MURDER AS A PASTIME

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIV, Issue 201, 2 August 1924, Page 9

MURDER AS A PASTIME

The “Urge” of Sensation-Seekers

PSYCHOLOGISTS DISCUSS CHICAGO CRIME

Murder for sport! That .s the newest motive American criminologists aic call ©<l upon to weigh. The vhole r the United States has been her ruled by the revelations brought forward ty tne Chicago police in charges against Nathan Leopold, jun., and Richard I »eb, youthful sons of millionaire merchants, of murdering a «oy named Franks, 14-ycar-old son oi a millionaire manufac turer. Both the accused a e extremely brilliant young men ith unusually distinguished scholastic «. cords. Both had a psychological ‘urge ’* for new sensations. Leopold, discussing nurdox “as a sport and science.*' recently remarked: “It is an experiment, and as easy to justify as it is to justify an entomolgist’s killing a beetle on a pin. A thirst for knowledge is commendable, nc matter what pain or jury it may in flict on others.

Nathan E. Leopold. Jr., and Richard Loeb, emotio l »J investigators, made the mistake of acting out the hook they they should have written.

Intellectually, the flight into the foui'h dimension that teased along the

paii of adolescent prodigies to the murdei of young Robert Franks, was to be their ultimate experiment in their laboratory of human reactions. Actually (writes Gencvk-v' Forbes, in an American exchange) it was the most stupid murder of them ail. Like the cultured Dorian Gra-. of whom Oscar Wilde wrote so autobiographically, these university lads, • surfeited with evry psychic and physical satisfaction they wished, sought to squeeze still dryer the sponge of life. They had all the material for a sixteenth century Benvenuto Cellini manuscript, shot through with black shadows, and blacker passions, with ciotie whimsies, strange perfumes grotesque murder, fantastic death, all interlarded with the modern Freudian sex complex. ACTED OWN EXPERIMENT. But they acted out their experiment instead of charting it with pen and ink. So they took a boy’s life. And they let their hero leave his eyeglasses in - the culvert where Che victun’s bony was half hidden. As a result of,the error in the man script, two 19 year-old superintelle-'.-tuals have confessed to a superlative crimes that fascinate, is it repels. “But, let’s not cb .sify all precocity aj incipient crime or lack of balance.” warns Dr Herman Adler, state criminologist and director of the Institute for Juvenile Research. But speaking oi the subject of genuius and behavic th© psychiatrist calls attention to thv “double group” in the upper strut um of intellect, class ; fied as •-jupo»normal. ’ ’ THE NORMAL PERSON. First,-there is the normal person with a symmetrical enlargement faculties and mental equipment. He is mucti larger, mentally than the so-called normal person, ,but he is drawn to rbale, and he has judgment and balance, *n proportion to his intellect. {Second, there is the “lop-sided” person with an over-em x .iusis on one phase of his personality. lucre is no corresponding growth to balance this “virtual deformity” in the way of highly developed intellectuality. Such a person, the ailenist declares, does not always have his feet on the ground. His personality is ripe for psychopathtic or sociopathic manifestations. That’s the general theory of genius. FITTING LEOPOLD TO PATTERN. How doos young Leopold, suave, poised scholar lit into the general pattern i The youngest student ever to receive a degree from the liberal arts college of the University ot Chicago (the degree of Ph. 8., June, L>23, when he was only 17), absorbed books and Vx facts c*ud theorems with a. facility tlut become, almost a “mental de foimity.” In March, 1923 i the brilliant senior received the gold Phi Beta Kappa key, the (national badgf' of the honorary scholarship fraterm y. Ana it swun.» from his watch-cha , pridcfully, even as he scorned the comrades who lia ' to “grind to get the marks.” FOREIGN LANGUAGE EAST. It was the same with that voluntary education which, they say, goes to make up culture. The hurdles of foreign languages were not in his course of study. lie took them as a matter of course. The quaint and direful customs of bygone civilisations. He understood them with more sympathy than many a contemporary or that period. t Things came so easy. Still he couldn’t crowd out the iesiurc. Ho he took up mediaeval Italian. Then he delved, in the name of study, inio those sixteenth century manuscripts oi Benvenuto Cellini and the rest; int •> ui-expurgated cross sections of a deca dent group. All this super-normal supply of talent bore down upon a study of the abnormal. THE BRILLIANT LO'.B. Richard Loeb was also the youngest graduate from his college, th? U’.ivcr- • sity of Michigan. Erotic litcia: c-his-torical customs, bits of Osca Wilde, they all contributed in th.se < licit to make Loeb a well rounded man. L Which brings up a nice qum-tion. Did theso two “objective analysts” really acquire a “minus personality ’ by the paradoxical process .of thinking they were striving, zestfully, for the deeper 1 ‘plus personality?” If this is the case then the two boys, more than over, resemble their hero’s mirrored hero in Oscar Wilde’s “Picture of Dorian Gray.” Here was a youth of exquisite beauty, chairm of manner, strength of intellect; a man whose very luxury of endowment is reflected in the portrait the artist makes for him. But he goes adventuring.

ENDS IN SUICIDE. Timidly, at first. Later, with tan intellectual avidity, and a physical voracity, but down, always down. Each new “experience” makes -new lines on the portait. The flesh and blood Dorian Gray remains the same. Am! so the dual personality progresses, one by remaining on a level; tho other by careening downward. Through crimes, Loth personal and civic, the quest for turning down just one more page of experience goes on to its logical conclw." iou; mur ivr, suicide.

Young Leopold; young Loeb. Nine teen and appetont for a now thrill They .went adventuring. THEIR ADVANTURES CONTINUE Strange obi stories of poisoned gloves, and fanciful new stories of a ‘ God that 7 *’ line for the masses, but a bit amucnig fur an educated man,” curious original manuscripts revealing grotesque crime; and painstaking course.- in modern law. i / These were a few of the adventures that came tumbling iu as an attempt at the answer to the question, |“ What next?” Each new experience added a cubit or so to the intellectual stature- of the men. Each new sensation made it a b.'t easier to look down, like a monster Caliban, upon the pigmy brail s round and about. Each new association with each old abnormality cf tin ancient times made it more mcvit.v le that they chart an experiment cf their own. LOOKED DOWN ON NORMALITY. And, like an intellectual Burbank, Un two internes in a laboratory or human sensations, were teased along by the daring whimsy of crossing one oid mediaeval crime with another ancient mystery and seeing what tho result would be. Something they felt sure, that would /efute the theory of small brains, that ‘murder will out.” SOUGHT A “KICK.” It might have been guinea pigs, for the impersonal way they ehoi-e a unit of experimentation. It chanced to b»* human beings. And a human being u 4 wealth, from a family (F distinction. Not for any reason as yet re vc-aled, save that the greater the victim the greater the estimated ‘ ‘ motional kick” to b got from his muraer. And it happened from all present evidence, it just happened to be Robert Franks, 14-year-old son of a wealthy neghbour. BEGAN CRIME LAST FALL. intellectually, the young 'college men committed their murder last November. That was when they typed the kidnap} «ng letter to a “Dear Sir,” whom a/fickle fancy had not yet scl ectedIt was last November they began to stick their tongues in their cheeks, after xhey had used tho chisel, hidden the body in tho culvert, disfigured the face with acid, and returned to their ©hisses in law. It was la-J November they began to laugh, with amused tolerance, and security, at the whirligig of futile actions indulged in by the detectives, the neighbours and the world. And here, we quote from tho confession of these criminal youths: — “Wo had planned since last fall—stinc time in November, 1 think —to kidnap ison.e rich boy, kill him, and got mono-- from his father for ran-ge-a. We planned all the details weeks ahead and thought, wo had everything airtight against discovery. We had several boys in mind. ? didn’t even know which one /we woild kidnap

v. hen we started out. The Franks boy just happened along, and wo got him. ’ ’

‘‘ We planned to pour hydrochloric acid on his face so his features would be unrecongnisable. We bought *’ chisel, and wrapped it in tape. We planned to hit him over the head and stulf a gag in his mouth. If we couldn’t kill him that way we were going to use ether. “It was easier than we thought. He was weak. When he started to resist wo hit him on ti:e head and stuffed the gag into his mouth. We didn't need t > use the ethos He must have been dead within live minutes after we started. ’ ’ CHICAGO EDITORIAL A JEWS. ‘‘Thu Tribune,’’ in a leader: ‘‘Th: Automobile and the Problem o r Morals,” joins in the discussion:— Before the days of the automo bile young people did not find it easy to get away iron the observation ot their elders, their parents, their par cuts’ friends, their own companions. At the stage before experience and ma turity come to provide self-discipline and sense of cup.sequences, impressionable ami impulsive youth then lived with in the exterior restraints of a communin' ob.-.rvation and judgment, in fact, of a dii-’ct family and community control which were a considerable safe guard. Tho automobile can and docs in a few mom. -ats tra. sport even the youth of a '•idesprea- 1 city far outside observation or control. It is not necessary to elaborate upon the possibilities or the certainties of this situation. Any one wiling to consider them candidly must realise that the automobile makes opportunity for immorality and even criminality. The professional criminal, of course, has found it an invaluable aid, but wlme this development is serious it cun be met by measures of police ■ .iicieney. But to counteract or counterbalance the social effects upon our youth of the jazzed and (joyriding life of to day is as difficult as it is vitally important. A generation of young people ar.j passing through the nervous excitations of Ou* luxurious, high-geared. speed-loving time, and at Die same time arc deprived of many of the restraints and safe guards o£ the past. Can results 1.-e other than unfortunate and in some cases tragic. f

Addressing a graudating class on the Franks cuo«, the American foJecre tary of Labour, James J. Davis, remarked:—“Hero are two young maw. charged with the murder of a young boys. Both of them arc highly ed treated. Oat’ >f them is known as a prodigy in 'netlleeted attainments, and Im.-, won i.aiversity degrees for his learning. “But, educated only mentally, de veloped only through bocks and theory, they :.ave come to this sad end They • ace tho gallows on a charge of killing a fellow man.

“Proud cf their intellectual accomplishments, vain of their learning, the mere human things of life passed them by They know nothing of the spirit of brotncrly love, which, after all, is the most powerful force in the history of humanity. Their education has served one end —to make them eligible to the so-called ‘ intelligensia. ’ ” “Thay may be intellectuals, but they were .mt of the.world. T--ey had lost all hi the respect for honestj and honour. which is vital if mankin i ;s to survive and progress. Without . hose virtues, civilisation would soon come to an end.” A JUDGE ADDS A WORD. Characterising Nathan Leopold, jun., and Richard Loeb as “infants” and the “product of a system of education for which they arc not responsible.” Judge Bea, B. Lindsey, famous juvenile jurist, has declared that the murderers of Robert Franks should not bo hanged. I. “Those boys,” Judge Lindsey said, “should be treated very much as the insane arc treated. Clearly they are cases of wuiped or lop-sided mental davelopment—tlie victims of stupdirics of ou 7 own times

Lindsey criticised laws, “which/rcat al’ under 21 years of ago as children in property matters, presumed to be lacking in judgment, and ■without the advantage of experience and the control of will power that -comes from age and years, ’ ’ but which ‘ ‘ exact the same rest ponsibility from a minor as from an adult in his moral behaviour.”

“I do not believe in capital punishment for adults. Certainly there is no excuse whatever for capital punishment for minors.” Lindsey remarked. “This is far from saying, however there should not be some punishment and discipline meted out to Nathan I.copold and Richard Loeb.”