Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1907-04-11
CONCLUDES HIS PLEA
Attorney DeImas Makes Final APP
peal for Harry Thaw.
WHITE BITTERLY AsSAILED
Cloak OF Chivalrous knighthood Put
About the Form of Defendant ny
His Chief Counsel.

New York, April 10.-With an ora
torical appeal to both the written and
the ''unwritten" law for the justifica-
ton of his client, Dolphin NJ. Delmas,
the California attorney, concluded his
exhaustive summing up address TO
the Jury that is to decide the fate OF
Harry X. Thaw.
With the exception of the moments
when he was reading from testimony,
Mr.. Delmas' speech was one of sus-
tanned o~ratorical effect. He threw
about the form of Harry Thaw the
cloak of chivalrous knighthood.
why" ne shouted, should we who
admire the chivalry Of the knights of
the Middle Ages who went about re-
dressing wrongs and rescuing maidens
in distress withhold our sympathy
from this brave man."
Bitterly the attorney again assailed
Stanford White. He declared White
sought to play with the girl so long as
her beauty remained and then would
have thrown her away like a dirty
rag, to float down life's sewers to a
grave In the Potter's field" Again
he said Harry Thaw had snatched the
girl from the old lecher, who saw In
her but a toy to crafty a moments
lust and then be cast aside to 60 her
way down the paths OF fallen women"
With dramatic emphasis Mr.. Delmss
cried nj that when Harry Thaw be-
held Stanford White ON the Madison
Square roof garden, the story Of his
wife's wrongs overcame him. He pic
tured in an instant, as a dying man
may picture. his past life-all that
Stanford White had done, "the ruin he
had wrought, and he struck; struck as
the tigress strikes in defense OF her
young; struck for the home; struck
for American women; struck for hui
manity-and Stanford White fell"
The instrument of Providence.
"Ah. gentlemen" the attorney went
on, "ff Harry Thaw believed he was
the instrument of Providence, who will
say he was mistaken"
Mr.. Delmas discussed but briefly the
testimony of the expert witnesses, de-
claring that whatever weight might
attach to their u~tterances was on the
side of the defendant. He declared
the burden of proof as to Thaw's
sanity at the time Of the homicide
rested with the prosecution, which had
failed to make out its case. 1t was in
discussing Thaw's mental state that
Mr.. Delmas came at last to the "un
written law" He declared the experts
had been at a loss to classify the form
of insanity from which Thaw suffered.
81 will suggest it's name" he de-
clared. 81 would call It 'dementia
Americana 1t is a species of insanity
which has been recognized In every
state of this Union. II is that species
of insanity which makes the American
man believe his home, his wife, his
daughters, are sacred, and that whose
ever stains the virtue of his threshold
violates the highest of human laws"
Twice during his closing periods Mr..
Delmas was interrupted by Assistant
District Attorney Garvan, Mr.. Jerome
being absent from the courtroom all
day. Mr.. Caravan suggested that the
argument was taking too wide a scope
and Justice Fitzgerald called Mr..
Delmas' attention to the fact.
Thaw seemed to be in the best of
spirits and declared to his lawyers in
the Tombs that he felt that his case !
was o He seemed to have no
dread of the assault of the district at