The Emmett index. [volume] (Emmett, Idaho) 1893-1925, 1913-02-13
SAN SEVENTEEN PASS
As He WAITED
Free After Two Years Maurice
Lustig Describes Sing
Sings Horrors.


years Maurice NJ. Lustig stood
in the shadow of death. with
nothing but reminders of death
round and about him. The sun was
not shining for him. The stars were
twinkling for others. No sun or sky
or earth did he see In those years of
gloom In the death house at Sing Sing.
His identity in the world was gone.
He was known only as number. He
was forgotten by all but his family
and the friends who stuck by him.
Seventeen men who had been his
nelghbors in adjoining cells in that
time had gone by his narrow steel
dwelling and had passed through the
little green door. Seventeen men had
been slipped into eternity. The little
green door of the death house at Sing
Sing opens on the road from which
there is no turning back. 1t Is the
threshold of the electric chair.
Men had gone by Lustig with their
heads bowed in prayer. Men had
walked with heads erect to meet their
Redeemer. Men had gone that way
cursing the God who brought them
into the world Men had been dragged
groveling. shrieking. bowling with
fear, begging for mercy, down the short
walk from the death house to death
itself.
Awful Meaning of $50 Away"
When the condemned man starts
down that walk they call it "going
away" They never mention the chair
in the death house. They never men
ton death. They are breathing its at
mosphere all the time. Every man
keeps count on the days He knows
when he is going away" Lustig saw
them all go. Some lad been in the
death house before he arrived there;
others who followed him be saw go
ing away" Once his day had been set
for going away" but the day passed
He says he knew be was never going
through the little green door because
he had faith in himself, in his lawyers,
Alexander Mayper aud Benjamin
Reass, and in the higher courts.
And a day came when the court of
appeals handed down its decisions In
the cases of eleven men who were I'M
der the death sentence for murder.
Two the chair awaited in Dannemora.
one in Auburn and eight in Sing Sing.
OF all these only Maurice Lustig was
granted a new trial. On seven of the
eight in Sing Sing the little green door
opened and closed for the first and last
time Today Maurice Lustig walks the
streets of New York free man.
Lustig was convicted of the murder
of his wife. The principal witness
against him was Mrs. Maud Livingston.
1t was shown on the stand that she
was the author of three anonymous
letters addressed to Coroner Dooley.
Anonymous Letter Caused Inquest.
The first OF these letters was receiv-
ed the day Mrs. Lustig was to be bur
led. Coroner Dooley fastened to the
house and stopped the funeral until an
inquest could be held. He had several
detectives and policemen with him. At
the conclusion of the inquest the coro-
ner and the police went away. and the
funeral was proceeded with.
Three months later on the receipt Oh
more anonymous letters Lustig was or
dered arrested. The woman kept
drug store and swore that she had seen
Lustig take a bottle of strychnine from
q shelf in the store. She never said
about this, she stated on the
stand, never mentioned it to the coro-
ner, nor did she go to the police court
to appear against the prisoner. 1t was
mainly on her evidence that Lustig was
convicted. 1t was the review Of her
evidence that granted a new trial to
the condemned man and set him free.
"Oh, it's great to breathe Gods sun
shine again. said Iustig. Its great
to be out in the world once more, to
see people. to have them bump into
you, to hear them talk and laugh and.
yes, swear It's a wonderful thing to
know you have friends who will stick
by you to the limit, who will do things
for you without hope of reward, do
them just for you.
1--WE had them. I've got them. l
never believed that l was going to the
chair My lawyers didn't. l never can
forget Solomon Badesch. who was not
in the case. but who had been my at
torney on former occasions. He it was
who dug up the evidence against Mrs.
found out she was liv-
ing under an assumed name. He pho
tographed her former apartments. He
got her history. He was mainly in
strumental in saving me from the
chair.
The Chill of Death.
when | entered the death house
there were sixteen men ahead of me.
| made the seventeenth. l filed the
cells in the house. did not leave hope
behind, for we had then the newly
discovered evidence. | knew that l
would never go through the little green
door. But that did not make the sur
roundings the less gloomy. 1t did not
lift the chill from the vaults. 1t did
not remove the ever presence Of death.
II was uncanny 1t was awful when
they began taking the condemned men
out to the chair.
THE first two to go away were Carl