The manner of man that kills : Spencer--Czolgosz--Richeson

Front matter

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OlflntfU ICam Btl^mi ^Itbraty defective with criminal tendencies, take the case of Spencer who caused untold suffering in the community and finally killed a defenseless woman, which act resulted in his own death. Suffering and death can not be appraised, but the cost to the State in this one case may be estimated at nearly $50,000. His trial alone cost the i State nearly $30,000.

Cornell University Library HV 6112.B85

Introduction

The time has come when we must more seriously consider means for the prevention of mental disease and of such crime as is a product of the brain incapable of normal functioning. Our Governor, Channing H. Cox, in his Inaugural Address in January, 1921, said:

"Last year Massachusetts expended $11,887,108 for the maintenance and improvement of the institutions conducted by the Departments of Mental Diseases, Corrections, Public Welfare and Public Health. This represents a large proportion of our public expenditures. Massachusetts has been a pioneer in the work of caring for the unfortunate and the afflicted and is today doing much in this direction which has not been attempted by other States. The policy in this regard has met with the general approval of our citizens and they insist not only upon a continuance of this work but that the work be better done. Our citizens must recognize the immense cost of it all and they must be prepared to pay for it. They must remember that some of this work has been made necessary because individuals are not doing things for afflicted members of their own families which they did in former generations, and because parents are not exercising the same degree of control and correction of their own children that they did in earlier times. Our only hope of remedy from this constantly increasing public expense lies in finding measures of preventing diseases of the mind and the body and preventing the degradation of morals. We are now trying some preventive measures that have done a great deal in checking the spread of tuberculosis and preventing the spread of other diseases. I recommend appropriations for further research in the endeavor to check the increase of the feeble-minded and to reduce, if possible, the number who are sent to correctional institutions."

Hon. B. Loring Young, now Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, in addressing the General Court at its opening, in 1921, stated that support of the institutions for the insane and feeble-minded would cost this year $8,400,000; payments for the Department of Public Welfare will cost $4,500,000; for Department of Health $1,500,000, and Department of Corrections $1,400,000; making a total of approximately $16,000,000, or 40% of our total expenditures.

"For the care of the defective, dependent and delinquent classes," he said, "the enormous expenditures which Massachusetts now makes, 40?^ of our total, should make us eager to find remedies for the distressing social conditions which these necessary expenditures prove to exist. We might well consider what measures of preventive health and social work would lessen this ever-growing burden for future generations."

I feel that all communities must support such a farsighted policy as that expressed by Governor Cox and Mr. Young for the prevention of mental disease and crime. We are not today using the knowledge we possess, or the means we have at our command to stop the swelling of this stream of defectiveness and mental illness. With the exception of the important work that is being done by our out-patient departments or dispensaries, what are we doing to prevent the increase in the number of our mentally sick, with the consequent suffering and expense, not to speak of the loss to our community of their intelligence? Why are not more individuals saved? What are we doing to prevent crime which is so rampant now in our midst, resulting in the loss of lives and property and the increase of our dependents? It is to bring the above conditions to the attention of the public, it is to make communities realize that crimes, including murder, may often be prevented if the people are once awakened, that I have written the history of three crimes which might have been prevented, crimes which were inexcusable and a disgrace to our country. Society here punished the person it created. The original fault was the fault of society. Society, upon whom rests the responsibility, should be arraigned at the bar of Justice and put on trial and convicted instead of its product.

There is no excuse for any community not taking measures to recognize mental disease during its earliest manifestations. We should recognize the defectives not only in the schools but earlier, and then apply the remedy and not cease diligently to use all scientific means to cure mental illness before the disease becomes chronic, and so to direct and train the mind of the defective that at least he will become if not a useful, then a harmless member of society. In either case we must protect these individuals and the community from any harm consequent on their defectiveness or disease by directing their lives, if necessary, in hospitals or in schools.

Glueck says: "The management of the social problems created and kept alive by this huge army of failures in the business of living imposes a staggering burden upon the nation. It is an army responsible for more misery and sorrow than is even a world war, for death and bereavement are preferable to the lives that many of these unfortunates are obliged to live, and it carries with it a very serious menace to the future of the human race. . . . Education has something to do with preparation for life, and upon a personal conviction gained after a great deal of experience in the management and treatment of human failures, that no educator can successfully fulfill this important phase of his task unless he is concerned with the total individual, with his reactions as a social being, called upon to adjust and adapt continuously to the demands of life, and not merely with his receptacles of information."

Invariably an early study of the personality of these individuals will reveal certain character traits such as jealousy, cruelty, suspicion, egotism, negative self feelings, false pride, etc., which unless recognized and corrected while their minds are still plastic will eventually lead to paths which will prevent them from making the proper adaptation to their environment, the results being crime, pauperism, mental and physical disease.

On the other hand if these same instinctive forces be guided and directed and perhaps the environmental factors altered, and mental and physical occupation selected to suit each case, an avenue would be established which would take that individual out of chaos into a useful and happy life.

They cannot compete with normal people either socially or economically and they are knocked from pillar to post and often shut up without any intelligent effort being made to direct their energies. They are punished in their homes, in the schools and in prisons because they are incapable of adjusting themselves to that which is unsuited to them.

Some have undoubtedly been born without any sense of moral responsibility in their make-up, and a very large number have been warped by environment. Is it right to punish these individuals? It may be necessary to give them custodial care but our responsibility does not end there. To be sure, we should thus protect the public ; but in making a man do a certain stunt or piece of work daily in an institution, we make him into a producing machine, we may not have done anything for him individually. Surely, in this enlightened age, these handicapped individuals are entitled to as much of our time and effort as is necessary to develop their capacities to the highest possible degree.

A plan for the defectives should, I believe, eventually be carried out along the following lines :

A building, or number of buildings, should be erected where this group may be individually studied according to their various medical, educational or reeducational requirements. It should not have any title suggesting hospital or custodial treatment, but might be called a school or training school. It should, however, be under expert medical supervision. The organization should also include one or more psychological and vocational experts and social workers, and a pathologist. There should be well equipped laboratories, a department where the three R's, ethics and hygiene would be taught, with classes for languages, music, etc.; departments of trades, craftsmanship and domestic arts, where instruction might be given in carpentry, cabinet work, carving, masonry, brickmaking, tile and cement work, plumbing, electrical work, shoemaking, tailoring, printing, farming, dressmaking, cooking, canning, preserving, laundry work, etc.; a department of occupational therapy, where a certain small group, incapable of continuous effort in any one direction, should be employed in various handicrafts, according to their therapeutic needs, such as basketry, weaving, lace-making, rug braiding and hooking, pottery, etc.

A school of this kind should be able to graduate into the community a number of its pupils each year, who should then be under the supervision of the social worker. There will be many who might never graduate, but every one of these defectives, however anti-social, should be given an opportunity to prepare himself to go out into the world and make good. It is by such methods together with the supervision he exercises over the patients who leave his school that Dr. Walter E. Fernald develops hundreds of feeble-minded individuals to safely take their places among normal people and guides them in the life he has found suitable for them in the community. Ninety-three of his former patients earned over $102,000 in 1920, and sixty- three served with honor in the World War; of these two were killed and several wounded.

A great assistance in the preventive work, especially in the early discovery of defectiveness, are and will be the laboratories and the consultations with specialists in the training schools. The laboratories will first scientifically examine the body at large, note the stigmata, and the variations in the relative size of the organs, look for syphilis, tuberculosis, and especially congenital syphilis, which often can be shown by an x-ray of the

INTRODUCTION ii

bones when other tests are negative. A study of the glands and their secretions is a most fertile field. Careful bacteriological and serological examinations should be made, and psychometric and psychonosological examinations and psychological studies, including studies of the emotion and will.

Every State should provide special units for the care and treatment, both educational and medical, of this so-called "defective delinquent" group. Their crimes and the burden of their support handicap our civilization whereas none need be harmful and many might be useful.

There are a great many who, in the light of present knowledge, may never be able to take any place in the community, but this does not mean that there is not perhaps a larger group who are capable of good work, showing marked ability in one direction or another, though this ability is sometimes misapplied.

To illustrate the deplorable results of neglect by society of mentally ill and defective individuals, I have written the life history of three cases where failure to appreciate the seriousness of their mental condition resulted in the death of six persons and involved untold suffering. In any of these three men, defectiveness or mental disease could easily have been recognized early in their lives. Their condition was actually recognized long before their crimes were committed, but when recognized nothing was done to help them owing to the neglect of society and to the short-sighted policies of our government as at present organized and administered.

Had our medical universities properly educated the physicians who saw these men; had our government, state and local, provided and carried out a systematic and fairly frequent examination of the school children in the several cities and towns ; had they organized and carried on mental dispensaries and clinics conducted by highly trained specialists which were within the reach of every physician and in connection with clinics of other branches of medicine, and, lastly, had psychopathic hospitals been established for the earliest or acute cases of mental disease and schools for the education and training of defectives, the lives of these three men would probably have been saved, some use made of the faculties with which God had endowed them, and their three victims might still be living.

Again look at this question from a scientific point of view. What efforts tending to prevention are the scientists making with these cases? When we find a germ that kills people we do not annihilate it so that it is impossible to learn more about it. No, we put it under glass, nurse and study it under different conditions, find out its characteristics, its source and how it develops, so that we may be able to combat other germs of the same kind and render them at least harmless.

There is a question whether with a scientific examination into the minds, natures, environments and development of men who commit crimes of violence we should not find the cause and a means of prevention. At present our knowledge of their impulses is usually based on evidence in court and the statements of these individuals themselves. We know now that their minds are often of such a calibre that the fear of punishment does not deter them. With minds so primitive that they do not understand or fear death, or so diseased that they do not appreciate the consequences of their acts, these people go on unmolested until often they commit some deed which is followed by disaster and suffering. The fear of death did not deter men who were bent upon stealing sheep when they were hanged for it. Many and many other examples could we cite. Did the fear of death ever deter a person who was capable of becoming, as the expression goes, "blind with rage" from violence, or does a person who plots for revenge, which he believes he is entitled to, stop because of consequences, stop because of law? No, and no more does the regicide hesitate to give up his life to some great, though imaginary, cause which often results in the death of his victim. Would any person of low mental calibre, carried away by sufRciently strong emotion, be deterred by law from committing crime?

Does not this all tend to prove that we have not the remedy in law? I believe we have it in scientific study and investigation, in psychopathic hospitals and dispensaries properly supported by government and community, both financially and morally, and by proper rules and regulations of society which will protect the community.

The alleged excuse for law is that it will act as a deterrent. It does not so act with the classes we have under discussion. It did not so act with these three individuals whose histories I have written. Therefore, we must apply medical science. We must not wait for the law with its inexact science to act. We must take these individuals long before they get into the grasp of the courts. We must begin with them when they are children, We must watch over them, study them, change their environment, if necessary, guide and instruct them, and thus protect them and the community.

The real offender is society and not the children in the form of men, nor the mentally diseased. Due to the lack of proper laws or rules protecting people of this kind, the opportunity was afforded to commit these crimes. If society took enough interest to enforce proper regulations, these people would have been under intelligent supervision and, if need be, confinement. Medical colleges and Universities teaching medicine should make compulsory a course in psychiatry and neurology.

Miss Blackstone was shot by Bertram G. Spencer, a young man whom all the alienists who examined him pronounced a defective, a defective from birth, whose earlier life had demonstrated that he was not a safe individual to live unguided in the community, but he was allowed to go on in his wild career until in a crucial moment he lost control of himself and by an impulsive act destroyed the life of a useful member of society.

President McKinley was killed by a diseased man, a man who had been suffering from some form of mental disease for years. He was not medically responsible and in the light of present-day psychiatry and of modern surgical procedure, there is a great question whether he was even legally responsible for the death of our President.

Clarence V. T. Richeson was, I think, the only man ever executed in Massachusetts without a trial. He was a victim of hysteria with delusions, hallucinations, amnesic periods and delirium. He had exhibited signs and had had attacks of this disease for years, had been recognized as mentally unsound by several physicians who advised specialists in mental diseases to attend him. Still, he was allowed to "carry on" until his acts resulted in the death of a young girl of this State.

After making an earnest effort to obtain the results of the histological examinations of the brains of Spencer and Richeson which the late scientist Dr. E. E. Southard said he had been permitted to make and having failed one cannot help interpreting the secrecy regarding these results as indicating a possibility that the opinion of those who felt one or both of these condemned men were of unsound mind was substantiated by the microscopical examination of these brains after death. It is regrettable that such valuable information as would result from a careful microscopic examination of the brains in question should be withheld by the Medical Examiner even a day, information which might prove of inestimable aid to the medical profession for whose perusal and reference this book is written and many of whom have to do with similar cases.

The public who are really responsible for the death of these men should also be informed what the final analysis revealed, that they may know if these executions were justified and be better prepared to pass judgment on future occasions.

I would suggest that several new laws be enacted which will again advance Massachusetts another step beyond her sister States in the care of mental disease and defect. First, that Massachusetts shall grant licenses to practice medicine only to applicants who have complied with all existing requirements and in addition shall have passed an examination in psychiatry. Now that Harvard Medical School has a Chair of Psychiatry i6 INTRODUCTION

there is no excuse for her graduates not being prepared in this important branch of medicine. Other universities teaching medicine and medical colleges recognized by the Mass. State Board of Registration in Medicine must make compulsory a course in psychiatry if their graduates intend practicing in Massachusetts.

I would further suggest a law which will compel physicians in Massachusetts to report to the Department of Mental Diseases in accordance with rules and regulations to be prescribed by the said Department every known or doubtful case of mental defect or dangerous form of mental disease within twenty-four hours after becoming cognizant thereof, and that these reports should be kept on file at the said Department but shall not be open for public inspection. If after receiving the report of any particular case the Department of Mental Diseases believes that the said case is not receiving proper care and treatment, it may make such recommendations to the attending physician or other persons in interest as the welfare and safety of the person afflicted and of the public may require. Any physician who neglects or refuses to comply with the provisions of this act, or who violates any rule or regulation of the Department of Mental Diseases made under authority hereof, shall forfeit a sum not exceeding fifty dollars for each offence.

Again I would suggest that a law be passed which would abolish the distinction between medical and legal insanity in chronic cases, if not in all cases, and at the same time prevent the deplorable condition which now exists whereby the mentally defective and diseased are returned to our prisons again and again. The law I would suggest is as follows: Whenever a person is indicted by a grand jury or bound over for trial in the Superior Court who has previously been convicted of crime or who has previously been indicted, the clerk of the court in which the indictment is returned or the clerk of the district court or the trial justice, as the case may be, shall give notice to the Department of Mental Diseases and the Department shall cause such person to be examined with a view to determining his mental condition and the existence of any mental disease or defect. The Department shall file a report of its investigation with the clerk of the court in which the trial is to be held and the same shall be presented to the court or jury as evidence of the mental condition of the accused. This would in no way interfere with the rights of the individual to employ experts but it would tend to settle all questions so far as the State is concerned and prevent the deplorable condition which now exists in so many cases when our medical men are apparently pitted against each other and are held up to ridicule.

I believe that such a law, with its results, would soon discourage the plea of insanity in all cases found sane and responsible by a Department of Mental Disease, and that juries would invariably accept as final the report of such a Department who would be unbiased, unpaid by either side and whose experience is worthy of serious consideration. This would also leave the responsibility of a medical case with medical men. Is there a judge or attorney within this Commonwealth who would take a member of his family with two disagreeing physicians to a jury of laymen to make a correct diagnosis of the mental disease or defect from which he or she was suffering or to determine the extent of the disease? Still that is what the juries of this Commonwealth are determining every day. No more would a judge or an attorney go to a body of medical men to determine the intricacies of law. The law completely disregards medical opinion, still it asks physicians to pass upon legal responsibility. Psychiatrists should not be asked to pass upon questions of law any more than lawyers should be called in as experts upon questions of medicine. The cases to which alienists are called are medical cases and are either responsible or irresponsible medically, and that determination should be left to medical men.

As a result of our policies in this State we had in 1918, according to the census obtained by the "Special Commission Relative to the Control, Custody and Treatment of Defectives, Criminals and Misdemeanants," 11,495 persons committed to our penal institutions in that year, of which 6,733 °r 58.5% were repeaters. It further appears from the same tabulation that they averaged 6.8 former commitments each. In the 21 county jails and houses of correction 5,727 of the 9,719 inmates entering these county institutions during 1918 were known to have served time before and the number of sentences served by these repeaters totalled 40,228. The records of these repeaters in county jails showed that 25 or more previous commitments was not uncommon, while some institutions housed men with as many as 100 terms of confinement recorded against them.

Part I: Spencer Chapter Page

I History of Spencer's Crimes to Time of Arrest, April sth, 1910 23

II History of Spencer's Life— Examination of Spencer Immediately After His Arrest by the Commonwealth's Alienists — Spencer's Transfer to Bridgewater State Hospital, September 17TH, 1910 £2

III History at Bridgewater 108

IV Political Campaign in Western Massachusetts, as Affecting

Spencer — ^Reports of Bridgewater Authorities to Chief Justice Aiken — Removal of Spencer from Bridgewater to Springfield for Trial, August ist, 1911 128

V The Trial — Inchtoing Previous Court Proceedings and Efforts FOR A New Trial, to Time of Sentence to Death, July znd, 1912 153

VI Removal of Spencer to Charlestown, September sth, 1912 — Efforts for Commutation of Sentence — ^Execution, September 17TH, 1912 222

Part Ii: Czolgosz

Introduction to the Czolgosz Case — Reasons Why Investigation was Made — History and Investigation of the Case by Alienists and Authorities in Buffalo — Conclusions as to His Sanity Made Mainly from Statements by Czolgosz Himself 233

I History of Czolgosz's Crime — ^The Assassination of President McKiNLEY, September 6th, 1901— Examination by the Alienists 237

II Trial and Execution of Czolgosz 248

III Czolgosz at Auburn, N. Y. — Impressions of the Officers in

Charge of Him 255

IV Czolgosz in Buffalo, N. Y., Prison— His Life at West Seneca,

N. Y., Just Before the Crime— A Visit to Czolgosz's Birthplace, Detroit, Michigan 266

V History of Czolgosz's Life in Ohio — His Breakdown in 1897 Causing Him to Leave His Position at Cleveland — Sick Benefit Received — His Life on the Farm at Warren, Ohio — His Sudden Departure from Home 284

20 CONTENTS

CHAPTER 'AGE

VI CzoLGOSz's Efforts to Become an Anarchist — Hts Interest in THE Teachings of Emma Goldman — Anarchists Consider Him a Spy and Publish Warning to Their Brethren — Criticisms of Him in the Anarchists' Papers 316

VII Opinions of Spitka, Hamilton, Christieson, Lydston, Holt and

Hughes— Service of Czolgosz's Brothers in the World War 332

Part Iii: Richeson

Introduction to the Richeson Case — ^The Crime of Rev. Clarence V. T. Richeson Illustrating Sex Delinquency — The History of This Case is Unique in that no JxmY was Impanelled at the Time He Pleaded Guilty — He was Electrocuted without Trial by Judge or Jury — Affidavits Presented for the First Time Setting Forth His Mental Condition were Not Considered by the Judge who Sentenced Him and were Never Passed Upon Judicially — His Plea for Clemency was Never Formally Presented to the Council . 347

I History of the Crime — Arrest of the Rev. Clarence Virgil Thompson Richeson — He Pleads Not Guilty— Action of the Church 351

II Richeson's Resignation Accepted — Successful Self-Mutilation — ^Retracts Plea of Not Guilty — ^Pleads Guilty to Murder IN First Degree and Counsel Present Confession — Sentenced to Death — Only Case in Massachusetts Sentenced to Death wtthout Trial by Either Judge or Jury — ^Alienists for the Defense Present Their Reports 364

III Governor Foss Asks Dr. L. Vernon Briggs to Examine Richeson

AND Report His Findings to Him — Commission Also Appointed to Examine Richeson for the Council — History of Richeson's Heredity and Early Life — Affidavits of Physicians Attending Him, Etc. 378

IV Examination and Report of Dr. L. Vernon Briggs — Richeson

Has an Hysterical Attack in Jail — ^Petitions Governor Foss AND Council for Clemency 410

V Richeson's Removal to Massachusetts State Prison, May 14TH, 1 912 — Governor Foss Refuses Commutation — ^Richeson Again Has Hysterics with Hallucinations and Delirium — His Execution, May zist, 1912 428

INDEX 441

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Bertram G. Spencer, Springfield's Mysterious Burglar in 1910 Frontispiece

PACING PAGE

Bertram G. Spencer, aged 7 mos., z days 68

Bertram's Father, Mother and Son 68

Bertram G. Spencer, aged 5 years 68

Bertram G. Spencer, aged 17 years 84

Bertram G. Spencer in California, aged 25 years 88

Bertram G. Spencer, aged 29, During his Confinement in York Street

Jail 104

Part of Letter Written by Spencer May 28, 1912, Showing Effect of

Emotional Thoughts When Referring to His Wife at This Time . 214

Designed, Drawn and Printed by Bertram G. Spencer After Passing

Under the Influence of Christian Science 224

Leon F. Czolgosz, the Day After He Shot President McKinley . . . 242

Leon F. Czolgosz, Just Before His Execution at Auburn, N. Y. , . 252

Leon F. Czolgosz. Photograph Taken in 1900 Found Among His Effects

at Buffalo. Letter Written About Time He Arrived in Buffalo . 274

Paul Czolgosz, Father of Leon 288

Jacob Czolgosz, Brother of Leon 296

Letter Written by Leon F. Czolgosz — Fred C. Neiman One Year after

He Gave up Work 314

Clarence V. T. Richeson, a Student at the Newton Theological Seminary, 1908 354

Clarence V. T. Richeson, Pastor of the Immanuel Baptist Church,

Cambridge, 1910 354

Clarence V. T. Richeson, Taken at Charles Street Jail, April, 1912 . 4:80

Clarence V. T. Richeson, One Week Before His Execution . . . 430

CHAPTER I HISTORY OF spencer's CRIMES TO TIME OF ARREST, APRIL 5TH, 1 910

Beginning in June, 1908, and continuing for nearly two years, a series of sensational crimes occurred in Springfield, Massachusetts, which completely baffled the police and so terrorized the inhabitants that when these crimes finally culminated, on March 31st, 1910, in the murder of Miss Blackstone, a young woman much beloved and respected in the community, public indignation and excitement reached a fever heat and the city was in a condition little short of panic. There was not very much doubt in anyone's mind but that these crimes had all been committed by the same person. Although they alike exhibited an almost unparalleled daring and bravado, they were evidently not the work of a professional burglar. In all there seemed a singular lack of motive; although houses were entered, lives threatened and property stolen, the actual gain was trifling and, in most instances, the risk taken was out of all proportion to the possibility of gain. Indeed this burglar frequently passed by valuable articles and took pretty trinkets of lesser value; the hours chosen for his entries were generally early in the evening when there was every risk of his being detected ; when confronted, as he frequently was, by members of the family whom he was robbing, he seemed quite fearless so long as no noise was made ; but a scream or any other loud noise excited him and frequently led to some demonstration of violen<:e. He was known even to go out of his way while robbing a house to encounter the inmates, and on several occasions had conversation with them.