, Nov. 25, 1917;
Chicago Tribune
, Sept. 10, 1917.

11.
The first neighbor to arrive was
Franklin Roosevelt, the assistant secretary of the navy, who lived across the street with his wife, Eleanor, and five children. He had to step through splotches of blood and fragments of a body to get to the door. Ackerman,
Young J. Edgar
.

12.
Ackerman,
Young J. Edgar;
Darrow to Cochran, Jan. 1, 1920, Negley Cochran papers, Toledo Public Library; Darrow to Mary, Thanksgiving Day, 1920, CDMFP-NL.

13.
People v. Gitlow
excerpts in
Gitlow v. New York
, 268 U.S. 652, 1925, New York Public Library; Arturo Giovannitti, “Communism on Trial,”
Liberator
, Mar. 1920; Harold Josephson, “Political Justice during the Red Scare: The Trial of
Benjamin Gitlow” in
American Political Trials
, ed. Michael Belknap (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994); Gitlow and Darrow,
The Red Ruby Address to the Jury
(New York: Communist Labor Party pamphlet, circa 1920); Benjamin Gitlow,
I Confess
(New York: E. P. Dutton, 1940);
New York Times
, Nov. 11, 15, 29, 1919, Jan. 22, 31, Feb. 4, 5, 6, 12, 1920; Darrow to Mary, Feb. 13, 1920, CDMFP-NL.

14.
Liberals scored a major victory in the
Gitlow case. The ACLU lawyers who handled the appeal took Darrow’s argument on the constitutionality of the New York law to the
U.S. Supreme Court, and though the court did not reverse Gitlow’s conviction, the justices ruled, for the first time, that the First Amendment extended to the states.

15.
Parson would write a novel about her experience,
The Trial of Helen McLeod
, in which Darrow appeared as a hero.
Rockford Daily Register-Gazette
, Jan. 2, 1920–Apr. 26, 1920.

16.
Address of Clarence Darrow in the Trial of Arthur Person
(Rockford, IL: Communist Labor Party of Illinois pamphlet, 1920); Apr. 24, 1920, CD-LOC;
Chicago Tribune
, Apr. 21, 22, 23, 25, 1920;
Chicago Daily News
, Jan. 8, 1920; Alice Beal Parson,
The Trial of Helen McLeod
(New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1938); Parson to Stone, Oct. 4, 1939, Irving Stone papers, University of California, Berkeley;
Rockford Daily Register-Gazette
, Jan. 2, 1920–Apr. 26, 1920.

17.
Lloyd was once arrested when cruising down State Street in his chauffeur-driven limousine decorated with the Red and American flags, offering free rides to those who would join the socialists.

18.
Clarence Darrow,
Argument of Clarence Darrow in the Case of the Communist Labor Party
(Chicago: C. H. Kerr, 1920);
People v. William Bross Lloyd
, New York Public Library;
Chicago Tribune
, Oct. 26, Dec. 28, 1917, Feb. 22, 1919, Jan. 7, 16, 22, 27, Feb. 16, May 10, July 14, 24, 28, 29, 30, 31, Aug. 1, 3, 1920;
Chicago Daily News
, Jan. 6, 1919, Feb. 25, May 10, 1920;
New York Times
, Jan. 22, May 11, July 14, 1920; H. Austin Simons, “Guilty,”
Liberator
, Aug. 1920.