An American Tragedy (126 page)

“But you mustn’t, Ma. Gee, you mustn’t cry. I know it’s hard on you. But I’ll be all right. Sure I will. It isn’t as bad as I thought.” Yet inwardly saying; “Oh, God how bad!”

And Mrs. Griffiths adding aloud: “My poor boy! My beloved son! But we mustn’t give way. No. No. ‘Behold I will deliver thee out of the snares of the wicked.’ God has not deserted either of us. And He will not—that I know. ‘He leadeth me by the still waters.’ ‘He restoreth my soul.’ We must put our trust in Him. Besides,” she added, briskly and practically, as much to strengthen herself as Clyde, “haven’t I already arranged for an appeal? It is to be made yet this week. They’re going to file a notice. And that means that your case can’t even be considered under a year. But it is just the shock of seeing you so. You see, I wasn’t quite prepared for it.” She straightened her shoulders and now looked up and achieved a brave if strained smile. “The warden here seems very kind, but still, somehow, when I saw you just now——”

She dabbed at her eyes which were damp from this sudden and terrific storm, and to divert herself as well as him she talked of the so very necessary work before her. Messrs. Belknap and Jephson had been so encouraging to her just before she left. She had gone to their office and they had urged her and him to be of good cheer. And now she was going to lecture, and at once, and would soon have means to do with that way. Oh, yes. And Mr. Jephson would be down to see him one of these days soon. He was by no means to feel that the legal end of all this had been reached. Far from it.The recent verdict and sentence was sure to be reversed and a new trial ordered. The recent one was a farce, as he knew.

And as for herself—as soon as she found a room near the prison—she was going to the principal ministers of Auburn and see if she could not secure a church, or two, or three, in which to speak and plead his cause. Mr. Jephson was mailing her some information she could use within a day or two. And after that, other churches in Syracuse, Rochester, Albany, Schenectady—in fact many cities in the east—until she had raised the necessary sum. But she would not neglect him. She would see him at least once a week and would write him a letter every other day, or maybe even daily if she could. She would talk to the warden. So he must not despair. She had much hard work ahead of her, of course, but the Lord would guide her in all that she undertook. She knew that. Had He not already shown his gracious and miraculous mercy?

Clyde must pray for her and for himself. Read Isaiah. Read the psalms—the 23rd and the 51st and the 91st daily. Also Habbakuk. “Are there walls against the Hand of the Lord?” And then after more tears, an utterly moving and macerating scene, at last achieving her departure while Clyde, shaken to his soul by so much misery, returned to his cell. His mother. And at her age—and with so little money—she was going out to try to raise the money necessary to save him. And in the past he had treated her so badly—as he now saw.

He sat down on the side of his cot and held his head in his hands the while outside the prison—the iron door of the same closed and only a lonely room and the ordeal of her proposed lecture tour ahead of her—Mrs. Griffiths paused—by no means so assured or convinced of all she had said to Clyde. To be sure God would aid her. He must. Had He ever failed her yet—completely? And now—here—in her darkest hour, her son’s! Would He?

She paused for a moment a little later in a small parking-place, beyond the prison, to stare at the tall, gray walls, the watch towers with armed guards in uniform, the barred windows and doors. A penitentiary. And her son was now within—worse yet, in that confined and narrow death house. And doomed to die in an electric chair. Unless—unless——But, no, no—that should not be. It could not be. That appeal. The money for it. She must busy herself as to that at once—not think or brood or despair. Oh, no. “My shield and my buckler.” “My Light and my Strength.” “Oh, Lord, Thou art my strength and my deliverance. In Thee will I trust.” And then dabbing at her eyes once more and adding: “Oh, Lord, I believe. Help Thou mine unbelief.”

So Mrs. Griffiths, alternately praying and crying as she walked.

BUT after this the long days in prison for Clyde. Except for a weekly visit from his mother, who, once she was entered upon her work, found it difficult to see him more often than that—traveling as she did in the next two months between Albany and Buffalo and even New York City—but without the success she had at first hoped for. For in the matter of her appeal to the churches and the public—as most wearily (and in secret if not to Clyde)—and after three weeks of more or less regional and purely sectarian trying, she was compelled to report the Christians at least were very indifferent—not as Christian as they should be. For as all, but more particularly the ministers of the region, since they most guardedly and reservedly represented their congregations in every instance, unanimously saw it, here was a notorious and, of course, most unsavory trial which had resulted in a conviction with which the more conservative element of the country—if one could judge by the papers at least, were in agreement.

Besides who was this woman—as well as her son? An exhorter—a secret preacher—one, who in defiance of all the tenets and processes of organized and historic, as well as hieratic, religious powers and forms (theological seminaries, organized churches and their affiliations and product—all carefully and advisedly and legitimately because historically and dogmatically interpreting the word of God) choosing to walk forth and without ordination after any fashion conduct an unauthorized and hence nondescript mission. Besides if she had remained at home, as a good mother should, and devoted herself to her son, as well as to her other children—their care and education—would this—have happened?

And not only that—but according to Clyde’s own testimony in this trial, had he not been guilty of adultery with this girl—whether he had slain her or not? A sin almost equal to murder in many minds. Had he not confessed it? And was an appeal for a convicted adulterer—if not murderer (who could tell as to that?) to be made in a church? No,—no Christian church was the place to debate, and for a charge, the merits of this case, however much each Christian of each and every church might sympathize with Mrs. Griffiths personally—or resent any legal injustice that might have been done her son. No, no. It was not morally advisable. It might even tend to implant in the minds of the young some of the details of the crime.

Besides, because of what the newspapers had said of her coming east to aid her son and the picture that she herself presented in her homely garb, it was assumed by most ministers that she was one of those erratic persons, not a constituent of any definite sect, or schooled theology, who tended by her very appearance to cast contempt on true and pure religion.

And in consequence, each in turn—not hardening his heart exactly—but thinking twice—and deciding no—there must be some better way—less troublesome to Christians,—a public hall, perhaps, to which Christians, if properly appealed to through the press, might well repair. And so Mrs. Griffiths, in all but one instance, rejected in that fashion and told to go elsewhere—while in regard to the Catholics—instinctively—because of prejudice—as well as a certain dull wisdom not inconsistent with the facts—she failed even to so much as think of them. The mercies of Christ as interpreted by the holder of the sacred keys of St. Peter, as she knew, were not for those who failed to acknowledge the authority of the Vicar of Christ.

And therefore after many days spent in futile knockings here and there she was at last compelled—and in no little depression, to appeal to a Jew who controlled the principal moving picture theater of Utica—a sinful theater. And from him, this she secured free for a morning address on the merits of her son’s case—“A mother’s appeal for her son,” it was entitled—which netted her, at twenty-five cents per person—the amazing sum of two hundred dollars. At first this sum, small as it was, so heartened her that she was now convinced that soon—whatever the attitude of the orthodox Christians—she would earn enough for Clyde’s appeal. It might take time—but she would.

Nevertheless, as she soon discovered, there were other factors to be considered—carfare, her own personal expenses in Utica and elsewhere, to say nothing of certain very necessary sums to be sent to Denver to her husband, who had little or nothing to go on at present, and who, because of this very great tragedy in the family, had been made ill—so ill indeed that the letters from Frank and Julia were becoming very disturbing. It was possible that he might not get well at all. Some help was necessary there.

And in consequence, in addition to paying her own expenses here, Mrs. Griffiths was literally compelled to deduct other reducing sums from this, her present and only source of income. It was terrible—considering Clyde’s predicament—but nevertheless must she not sustain herself in every way in order to win to victory? She could not reasonably abandon her husband in order to aid Clyde alone.

Yet in the face of this—as time went on, the audiences growing smaller and smaller until at last they constituted little more than a handful—and barely paying her expenses—although through this process none-the-less she finally managed to put aside—over and above all her expenses—eleven hundred dollars.

Yet, also, just at this time, and in a moment of extreme anxiety, Frank and Julia wiring her that if she desired to see Asa again she had better come home at once. He was exceedingly low and not expected to live. Whereupon, played upon by these several difficulties and there being no single thing other than to visit him once or twice a week—as her engagements permitted—which she could do for Clyde, she now hastily conferred with Belknap and Jephson, setting forth her extreme difficulties.

And these, seeing that eleven hundred dollars of all she had thus far collected was to be turned over to them, now, in a burst of humanity, advised her to return to her husband. Decidedly Clyde would do well enough for the present seeing that there was an entire year—or at least ten months before it was necessary to file the record and the briefs in the case. In addition another year assuredly must elapse before a decision could be reached. And no doubt before that time the additional part of the appeal fee could be raised. Or, if not—well, then—anyhow (seeing how worn and distrait she was at this time) she need not worry. Messrs. Belknap and Jephson would see to it that her son’s interests were properly protected. They would file an appeal and make an argument—and do whatever else was necessary to insure her son a fair hearing at the proper time.

And with that great burden off her mind—and two last visits to Clyde in which she assured him of her determination to return as speedily as possibly—once Asa was restored to strength again and she could see her way to financing such a return—she now departed only to find that, once she was in Denver once more, it was not so easy to restore him by any means.

And in the meantime Clyde was left to cogitate on and make the best of a world that at its best was a kind of inferno of mental ills—above which—as above Dante’s might have been written—“abandon hope—ye who enter here.”

The somberness of it. Its slow and yet searing psychic force! The obvious terror and depression—constant and unshakable of those who, in spite of all their courage or their fears, their bravado or their real indifference (there were even those) were still compelled to think and wait. For, now, in connection with this coldest and bitterest form of prison life he was in constant psychic, if not physical contact, with twenty other convicted characters of varying temperaments and nationalities, each one of whom, like himself, had responded to some heat or lust or misery of his nature or his circumstances. And with murder, a mental as well as physical explosion, as the final outcome or concluding episode which, being detected, and after what horrors and wearinesses of mental as well as legal contest and failure, such as fairly paralleled his own, now found themselves islanded—immured—in one or another of these twenty-two iron cages and awaiting—awaiting what?

How well they knew. And how well he knew. And here with what loud public rages and despairs or prayers—at times. At others—what curses—foul or coarse jests—or tales addressed to all—or ribald laughter—or sighings and groanings in these later hours when the straining spirit having struggled to silence, there was supposedly rest for the body and the spirit.

In an exercise court, beyond the farthermost end of the long corridor, twice daily, for a few minutes each time, between the hours of ten and five—the various inmates in groups of five or six were led forth—to breathe, to walk, to practice calisthenics—or run and leap as they chose. But always under the watchful eyes of sufficient guards to master them in case they attempted rebellion in any form. And to this it was, beginning with the second day, that Clyde himself was led, now with one set of men and now with another. But with the feeling at first strong in him that he could not share in any of these public activities which, nevertheless, these others—and in spite of their impending doom—seemed willing enough to indulge in.

The two dark-eyed sinister-looking Italians, one of whom had slain a girl because she would not marry him; the other who had robbed and then slain and attempted to burn the body of his father-in-law in order to get money for himself and his wife! And big Larry Donahue—square-headed, square-shouldered—big of feet and hands, an overseas soldier, who, being ejected from a job as night watchman in a Brooklyn factory, had lain for the foreman who had discharged him—and then killed him on an open common somewhere at night, but without the skill to keep from losing a service medal which had eventually served to betray and identify him. Clyde had learned all this from the strangely indifferent and non-committal, yet seemingly friendly guards, who were over these cells by night and by day—two and two, turn about—who relieved each other every eight hours. And police officer Riordan of Rochester, who had killed his wife because she was determined to leave him—and now, himself, was to die. And Thomas Mowrer, the young “farmer” or farm hand, as he really was, whom Clyde on his first night had heard moaning—a man who had killed his employer with a pitchfork—and was soon to die now—as Clyde heard, and who walked and walked, keeping close to the wall—his head down, his hands behind his back—a rude, strong, loutish man of about thirty, who looked more beaten and betrayed than as though he had been able to torture or destroy another. Clyde wondered about him—his real guilt.