The Great Harry Thaw Case; Or, A Woman's Sacrifice

by Benjamin H. Atwell

“And in a later letter to Mr. Longfellow he says: ‘Her position could not be worse. She was poisoned at fifteen and three-quarters. Also since.’

“Now, gentlemen, bear in mind that these two letters were written by Mr. Thaw in Paris to his counsel, Mr. Longfellow, in New York. I ask you who is the blackguard referred to in these letters if not Stanford White? What is the superhuman negligence of the mother, if not her trip to Pittsburg, leaving her daughter alone in New York?

“How was the child beguiled, if not by Stanford White’s paternal kindness and show of parental goodness?

“I leave it to you as to what these two letters can refer to if not to the story Evelyn Nesbit says she told Harry in Paris in June, 1903.

“She told how she had learned this young woman’s name. He said he desired to shield her from the awful consequences of the deed. What was it the child that had come from Pittsburg, that had first posed as an artist’s model, and had then gone on the stage—what was it she had told Harry Thaw and what had he told his mother?

“The learned prosecutor says that he invented it all. After inventing did he go home and tell his mother—the mother who had given him birth, who had nourished him at her breast, who had watched him in his sleepless bed at night as he was giving evidence of the troubles which were to have such a bearing on this case?

“When he broke down in church and tears fell from his eyes and a groan broke from his lips was he telling, was he acting a lie?

Harry Thaw loved Evelyn. He had loved her ever since he saw her in 1901. He had loved and wooed her honorably, and honorably sought to make her his wife.

“I make these assertions just before seeking to make any deductions from them. It is meet and proper that I establish them as facts. As early as 1901, when he found her on the stage, he realized that was not a fit place for a young girl like her. He was contemplating sending her to school—that is to say for three years. Then she might come out and take her station in the world as his wife.

“And if not, even though she did not become his wife, he would be amply repaid by the nobility of the act he had performed. Evelyn Nesbit says he met her in 1901 and called upon her frequently, but was not always at that time a welcome visitor. It seems her mind had been poisoned by the same persons who afterward poisoned her mind against him again. He says of her: ‘When I first knew her she was the most active, laughing, strong and fair child I ever saw.’