Sweet, Otis, 19.1, 19.2, 19.3
Sweet case
African Americans in attendance at trial
background of Sweet family, 19.1, 19.2
civil suit filed by Breiner’s widow, n12
Darrow’s closing arguments, 19.1, 19.2
Darrow’s fee, 19.1, 19.2
Darrow’s hiring for the defense
Darrow’s off-hours activities, 19.1, 19.2, 19.3, nts.1n15
defense’s witnesses
first trial, 19.1, 19.2
judge for
jury selection, 19.1, 19.2
mistrial ruling
NAACP’s involvement, 19.1, 19.2, 19.3, 19.4
not guilty verdict
prosecution’s case against Sweets
prosecution’s closing arguments, 19.1, 19.2
prosecution’s witnesses, 19.1, 19.2, 19.3
racial violence leading to, 19.1, nts.1n18
second trial, 19.1, 19.2
self-defense issue
Toms’s assessment of
Swift, Morrison
Symon, Cy
Taft, William Howard, 11.1, 11.2, nts.1n16
Tarbell, Ida
Taylor, Graham, 10.1, 21.1
Tennes, Mont, 10.1, 16.1, 16.2, 21.1
Tennessee Supreme Court
Thiele, S. Chris, 8.1, 10.1
Thomas, Morris St. P.
Thomas, William
Thompson, William “Big Bill”, 14.1, 16.1, 16.2, 16.3, 16.4, 21.1, nts.1n17
Thompson, William O., 5.1, 10.1, 13.1
Tillman, “Pitchfork” Ben
Todd, Helen, 5.1, 5.2, 10.1, 13.1, 13.2
Tolstoy, Leo
Toms, Robert, 19.1, 19.2, 19.3, 19.4, 19.5, 19.6, 19.7, 19.8, 19.9, 19.10, 19.11, 19.12
Torrio, Johnny
Troy, Hank
Trude, A. S., 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4
Tuckhorn, Simon
Turner, Alexander
Turner, Frederick
Turner, John
Turner, Mary
Tvietmoe, Olaf, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3, 11.4, 11.5, 11.6, 12.1, 12.2, 13.1, 13.2, 13.3, 13.4, 13.5, 21.1, nts.1n28
Tyler, Fred, 8.1, 10.1
Unger, August, n16
Union Traction Company
United Mine Workers (UMW), 6.1, 6.2
Utilities industry
Van Doren, Carl, n7
Van Keuren, Louise
Van Vlissingen, Peter
Vanzetti, Bartolomeo, 20.1, 20.2
Varcoe, C. G., 11.1, 11.2
Varecha, James “Iggy”
Vermont Supreme Court
Villard, Oswald, 10.1, 20.1
Vincent, William
Vinci, James, 16.1, 16.2
Vogel, George
Voltaire
Walker, Edwin, 4.1, 4.2
Walling, William E.
Warren, Fred, n8
Washington, Booker T.
Watkins, Maureen, n1
Weeks, Bartow, 15.1, 15.2
Weil, Joseph “Yellow Kid”, 16.1, nts.1n7
Wells, H. G., 14.1, 18.1, 18.2, 20.1
Wells-Barnett, Ida
Western Federation of Miners (WFM), 8.1, 8.2, 14.1
Western Federation of Miners case
Adams’s retrials, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, nts.1nn15, 16, nts.2n2
Adams’s role as prosecution witness, issue of
arrest of WFM leaders
bribing of jurors, alleged, n23
corruption in Idaho government and, 8.1, nts.1n22
Darrow’s hiring by WFM
Darrow’s vilification of McParland
extradition challenge
financial consequences for Darrow, 10.1, 10.2
industrial warfare leading to
Left’s support for defendants
McParland’s “investigation” linking WFM to Steunenberg’s murder, 8.1, 8.2
mine owners’ bankrolling of prosecution
Orchard’s guilty plea to murder
perjury trap incident
Pettibone trial, 10.1, 10.2
press coverage of, 8.1, 10.1
pretrial hearings
prosecution’s failure in
prosecution spy on defense team
Republican establishment’s targeting of WFM
See also Haywood trial
White, Bud
White, C. E.
White, Walter, 19.1, 19.2, 19.3, 19.4, 19.5, 19.6, 19.7, 19.8, 20.1, 20.2, 20.3, 20.4, nts.1n12, nts.2n26, nts.3n12
White, Dr. William, 17.1, 17.2, 17.3, 21.1
White, William Allen, itr.1, 4.1, 5.1
White, William “Three-fingered Jack”, 16.1, 20.1, 21.1
Whitlock, Brand, itr.1, 3.1, 5.1, 5.2, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 7.5, 9.1, 10.1, 10.2, 11.1, 11.2, 12.1, 12.2, 19.1, 20.1, 20.2, 20.3
Whitman, Walt
Whitsell, Leon, n4
Whittaker, Elizabeth
Wickersham, George
Wickes, Thomas
Willard, C. D.
Williams, Harry
Wilson, Edgar, 9.1, 9.2, nts.1n3
Wilson, Francis, 5.1, 5.2, 7.1, 10.1, 11.1, 14.1
Wilson, Woodrow, itr.1, 14.1, 14.2, 14.3, 15.1, nts.1n4
Winters, John
Winthrop, John
Wisconsin Supreme Court
Witty, W. W.
Wood, C. E. S. (Erskine), itr.1, itr.2, 5.1, 10.1, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3, 12.1, 12.2, 12.3, 12.4, 13.1, 13.2, 13.3, 13.4, 13.5, 13.6, 13.7, 13.8, 14.1, 14.2, 15.1, 15.2, 15.3, 19.1, 20.1, nts.1n19
Wood, Fremont, 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 9.4, 9.5, 10.1, 10.2
Woods, William, 4.1, 4.2
Woodworkers strike of 1898
World War I, 14.1, 14.2, 15.1, 18.1
Wright, Austin W., 2.1, 7.1, 7.2, 14.1
Wright, Frank Lloyd, 15.1, nts.1n5
Wright, George, 21.1, 21.2
Wright, Richard, n1
Yarros, Victor, 13.1, 14.1, 14.2, 16.1, 17.1
Yerkes, Charles, 2.1, 2.2, 7.1, nts.1n13
Zeehandelaar, Felix, 11.1, 12.1
Zionism
PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS
Chicago History Museum: ill.23; ill.25 and ill.26
Courtesy of Archives & Rare Books Library, University of Cincinnati: ill.19
Courtesy of the Arthur and Lila Weinberg family: ill.21
Courtesy of the Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University: ill.31, ill.32 and ill.33
Idaho State Historical Society: ill.13 and ill.15; ill.16 and ill.17
Image courtesy of the Division of Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Library System: ill.7
Image used by permission of the Estate of Clarence Darrow; All Rights Reserved: ill.2
Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division: ill.3; ill.5; ill.6; ill.8; ill.10, ill.11, and ill.12; ill.14; ill.18; ill.33; ill.34
National Archives and Records Administration: ill.24
Smithsonian Institution Archives: ill.30
University of Minnesota Law Library: ill.1; ill.4; ill.9; ill.12; ill.20 and ill.22
University of Tennessee Libraries, Knoxville, Special Collections: ill.27, ill.28 and ill.29
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Aloysius Farrell is the author of the highly acclaimed Tip O’Neill and the Democratic Century, which was featured on the cover of the New York Times Book Review, received rave reviews from the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic Monthly, and the Boston Globe, and was a New York Times “Notable Book” and a Washington Post Book World “Rave of the Year.” He is a senior writer at the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C. Previously, he was Washington bureau chief for the Denver Post and served as Washington editor and White House correspondent for the Boston Globe. He lives with his wife and two children in Washington.
Illustrations
(Photo Credit ill.1)
In a certain light, Darrow could look Lincolnesque, no small plus in Illinois.
(Photo Credit ill.2)
Darrow with his son, Paul, and his father, A
mirus. Said Darrow of his dad: “To his dying day, he lived in a walking trance.”
(Photo Credit ill.3)
Chicago at the turn of the century, shortly after Darrow arrived. The “smooth-faced” young man rose through the city’s rough legal and political scenes at a pace that the newspapers called “phenomenal.”
(Photo Credit ill.4)
Clarence Darrow’s great mentor, Illinois governor John Peter Altgeld. “His character was that of the dreamer, of the idealist”, but “there was mixed with that … the practical touch of the politician”, said Darrow. “He knew how to play to those cheap feelings which the politician uses to inspire the vulgar mob.”
(Photo Credit ill.5)
Railway union leader and socialist Eugene Debs, who hired Darrow after the federal government crushed a successful strike against the Pullman company and the nation’s railroads in 1894. “He never felt fear”, said Darrow. “He had the courage of the babe who has no conception of the word.”
(Photo Credit ill.6)
In the wake of the great Pullman strike, the cover of the July 21, 1894, edition of Harper’s Weekly showed John P. Altgeld in a fool’s cap and a gang of Populist leaders bearing Eugene Debs as the king of anarchy.
(Photo Credit ill.7)
Darrow’s longtime lover, Mary Field Parton. She would have been content to be “his loving mistress”, her sister Sara said, if Darrow were not “running after these disgustingly brainless women all the time.”
(Photo Credit ill.8)
The radical muckraker Lincoln Steffens, who joined with Darrow in progressive causes and stuck by him through perilous times. “Sometimes all we humans have is a friend, somebody to represent God in the world”, Steffens said. It was he who christened Darrow “the attorney for the damned.”
(Photo Credit ill.9)
Lawyer and poet Edgar Lee Masters. In 1903, he formed a law partnership with Darrow, which ultimately collapsed in enmity. In the end, they were too much alike.
(Photo Credit ill.10)
(Photo Credit ill.11)
In the winter of 1902–03, Darrow represented the striking United Mine Workers before a presidential commission investigating the dire working conditions of anthracite coal miners. He called a number of child laborers and injured miners to testify, including “breaker boys” like these. Lewis Hine, who took these two photographs at a Pennsylvania Coal Company mine in Pittston, Pennsylvania, wrote, “The dust was so dense at times as to obscure the view. This dust penetrated the utmost recesses of the boys’ lungs. A kind of slave-driver sometimes stands over the boys, prodding them into obedience.”
(Photo Credit ill.12)
Muckraker Henry Demarest Lloyd, union leader John Mitchell, and Darrow. For their ardent work representing the mine workers before the presidential commission, they became known as “the miners’ trinity.”
(Photo Credit ill.13)
Union officials George Pettibone, Big Bill Haywood, and Charles Moyer in the yard outside the Boise, Idaho, jail, awaiting their trials for the assassination of former Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg by a bomb planted at his front gate.
(Photo Credit ill.14)
Harry Orchard, the bomber and key witness. Not until Lee Harvey Oswald shot President John F. Kennedy would the motive and paymaster of an assassin again be cause for such bitter, unresolved contention.
(Photo Credit ill.15)
The legendary Pinkerton detective, James McParland, who obtained Harry Orchard’s confession. Darrow called him “the greatest detective in the West.”
(Photo Credit ill.16)
Prosecutor and, later, governor James Hawley, in the Wild West getup that appealed to his constituents. In court during the Haywood trial, Darrow baited him so often that Hawley’s son threatened to thrash him.
(Photo Credit ill.17)
A closer look at Darrow in action, questioning a witness during the Haywood trial. Behind him is Big Bill. The bald-headed man to the right of Haywood is co-counsel Edmund Richardson, who clashed with Darrow over the conduct of the trial.
(Photo Credit ill.18)
Crowds gather in downtown Los Angeles on October 1, 1910, to see the smoking ruins of the Los Angeles Times Building, where a union bomb claimed the lives of twenty men.
(Photo Credit ill.19)
Union bombers John J. and James B. McNamara in prison at San Quentin. “I saw war” in capital’s cruel treatment of labor, said Jim McNamara, who placed the bomb in Ink Alley at the Times. The deal that Darrow cut to save their lives almost cost him his career, his marriage, and his freedom.
(Photo Credit ill.20)
Darrow entering his plea of “not guilty” to charges that he bribed the jury at the McNamara brothers’ trial. “The forces that control in this United States, the great forces of evil, want to destroy me”, he told the jurors at his trial.
(Photo Credit ill.21)
In this photograph, taken at the celebration following Darrow’s acquittal in his first bribery trial, he and his wife, Ruby, sit at a table, and a happy Mary Field stands between them.
(Photo Credit ill.22)
Earl Rogers, Darrow’s lawyer in the bribery trials. The defense he crafted, with its drama and hysterics, was tailored to foil the prosecution’s case.
(Photo Credit ill.23)
Darrow back at work in Chicago, captured by a Daily News photographer, on his way to court on a downtown street.
(Photo Credit ill.24)
The capsized Eastland at its berth on the Chicago River. It was the worst disaster, in terms of lives lost, in Chicago history. Darrow led a successful defense of the ship’s engineer, who was blamed for the tragedy despite his heroic efforts to save lives.
(Photo Credit ill.25)
Darrow, speaking to Judge John Caverly. To the left are Richard Loeb, in a light-colored jacket and tie, and Nathan Leopold, in a dark tie and suit, facing execution for killing young Bobby Franks for “the thrill” of it in 1924. The man in glasses to the left of Leopold, whose face is partially obscured by the lamp shade, is prosecutor Robert Crowe.
(Photo Credit ill.26)
Leopold, Loeb, and Darrow in the courtroom. Leopold is the scarier-looking, but he managed to live a productive life in prison and was paroled after three decades behind bars. Loeb met an early death, knifed in jail by another inmate.
(Photo Credit ill.27)
William Jennings Bryan, arriving in Dayton, Tennessee, in July 1925 for the Scopes Monkey Trial. Bryan enlisted in the prosecution to promote his campaign to bar the teaching of evolution in public schools. His presence drew Darrow into a sensational and historic showdown with Bryan and the fundamentalists over academic and scientific freedom.
(Photo Credit ill.28)
John Scopes, the defendant, welcomes Darrow, his lawyer, in this photograph staged for the press. Between them, leaning to get into the picture, is Tennessee attorney John Neal, another member of the defense team.
(Photo Credit ill.29)
The streets of Dayton became a circus, hosting all sorts of festivities and attractions, including this sermon from the traveling evangelist T. T. Martin, a determined foe of evolution.
(Photo Credit ill.30)
The greatest legal face-off in American history took place on a small wooden platform on the lawn of the Dayton courthouse, in the shade of the trees. Here Bryan, on the witness stand, is answering Darrow, who seems to be plucking at his suspenders.
(Photo Credit ill.31)
Dr. Ossian Sweet, who was charged with murdering a white man while defending his Detroit home (below) from a racist mob. Darrow asked the all-white jury to put themselves in Sweet’s place and to recognize that black men, too, have a right to self-defense.
(Photo Credit ill.32)
(Photo Credit ill.33)
In 1932, an emotionally troubled Thalia Massie claimed she was raped by a group of native Hawaiian youths. Her husband, Thomas, a naval officer at Pearl Harbor, led a lynch gang that kidnapped and murdered a young Hawaiian m
an in revenge. Darrow agreed to represent the killers because he needed money after losing all his savings in the stock market crash of 1929. Besides, he told the press, he had always wanted to see Hawaii. It was his last high-profile case.
(Photo Credit ill.34)
Clarence Darrow, circa 1902. At forty-five, he was one of the nation’s foremost labor lawyers, a defender of radicals and dissenters, a populist and progressive reformer, and almost mayor of Chicago. And his worst, and best, days were still ahead of him.
Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned Page 73