“To one of those dens fitted with all the splendor and dazzling beauty with which this man of genius endowed his places, this child was one evening lured, under the pretense that there were to be others there to share the supper that had been prepared, and when she arrived she found herself alone with the man who had promised to be her protector.
“Need I recount to you how the child was led from one step to another until plied with wine and plied with drugs she became unconscious and this man, who had promised to protect the child, accomplished her ruin and downfall? Need I recall to you the terrible scenes which you heard told from the lips of this tortured victim?
“Oh, better for Stanford White had he never been born.
“Better that his ears had never been opened that he could not have heard the words of anguish of the victim.
“For what had he—a man whose hair was already gray—what had he done? He had perpetrated the most horrible crime that can deface the human heart. He had lured the poor, innocent flower that was struggling forth to life. He had committed a crime which is a felony—which the President of this republic in his last message to Congress said should be punished by death.
“He who had erected altars and sanctuaries and churches crowned with the emblem of the Redemption—had he forgotten the words.
“‘Who so receiveth such a little child in my name receiveth me, but whosoever offendeth such a little one, it were better that a millstone were tied around his neck and he were cast into the sea.’
“Oh, ye who have erected temples to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, have ye forgotten the words of Jehovah, when upon the return from Egypt He said:
“‘Ye shall not afflict a fatherless child. I will surely hear that cry, and I will kill you with the sword and your wives shall be widows and your children fatherless.’
“Oh, Stanford White, in the entirety of your hardened heart, you imagined that the cry of the fatherless child which that night was heard in the darkness of the great city, where good citizens were at rest, the child without a father, the child deserted by her mother, the child left alone in this city of millions, would not be heard.