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“We read of killing one hundred thousand men in a day. We read about it and rejoiced in it – if it was the other fellows who were killed. We were fed on flesh and drank blood. I need not tell Your Honour how many bright, honourable young men have come into this court charged with murder, some saved and some sent to their death, boys who fought in this war and learned to place a cheap value on human life.”

Wilk turned toward Judd and Artie. “These boys were brought up in it. The tales of death were in their homes, their playgrounds, their schools; they were in the newspapers that they read; it was part of the common frenzy. What was a life? It was nothing. One of them tells us how he was haunted by a war poster, how he dreamed of rape and of killing.

“It will take fifty years to wipe it out of the human heart, if ever. No one needs to inform me that crime has a cause. It has as definite a cause as any other disease. I know that growing out of the Napoleonic Wars there was an era of crime such as Europe had never seen before. I know that Europe is going through the same experience today; I know it has followed every war and I know it has influenced these boys so that life was not the same to them as it would have been if the world had not been made red with blood. I protest against the crimes and mistakes of society being visited upon them. All of us have our share in it. I have mine. I cannot tell and I shall never know how many words of mine during the war might have given birth to cruelty in the place of love and kindness and charity.”

Again, he had mounted far beyond the case; the spell was upon him and upon us all as Jonathan Wilk spoke. “Your Honour knows that in this very court crimes of violence have increased, growing out of the war. Not only by those who fought, but by those who learned that blood was cheap, and human life was cheap, and if the State could take it lightly, why not the individual?

“I do not know how much salvage there is in these two boys. I hate to say it in their presence, but what is there to look forward to? I do not know but what Your Honour would be merciful if you tied a rope around their necks and let them die; merciful to them, but not merciful to civilization, and not merciful to those who would be left behind. To spend the balance of their days in prison is mighty little to look forward to, if anything. Is it anything?

“They may have the hope that as the years roll around they may be released. I do not know. I do not know.” He gazed at the defendants. “I will be honest with this court as I have tried to be from the beginning. I know that these boys are not fit to be at large. I believe they will not be until they pass through the next stage of life, at forty-five or fifty.”

The words fell heavily, as if he had prophetically sentenced them.

“I would not tell this court that I do not hope that sometime, when life and age has changed their bodies, as it does, and has changed their emotions, as it does, they may once again return to life. I would be the last person on earth to close the door of hope to any human being that lives, and least of all to my clients. But what have they to look forward to? Nothing.” He quoted again from Housman:

Now hollow fires burn out to black,

And lights are fluttering low:

Square your shoulders, lift your pack

And leave your friend and go.

O never fear, lads, naught’s to dread,

Look not left nor right:

In all that endless road you tread

There’s nothing but the night.

Something had come over Wilk’s face, a complete and otherworldly beauty, as if he indeed were relieved of the shortcomings of mankind.

He repeated: “‘In all that endless road you tread, There’s nothing but the night.’

“I care not, Your Honour, whether the march begins at the gallows or when the gates of Joliet close upon them, there is nothing but the night, and that is little for any human being to expect.”

He drew himself out of his spell and came to his peroration. “But there are others to be considered.

“Here is Steiner’s father – and this boy was the pride of his life. He watched him, cared for him, he worked for him; he educated him, and he thought that fame and position awaited him, as it should have awaited. It is a hard thing for a father to see his life’s hope crumble into dust.

“And Straus’s son, the same. Here are the faithful uncle and brother, who have watched here day by day while Artie’s father and mother are too ill to stand this terrific strain, and shall be waiting for a message which means more to them than it can mean to you or me.

“Is there any reason, Your Honour, why their proud names and all the future generations that bear them shall have this bar sinister written across them? It is bad enough as it is, God knows. But it’s not yet death on the scaffold. It’s not that. And I ask Your Honour, in addition to all that I have said, to save two honourable families from a disgrace that never ends, and which could be of no avail to help any human being that lives. I have been sorry and I am sorry for the bereavement of Mr. and Mrs. Kessler, for those broken ties cannot be healed. But as compared with the families of Steiner and Straus, the Kesslers are to be envied, and everyone knows it.

“Now I must say one word more and then I will leave this with you where I should have left it long ago. The easy thing and the popular thing to do is to hang my clients. I know it. Men and women who do not think will applaud. The cruel will approve. It will be easy today; but in Chicago, and reaching out over the length and breadth of the land, more and more fathers and mothers, the humane, the kind and the hopeful, who are gaining an understanding and asking questions not only about these poor boys, but about their own – these will join in no acclaim at the death of my clients. These would ask that the shedding of blood be stopped.

“I know the future is with me and what I stand for here; not merely for the lives of these two unfortunate lads, but for all boys and all girls; for all of the young, and as far as possible, for all of the old. I am pleading for life, understanding, charity, kindness, and the infinite mercy that considers all.”

Tears flowed freely on old Steiner’s face; some said that Judd and Artie wept. We were all utterly held by some tragic sympathy in Wilk’s voice, in his whole being, that transcended any effect of words.

“I am pleading that we overcome cruelty with kindness and hatred with love. Your Honour stands between the past and the future. You may hang these boys, but in doing it you will turn your face toward the past. I am pleading for the future; I am pleading for a time when we can learn by reason and judgment and understanding and faith that all life is worth saving, and that mercy is the highest attribute of man.”

He walked back a little, partly releasing us.

“If I should succeed in saving these boys’ lives and do nothing for the progress of the law, I should feel sad indeed. If I can succeed, my greatest reward and my greatest hope will be that I have done something to help human understanding, to temper justice with mercy, to overcome hate with love.

“I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar Khayyám. It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all.

So it be written in the Book of Love,

I do not care about that Book above.

Erase my name or write it as you will,

So I be written in the Book of Love.

We did not dare speak to each other, for our words might deride sentiment. We rather made the comments professional. A great plea. His greatest. His valedictory. It was a plea for every human life.