Hello everyone, I hope you’re all enjoying the cooling weather if you’re in a part of the world that’s settling into fall. This week I have some exciting updates:
My post Spring Break ’23 is out, exploring the vacation Leopold took in March and April of 1923.
The upcoming Leopold-Loeb movie American Criminals will begin filming again on September 25th, so check on that page in a couple weeks for some new photos and casting information. For anyone in Peoria and Chicago you may have a chance to be an extra if you’re interested.
I’ll be giving a talk in Joliet next March about the case, with a special focus on the time Leopold and Loeb spent in Joliet prison. More details about that will be coming as we get closer to the date.
A Japanese production of the musical Thrill Me is currently being staged and they’re selling merch, which is available to international customers. You can find that here.
For a lighter post this week, I wanted to look at the vacation Leopold took in the spring of 1923.
On March 20th of that year Leopold graduated with a Bachelor of Philosophy degree from the University of Chicago. As a graduation gift, Nathan Sr. gave Leopold and his friend Henry Hirsch a trip to Florida and Cuba.
Hirsch was a couple years older than Leopold, but still younger than most of their college contemporaries. He lived less than half a mile up the road, also on Greenwood, and he had been a member of the Campus Club with Leopold and Loeb in 1921. Though Hirsch earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1923, he and Leopold got to know each other around campus, Hirsch recalling that he “admired [Leopold’s] keen mind and store of knowledge.” Leopold and Hirsch were 2 of only 19 students who received Phi Beta Kappa honors that session for their exemplary school work.
The pair began their trip south in March after graduation, likely traveling by train, though it’s possible that they drove. Information about the trip is scarce, but we can guess at the path they took once in Florida: from Jacksonville to Miami to Key West and then out by boat to Havana, Cuba.
In Jacksonville, on the northeast side of the state, Leopold had his first plane ride. He recalled the experience years later:
“I invested five dollars in a three-minute excursion over the city. The plane was one of those little two-seater, open cockpit jobs; you had to wear a helmet, and your opportunity of communicating with the pilot was nil. The wind whistled thru the struts and guy wires as if it would tear the fragile craft to bits.”
The biplane Leopold described was likely something like this, though he assumedly wasn’t quite as daring as the sportsmen pictured above.
From Jacksonville the pair likely continued south until they reached Miami. In the preceding years Miami had been pushing tourism hard, especially relating to deep sea fishing. As stated in Sportfishing Around Miami: “The sailfish was every angler’s dream catch and was used prominently in Miami’s advertising. In 1922, the Miami Anglers Club put together a display of mounted fish and sent it across country to promote fishing in Miami waters.” Though Leopold had fished in the Great Lakes and other smaller lakes around Michigan and Illinois, he had never been deep sea fishing before, and was eager to try to catch the fabled sailfish.
The pair hired captain Alfred Hutter to help them in their quest. Hutter had been operating his fishing charter business in Miami for a decade by the time Leopold and Hirsch approached him, and they took off in a boat named Tramp on March 31st, the day before Easter. Cruising the waters around the peninsula the teenagers tried their luck, and we have a newspaper article describing what happened on board the ship that day:
“Although five sailfish escaped them, one 55-pound specimen was brought to land Saturday by two Chicago university graduates, Nathan F. Leopold, Jr., and Henry D. Hirsch, both residing in Chicago, to show for their first experience with deep sea angling…A collection of bonito and tuna was also brought back by the fishermen, who were here on their Easter vacation, but the sailfish was their particular prize. The Chicago visitors will have the fish mounted as the proof of their luck in Miami.”
Though the article cites both Leopold and Hirsch as bagging the fish, it seems to have been Leopold’s alone, and he was extremely proud.
From Sportfishing Around Miami
Leopold may have taken a picture like the one above: Hutter and Leopold beside the fish, with a sign reading ‘Caught on the Tramp’ displayed below.
The fish was about 6’ 3” long and, as the article says, Leopold immediately had it sent to be mounted. When it was completed, the fish and its new heavy wooden base were hung on the wall of the Leopold home, though it would only remain there for about a year.
After their victory, Leopold and Hirsch likely continued to Key West where they caught a boat out to Cuba. When describing Havana to reporters in 1924 Leopold said:
“Just to think that five hours from Key West one lands in a place as typically Spanish as Madrid itself. Havana is totally different from cities in the United States. It looks different-and smells different. The streets are narrow-so much narrower than our own nearby Michigan boulevard. And there’s as much gay life in Havana at 4 o’clock in the morning as there is in Chicago during the rush hours.”
According to a story he told one of his female admirers later in life, he was taking plenty of advantage of what the night life had to offer, relating an incident he claimed happened in a brothel on the island: “A gal once said that to me – a floozie in a Cuban can house in Havana. “I’m going to cut your throat and drink your blood so no one else can have you!” Just part of her professional patter, I reckon. But I didn’t get much sleep.”
After their adventures Leopold and Hirsch returned to Chicago in early April, we know Leopold was back at least by April 6th, because he and his friend George Watson were out bird watching that day.
A year and a half later Leopold would say goodbye to both his freedom and his treasured sailfish. When he was sentenced to life in prison he donated the fish, as well as the bulk of his bird, bug, and other natural collections to the Elgin Audubon Museum. Despite (or perhaps because of) everything that happened in 1924, Leopold often said that 1923 was his favorite year, and he would look back on that spring trip as an especially happy memory.
Fast forward a few decades to 1963. Leopold had been paroled for five years and was enjoying his first time being back in Illinois since his departure. Leopold’s friend Harold Row surprised him by taking him to the Elgin Museum. The museum’s curator showed them around the galleries and all of Leopold’s birds, nests and eggs that were on display, before going into the basement to show some of the collection which wasn’t in rotation. And there Leopold was reacquainted with his old friend, the sailfish.
Propped up against a wall, the mounted fish sat on the floor, where it had been for quite a while. Some time previously one of its fins had broken off and gotten lost, and the museum couldn’t display it in that condition. Seeing that symbol of his carefree youth in that basement “moved him very deeply,” according to Row. So shortly after the visit he concocted a rescue mission. While on the plane heading back to San Juan, Leopold wrote out a letter to Harold Row arguing his case:
“I’m really very devoted to that fish. One might say it is my piscatorial pride and joy. For, while it has no scientific value at all, it just happens to be the one and only sailfish in an otherwise arid life. Now, I’m no Indian giver! I gave the Elgin Museum the collection and I intend for it to stay given. BUT! I submit that the sailfish, broken pectoral fin or not, is doing no one any good in that ‘basement. It is collecting dust pretty good. It’s taking up valuable room. It might even constitute a hazard to life and limb. Someone might stumble over it. (How am I as a rationalizer and a special pleader?)”
Seeing how much it meant to Leopold, Row wrote to Elgin’s curator explaining the situation, and the curator was more than happy to oblige, as he had no plans to ever display the fish again with the missing fin. By February of 1964 the sailfish had been packed in a crate and flew off to Puerto Rico, where it was reunited with its old owner. Leopold was ecstatic when it arrived, writing to his brother: “I am indeed surrounding myself with some of my more treasured possessions. Just now my 6’ 3” sailfish, recently named NATRU, is eying me reproachfully with his big glass eye, cause he’s still on the floor and hasn’t been hung on the wall yet.”
NATRU was eventually hung on the wall of Leopold’s study (once he and Trudi were able to borrow an electric drill from a friend), where Leopold admitted that he sometimes got distracted from his work by gazing up and admiring it. He could now get lost in the memories of his happy past anytime he glanced up from his typewriter.
Leopold in his study, 1963, Associated Press
– – –
Leopold’s friend Henry Hirsch got married in 1926, went into real estate, had two sons and a daughter and died in 1970 at the age of 67. While Hirsch didn’t stay in touch after Leopold went to prison, he did write to the parole board in favor of his release in 1952.
As for what Richard Loeb was up to that spring break: the University of Michigan and University of Chicago had different schedules, so he was still in school at the time. When his vacation began in early April he went off with his parents to Atlantic City where he had his own suite of rooms and assumedly had a good time of his own.
As with anything that gets popular enough, there are sure to be commonly held beliefs about it that aren’t actually true. Today I want to explore some of these myths which have developed over the years about the closing arguments in the Leopold-Loeb hearing.
Clarence Darrow’s closing argument was 12 hours long, and the longest closing argument in history.
The most famous of these myths about the closing arguments is the length of Clarence Darrow’s speech. The popularly held belief, repeated in pretty much every book about the case and appearing if you google: “Longest closing argument” is that Clarence Darrow’s speech was 12 hours long and the longest closing argument in history. Both parts of that are false.
First, Darrow’s speech wasn’t even the longest in Cook County at the time. That record, as far as I can tell, went to attorney Lawrence Harmon, who was representing A. L. Luetgert, “The sausage vat murderer,” in 1898.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Harmon spoke for “almost precisely twenty-four solid hours,” over four days, leaving the jury, judge and spectators exhausted. Harmon “said he had no apology for having consumed so much time, as he had only done his duty.” The Tribune also noted that this speech was “the longest ever delivered before a Cook County jury, as far as can be ascertained. Attorney W. S. Forrest held the record up to the present with his three days’ speech in the first Cronin trial.”
So even if Darrow’s argument had been 12 hours long, it wouldn’t have been close to the longest closing argument heard in Chicago at the time. But it also wasn’t 12 hours long.
The first instance of this claim I found was in the 1957 book Attorney For the Damned by Arthur Weinberg, Weinberg describing Darrow’s closing as a “more-than-twelve-hour plea.” Weinberg’s estimate seems to come from the assumption that Darrow spoke all day on all three of the days he gave his closing. That’s 5 hours on Friday, 2 on Saturday and 5 on Monday, totaling 12. But looking at the transcripts, we can see that wasn’t the case.
Darrow began his speech on August 22nd at 2:30 and spoke for 2 hours, court adjourning at 4:30. He then returned and spoke from 10-12 on Saturday before court adjourned for the weekend. On Monday August 25th he was back. He spoke from 10:30 to 12:30, then court broke for lunch. He was back from 2-4, and two five-minute recesses were called during that day. So in actuality his speech was broken up into four 2-hour-long segments, and he spoke for about 7 hours and 50 minutes (not counting times when the speech devolved into other conversations, which would knock off a few more minutes). This is backed up by the newspapers from the time, a couple of them making reference to Darrow’s eight-hour summation.
And, what’s also often missed, is that State’s Attorney Robert Crowe spoke just about as long as Darrow. Crowe began his speech on August 26th at noon and spoke for half an hour before breaking for lunch. He then spoke from 2-4:30. He was back on August 27th, speaking from 10:30-12:30 and 2-4. Then the next day he finished with an extra hour from 10:30-11:30. Knocking off 20 minutes worth of recesses, that means Crowe also spoke for 3 days and for about 7 hours and 40 minutes.
As a fun little bit of trivia, I gathered a loose estimate of how long each closing arguments was in this case (Darrow’s time I was able to get pretty accurately because the newspapers noted the times he started and stopped, but the other lawyers are fuzzier). From longest to shortest:
Clarence Darrow: 7:50
Robert Crowe: 7:40
Thomas Marshall: 4:50
Joseph Savage: 3:40
Walter Bachrach: 1:45
Benjamin Bachrach: 40 minutes
Meaning the State spoke about 6 hours longer than the Defense in total.
And yes, though Darrow is the stand-out and Crowe sometimes gets thrown a mention, there were in fact 6 closing arguments.
Thomas Marshall began the closings for the State, speaking over two days, spending much of his time describing other cases in which criminals were put to death by the state to give a baseline for the legal precedent established for the death penalty. The newspapers made fun of him both for his high-pitched voice, but also his pedantic way of speaking (especially his excessive use of the word “turpitude”) and the hours he spent reading the legal details of previous court cases. A quote from his closing that sums up the tone:
“When, as here, the greatest turpitude, months of detailed planning, careful execution of every detail, a money motive, a kidnaping for ransom, the deliberate murder, the cruel blows of a sharp steel chisel, the gagging, the death and the hiding of the body all appear as they do in this case, the malice and deliberation take the crime out of the scale of lesser penalties and prescribe death. If this case does not fall within that penalty there has never been a case in Illinois that deserved death.”
Marshall was followed by Joseph Savage, also for the State, who also spoke over two days. He gave the facts of the case, and according to newspaper accounts, during his gruesome and drawn out description of Bobby Franks’ final moments, Jacob Franks got up and left the courtroom. Most reporters implied that this was because of Savage’s speech, but one paper noted that Franks had actually gone to identify two suspects who had threatened his family and tried to get an $8,000 ransom from him. The two brothers behind that attempt were caught and arrested that day. A notable quote from Savage’s speech:
“One of the cold blooded cruel murderers struck that defenseless boy on the head four times with that chisel. Why, Judge, you wouldn’t strike a dog four times on the head with a chisel and not give him some chance. Not even a fighting chance, not even a chance to protect himself from the cruel blows that were delivered by that fiend.
Bobby Franks, with the instinct of all boys or men, would have fought for his life, had he sent that blow coming at him. But no. The blow was struck from behind, that cowardly blow. And then, your honor, counsel comes before your honor and cry out for mercy. My God, what mercy did they show that boy? What mercy did they show to him? Why, after striking the four blows, they pulled him to the rear of the car and gouged his life out Mercy! Why, your honor, it is an insult in a case of this kind to come before the bar of justice and beg for mercy.”
Then came the first Defense closer with Walter Bachrach, who spoke mostly about the psychiatric side of things, though he still took the chance to take shots at the prosecutors:
“Cold blooded?
Why?
Because they planned, and schemed, and arranged, and fixed?
Yes. But here are the officers of justice, so-called, with all of the power of the State, with all of the influence of the press, to fan this community into a frenzy of hate with all of that, who for months have been planning and scheming, and contriving, and working to take these two boy’s lives.
You may stand them up on a scaffold, on a trap door, and choke them to death, but that act would be infinitely more cold-blooded whether it was justified or not, than any act that these boys have committed or can commit.
Cold-blooded!
Let the State, who is so anxious to take these boy’s lives, set an example in consideration, kindheartedness and tenderness before they call my clients cold-blooded.”
Darrow followed this, then Benjamin Bachrach finished things off by summarizing the main defense points and criticizing the State’s arguments that had come before him He was supposed to have spoken for much longer, but after Darrow’s lengthy speech they felt it would made more sense to keep things brief. A quote from that speech:
“Your honor has had the benefit of all the learning, of all the far-seeing thought of the experts that we brought here, and who made the appeal that the court has listened to for several days.
Now, all that I can do is to select a few points to discuss, that might in some way help your Honor to come to the conclusion that should be made in this case.”
And Crowe finished things off.
Moving on to the next myth:
2. Part of the trial transcript is missing and this has led people to think that Darrow’s closing argument was better than it was.
There are two myths here tied together, and here are two accounts giving a good summary of them:
From For The Thrill of it by Simon Baatz (2008)
“One section of the transcript is missing. At the conclusion of the hearing, Darrow borrowed the section that contains his closing speech. He rewrote his speech, cutting out long passages, correcting his syntax, and streamlining his argument, and then published the amended version as a pamphlet. Darrow’s speech in the courtroom was ponderous, disorganized, prolix, and often tedious; but subsequent commentators, unaware that the published version is not the speech that Darrow gave in court, have praised Darrow’s summation as a masterpiece. Fortunately several newspapers transcribed Darrow’s original speech and, in writing this book, I have used the transcription provided by the Chicago Herald and Examiner. (Darrow never did return the borrowed section of the transcript, and it remains missing.)”
From Nothing But the Night by Greg King and Penny Wilson (2022)
“Darrow’s closing has assumed a mythological status in legal history. It has been described as a powerful mixture of oratory and poetry, with heartfelt pleas and soaring rhetoric. But the widespread praise rests largely on myth. After the sentencing hearing ended, Darrow borrowed the transcript so that he could republish his speech; he failed to return most of the portions chronicling his speech, leaving a void in the record. The published account he presented, upon which nearly all of the praise has been directed, was not Darrow’s actual closing but instead a carefully edited version. As historian Simon Baatz noted, the attorney “rewrote the speech, cutting out long passages, correcting his syntax, and streamlining his argument.”
Darrow’s actual closing was disorganized, jumping back and forth from one subject to the next, dangling arguments and then neglecting to follow them up. In his stream-of-consciousness rambles, Darrow repeatedly interrupted his own narrative, reiterated the same points multiple times, and left many in the courtroom confused.”
So first, to tackle the missing section of the transcript.
I assume this myth came about because the most accessible version of the transcript, the one at Northwestern University, is missing pages. This is the version that was microfilmed and made available online and sent to multiple libraries/archives, so it’s the one most people have seen. The version available online is missing 893 pages out of a total of 4411, or 20% of it.
Specifically, it’s missing pages 3084-3799, or 715 pages, which covers August 15th-August 21st and the testimony of Dr. Harold Douglas Singer, Dr. William O. Krohn, the closing argument of Thomas Marshall, the closing argument of Joseph Savage and part of the closing argument of Walter Bachrach. This excised chunk was actually just an error made by whoever turned it into microfilm or from microfilm to pdf. These pages exist in the physical copy at Northwestern. The other missing pages, however, do not.
Pages 3937 to 4115 (totaling 178), the pages covering Darrow speaking on August 23rd and August 25th, are missing from both the physical and microfilm copies at Northwestern. Only the 2-hour speech Darrow gave on August 22nd remains intact, only leaving 58 out of a total 236 pages of the speech in total. In reference to that this version has a note included near the beginning of the transcript:
“Argument by Mr. Clarence Darrow on behalf of the defendants-
Delivered to Mr. Darrow personally,
(Pages Numbers 3937 to 4115 were the pages of the Argument taken out of this Volume VII.)”
I assume Baatz, King and Wilson read this note and assumed that the transcript came from Darrow, that he donated it to Northwestern, but specifically kept back most of his speech so that people would have to read his pamphlet instead. Except Darrow didn’t donate it. Elmer Gertz did.
Elmer Gertz posing in his office with part of his collection
Two important things to know about Elmer: He was a collector, and he revered Clarence Darrow. He loved to assemble memorabilia and had a huge Darrow collection, and at some point he was able to get this copy of the transcript. Based on the note, it seems to have been Darrow’s copy, given to him by someone.
The note about the missing pages seems to have been made later, and it doesn’t say who took the pages or why. How are Baatz, King and Wilson sure that Darrow removed the pages shortly after the trial? It could have been Elmer himself who removed them, lending them to someone writing a Darrow book, or putting together an exhibit. We don’t even know who made the note, it could have been Elmer, or the archivist who processed the collection. But there’s no evidence that Darrow was the one to remove those pages. Baatz claims that Darrow removed the pages so he could edit them for his pamphlet version, but why would the first day of his speech not also be missing if that were the case?
Regardless, it is true that those pages are missing from the Northwestern version, so does that mean the speech is lost forever besides the newspaper coverage?
Nope, Elmer Gertz provides once again. He managed to get another copy of the transcript and that complete copy is available in Gertz’s collection at the Library of Congress.
Gertz first donated his papers to the Library of Congress in 1968, and the first time I’ve seen the collection cited in a published work was in 1980, and the researcher cited Box 129 which comes after the Leopold-Loeb transcript boxes (which are 121 and 122). So the transcript would have been available for researchers sometime between 1968 and 1980, though it wasn’t fully processed until 1997. This supposed lost, suppressed piece of the transcript has actually been publicly available for around 45-50 years.
Which leads into the next myth: did Darrow substantially change his spoken speech for the published version? Are all the meaningful, moving quotes a carefully constructed hoax, and the real crowd listening in 1924 was bored and confused?
Of course not.
The newspapers at least didn’t report anyone being bored or confused at the time, and the courtroom was at its maximum capacity each of the three days Darrow spoke. There are quotes and editorials praising his oration, and many people watching were reported to cry during the speech, including Judge Caverly and Richard Loeb. Leopold and Loeb themselves both praised Darrow’s speech, and though the newspapers criticized pretty much every other aspect of Darrow’s defense, I haven’t seen a single word against his closing argument.
With that out of the way, we can move on to the issue of the edited text. To check this out I read the entire speech, with the transcript and published versions side by side.
Yes, Darrow (or whoever else may have edited this) did make some changes when the speech was converted from the transcript to a pamphlet. Several pamphlet versions of this speech were sold after the hearing ended, though as far as I can tell they all use the same text. Baatz claims that Darrow “rewrote his speech, cutting out long passages, correcting his syntax, and streamlining his argument.” I’ll say it’s true that he did sometimes correct his syntax. He also fact checked himself. For instance, when speaking he said: “Never has a human being under the age of 28 or 30 been sentenced to death on a guilty plea,” and in his pamphlet this changed to: “Never has a human being under the age of 23 been sentenced under a guilty plea.” So he must have done a bit more research there. He did this kind of fact checking a few times, usually when it involved numbers.
As for the rest of Baatz’s claims: that the speech was rewritten, that Darrow cut out long passages and streamlined his argument, it’s just not true. I was only able to find 2 instances when it could be said that “long passages” were cut. All of the instances of people other than Darrow talking were removed, and those could go on for several pages. If the Judge or other lawyers interjected, chatted about when to break for lunch, argued about something, etc., that was removed. He also removed some instances in which he referred to the Judge directly (mostly cutting the words ‘Your Honor’), so it read in a more streamlined fashion.
The only other big cut I found was when he removed a few paragraphs in which he said he hoped this case teaches people to examine their own families to prevent future tragedies. I’m not sure why that didn’t make it in. He also made slight changes to the pamphlet to make it more like a story, adding in details about “the long summer day” and how Leopold and Loeb ate dinner after the murder “without an emotion or a qualm.” He would normally cut or add single sentences or words. To show this I’ll use examples from some famous quotes from Darrow’s speech, so you can see the changes that were made, the bolded words indicate the changes:
Transcript:
“I am not pleading so much for these boys as I am for the infinite number of others to follow, those who perhaps cannot be as well defended as they have been, those who may go down in the storm and the tempest, without aid. It is of them I am thinking, and for them I am begging of this court not to turn backward toward the barbarous and the cruel past.”
Pamphlet:
“I am not pleading so much for these boys as I am for the infinite number of others to follow, those who perhaps cannot be as well defended as these have been, those who may go down in the storm and the tempest, without aid. It is of them I am thinking, and for them I am begging of this court not to turn backward toward the barbarous and cruel past.”
Transcript:
“Why did they kill little Bobby Franks?
Not for money, not for spite; not for hate. They killed him as they might kill a spider or a fly, for the experience. They killed him because they were made that way. Because somewhere in the infinite processes that go to the making up of the boy or the man something slipped, and those unfortunate lads sit here hated, despised, outcasts, and the community shouting for their blood.”
Pamphlet:
“Why did they kill little Bobby Franks?
Not for money, not for spite; not for hate. They killed him as they might kill a spider or a fly, for the experience. They killed him because they were made that way. Because somewhere in the infinite processes that go to the making up of the boy or the man something slipped, and those unfortunate lads sit here hated, despised, outcasts, with the community shouting for their blood.”
Transcript:
“I have stood here for three months as somebody might stand at the seacoast trying to sweep back the tide. I hope the seas are subsiding and the wind is falling and I believe they are, but I wish to make no false pretense to this court.
The easy thing and the popular thing to do is to hang my clients. I know it. Men and women who do not think will applaud. The cruel and the thoughtless will approve.”
Pamphlet:
“I have stood here for three months as one might stand at the ocean trying to sweep back the tide. I hope the seas are subsiding and the wind is falling, and I believe they are, but I wish to make no false pretense to this court.
The easy thing and the popular thing to do is to hang my clients. I know it. Men and women who do not think will applaud. The cruel and thoughtless will approve.”
And for the famous quote I’ve found with the most changes:
Transcript:
“I know your honor stands between the future and the past. I know the future is with me, and what I stand for here; not merely for the lives of these two unfortunate lads, but for all boys and all girls; all of the young, and as far as possible, for all of the old. I am pleading for life, understanding, charity and kindness, and the infinite mercy that forgives all. I am pleading that we overcome cruelty with kindness and hatred with love. 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 till 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.
In doing it you are making it harder for unborn children. You may save them and it makes it easier for every child that some time may sit where these boys sit. It makes 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.”
Pamphlet:
“I know your honor stands between the future and the past. I know the future is with me, and what I stand for here; not merely for the lives of these two unfortunate lads, but for all boys and all girls; for all of the young, and as far as possible, for all of the old. I am pleading for life, understanding, charity, kindness, and the infinite mercy that considers all. I am pleading that we overcome cruelty with kindness and hatred with love. 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 child that some time may stand where these boys stand. You will 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.”
Yes there were changes, but to say that the real version was far below the quality of the pamphlet version is a complete fabrication. They’re almost identical in content, with slight aesthetic tweaks. I’m actually amazed there weren’t more edits, that he didn’t streamline the published version and just try to highlight his message. I agree that both the original speech and the pamphlet version are meandering; Darrow does repeat himself and kind of wander into tangents. It worked in person because Darrow was speaking over three days, once with a weekend in between, so it makes sense that he might need to repeat some points and jog the crowd’s memory in the various sessions. But if a reader becomes enamored with the pamphlet version, that reader has not been tricked, and would not be let down by reading the actual transcript.
The Lives and Legends of Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold 