The producers news., 1927-06-03
Maybe So

But how about young Loeb and Leopold?
Was not the murder of the Frank kid as brutal
as the murder of the Geislers? What about the
great Michigan divine that murdered his wife and
burned her in the furnace?
Were they personal liberty" advocates who
wanted everyone to drink much and as often
as they please and keep their children out of
school?
What about the Kleagle or something of the
Ku Klux Klan Of Indiana, who raped and murdered
young lady?
Did these men come from homes stepped in ig-
norance and brutality?
We ask these questions in all sincerity.
Those who themselves lust for blood and revel
in legal murder by way of the haFgmans rope
all urge that the murder of the Geisers was
fiendish; that it was gruesOme; that because of
this it was a worse murder than it would have
been if Schlaps had been a more intelligent per-
son. Then he would have done the deed maybe in
a more asthetic manner, so it would not have been
terrible, heartless, so gruesome, fiendish.
So having committed a murder and being es-
pecially callous about it and rough, he ought to
be hung that others who enjoy the spectacle of
taking human life, could see it taken in the fine
humane manner of breaking Schlaps neck at
the end Of a rope.
To the writer it seems that murder is murder
whether done with dirk an axe, with chloro
form or on the galows, whether bloody or blood
less-it all ends with the death of fellow human
The refined will murder in an aesthetic manner
the unrefned stupid and vulgar, will murder in
coarse and brutal way, but in either instance tht
victim is killed.
There may be virtue in the way that a murde
is committed simple to the minds of County At
toney Marion and Gov. Erickson, but ungrasp
able by the simple intellects of the writer-whicl
causes the writer's confusion--maybe so.
But while there are conditions about murder
degrees of murder, etc., which is bound tt
be considered by Judge and jury and Governor
which it is easy to understand, yet it is hard t.
make murder or less atrocious by the man
ner in which it was done as far as society is con
cered.
Of course the element of torture of the victir
affects US, and maybe discloses the state of min
of the murderer, which is an essential fact in tn
consideration of murder-but murder is not es
sentialy cruel because it is bloody. murde
not accompanied by wound, by the loss of
drop of blood is often more painful, than wher
the body is Oady mutilated and blood copiousl
spilled
The average man hates to see blood He ali
uOIS d InuIudCeu corpse. Inere is SOmethln
about it that seems excessively revolting-and s
he feels more intense about such deed than h
does, if it is done without the gruesome accom-
paniment.
But such an attitude is primitive 1t is sent
mentalism purely. 1t appeals only to the minc
of the superficial and the ignorant-and we don
look for ignorance, stupidity and blood lust
high places. We may find it there but we an
not proud of it. 1t to us seems regrettable. Neces
sarily, if it is there it must be tolerated.
Yet, brutal murder, a murder such as Ferdir
and Schlaps committed does disclose certai
things-to mind that has some grasp of psyche
logy and mental physiology it discloses that IL
Schlaps boy was moron-a mental deficient
is so plain there is no question of a doubt Tt
fact that the murder without motive withol
plan, without comprehension as to its atrocity an
mOnstrous brutality, proves positively, prov,
without further investigation that the seventee
year old Schlaps boy was a moron-was be
with the strength of his age but with the mind
an eight year old.
The simple story of the murder justifies b.
one conclusion.
1he only motive for this norrid thing was II
momentary insane anger of a mental deficient
Now If an insane man kills, it is not murd,
even though ever so atrocious. It is the bas
element of murder that the killer must wantonl
knowingly, wilfully and with malice aforethougI