The Washington times., 1927-06-13

a IaK0 out OF the WuOlS clOlH, sup
posedly written by my Closest
Woman Friend" and making me
out a gold-digger, a drunkard, q
promiscuous cafe tramp. dance.
fiend and a joy-rider, gets her
angrier than 1t does me.
I am getting a bit hardened to
| lies.
II all that Gray told about me
| friend" Il had no close woman
iife9 tells about me. and all the
other anecdotes spilled by this one
and that one which trickle through
TO me were true, I should be
executed a dozen times. for must
be a dozen people and must have
| lived dozen lives. No less than
| that could have been long enough
for all those escapades. besides liv-
ing at home. raising daughter,
and keeping house.
Can't Hurt Her Much More
They cant hurt me much any
more. The walls of Sing Sing are
thick and the bars are strong. If
they can hold me in, they can hold
| the rest OF the world out
There is q certain comfort. any
way. in having reached the limit.
You know definitely and finally
there can't be any more. After q
woman has heard the sentence OF
death in the chair pronounced over
her it is very difficult to cOntrIve
any combinations Of words which
can ''StOp" that speech.
1t stings a little at that. It's so
unsportsmanlike. No one but a
ghoul would grovel SO low as to be-
smirch, without foundation of tact
or other reason than a few filthy
dollars, the doomed remains Of
defenseless, condemned woman triple
| locked in this house of death.
Is Murder the Worst Crime?
often wonder If murder Is, after
all, the most heinOus Of crimes.
Such things turn the stomach Of
Bonnie, and the world can tell you,
after the life she leo and the thing
she did and the years in Sing Sing
she lived, her digestion is not ex.
actly delicate.
She said to me today:
",You know, Ruth, in here we're
supposed to get a load of justice
and go out with the big thought
that when you slip you got to take
the fall.
II got that part Of IT all right.
l got it where I'll never forget it.
but somewhere out there in the
fresh air and the free world is a
man. He wears good clothes, has
good job, lives in nice house with
his wife and his two cute kids.
Man Got Her In Trouble
':That's the man that got me in
trouble. That's the father OF the
little boy killed. I was an inno-
cent kid when he took me to a pic
mic and had a breakdown with his
car on the way back.
when / tried to make him take
care of me-he couldn't marry me
because he had wife then and a
divorced one he was paying alimony
to-he got up in court. before my
father and my mother and my sister
and the whole town that knew me
and swore / was a liar, a black
mailer, and dirty little rat that
tried to shake down every man /
knew that had a dime.
He brought a couple of his
| friends in to back him up, men
I had never talked word to or
touched hands with in my life.
''He made an alley-bum out of
me. ! lost my case, lost my job.
My folks were poor. But they tried
to be nice to me.
Baby Born In Attic
My baby was born in the attic.
was crazy with pain and fright
and the unfairness and helplessness.
choked the breath out Of the lit
| tie one almost before he had any.
Nobody wanted him. But they
found out about it and arrested me.
All Of a sudden the whole State
was hot about that child. How
| dared do away with this precious
life? Before it came / was hooted
at, turned out, joked about. After
1t had gone, had robbed the law
of something very valuable.
| They wanted to burn me, too
beg pardon, didn't mean to use
| that word, / forgot-but they did.
1t was murder in the first degree,
the District Attorney yelled to the
jury, and he pounded the jury box
and he cried for then1-this thing
had to stop and an example had to
be made-of me
He didn't say one word about
the man that was to blame for it.
My lawyer told me If I had killed
him I'd probably have been turned
loose-the 'unwritten law Nobody
believed 1t was him when I wanted
him to take care of me and our un-
born child, but if I'd choked the
life out of him or put slug
through him. then they'd have
believed me, suppose.
Two Kinds of Justice
That's that justice thing they
want to teach us here to be afraid
of. Oh. Boy-I'm afraid of II
plenty. / don't want any more of
it-not the kind / got. If / must
get justice. want some Of the
kind that the rat who made a muir
derer out Of me got. There's tvs
kinds, you know. You and I got
about the same kind --,or we
wouldn't be here.
And you're still getting yours.
And / suppose there's little OF
mine waiting for me after 1 get
sprung out of here"
There isn't a close parallel be.
tween US, either in personalities or
the mistakes we made.