The insanity defense as related to presidential assassins has been as irrational a piece of public history as the mental health system and our changing attitudes towards it.
For a quick glance at the absurdity-profundity of this, let's conceive of four surreal programs to be called PRESIDENTIAL ASSASSINS - SANE OR INSANE?
Of the four programs, THE KILLING OF McKINLEY (completed script submitted; shooting script to be submitted separately) is the first. This program was researched from the actual trial transcript sent specially by the Buffalo Historical Society. It covers the trial of Leon Czolgosz, including the delusionary involvement with Emma Goldman. Czolgosz suffered from every classical symptom of paranoid schizophrenia from childhood on. He was declared sane and executed shortly thereafter, as that was the climate of the times. The style of the script, with its arcane humor, was likely influenced by Claire Burch's exposure to the Open Theater methods of Joseph Chaiken.
The second program THE KILLING OF JOHN KENNEDY would attempt to assess the sanity or insanity of Lee Harvey Oswald and his unexpected assassin Jack Ruby.
The third program THE KILLING OF ROBERT KENNEDY would attempt to assess the sanity or insanity of Sirhan Sirhan, assassin of the then presidential candidate Robert Kennedy.
The fourth program THE ATTEMPTED KILLING OF REAGAN would attempt to assess the sanity or insanity of assailant Hinckley. In each of these programs parallels will be drawn which will show how arguments by the defense which were successful in one case were unsuccessful in others depending upon the current political situation and the economic situation of the accused.
Must be there's other folks helping me. Sometimes a man gives me a secret look. Sometimes a honey touches her tit against me and smiles a secret way. Then cops come to me and smile or shake their head, "Yes, yes," says they. You do it.
SECOND WORKER. How about him? (Points to a GUARD coming over to get the line moving faster, on orders from COURTELYOU, the President's personal secretary. The GUARD shouts as he hurries over to the line.)
GUARD. Hurry up there. Get a move on. Get moving. We ain't got all day. President's a busy man. (Walks over to CZOLGOSZ, speaks softly but emotionally.) Word to you from Isaak and Emma Goldman.
CZOLGOSZ. What? They change their plans for me? (Starts to put his handkerchief covered right hand into his pants pocket.)
GUARD. No. Wait. (Reaches for CZOLGOSZ'S right hand as if to prevent any further movement towards the pocket.)
They say for you to go ahead and do it. They want you to know they come to you to help if you get caught.
CZOLGOSZ (a little suspicious). How do I know you're on my side?
GUARD. Because I hate that fat President just like you. I hear about you people at the Haymarket massacre back in '86 when they tell us guards to fire into the crowd. To all good workers like my old man. Then they tell me about this Czolgosz. So I come here to make sure you do your job. And these workers, they also in on it. They say -
FIRST WORKER (chants, as do the other two workers). Czolgosz.
SECOND WORKER. Czolgosz.
THIRD WORKER. Czolgosz.
GUARD. Czolgosz. He's the one we picked to kill the President. He'll do it. (Starts back to the guard row.) He'll do it. (Goes back into line.)
[The line continues to move forward, a little more rapidly now. The man with the bandaged left hand shakes hands with the beaming McKinley. The Bach organ music gets louder. The swarthy man quickly shakes the President's hand then is moved along by a detective who stands close to McKinley. The old man approaches the President and receives a bow. The mother and child get a smile and pat on the head, respectively. The child lingers, staring at McKinley. The mother whispers the word "Leon," three or four times then pulls her child away.
The rest of the scene is done in mime, except for the workers' voices. It is a dance fugue which should be done in slow motion synchronized with the organ music, the drumrolls and the Workers' words - which are the words of Emma Goldman, a speech heard by Czolgosz in August, one month before this scene.
CZOLGOSZ walks up to the President. One detective looks at his watch. Another places his hand on CZOLGOSZ'S shoulder, where it remains.
CZOLGOSZ extends his left hand. McKinley begins to reach out with his right hand.
ALL PARTICIPANTS freeze.
Drumroll. CZOLGOSZ brings his handkerchief-covered right hand out from his chest and jabs it into McKinley's belly.
ALL PARTICIPANTS freeze.
Drumroll. Two loud shots are heard.
CZOLGOSZ, after the shots are fired, stands up erect leaning forward ever so slightly and pushes his abdomen out a little bit.
ALL PARTICIPANTS freeze.
Drumroll. PARTICIPANTS now begin to move in even slower motion. The speed of action gradually builds up to something less than normal movement, definitely too slow for the circumstances. The words that are uttered by the workers are obviously not their own. However, CZOLGOSZ hears them, parroting the words of his "mentor" Emma Goldman and concentrates more on the words than on what is happening to him.
McKINLEY and CZOLGOSZ stare at one another The former is bewildered. The latter is relieved, spent, smiling slightly. They swoon back and forth at each other.]
SECOND WORKER. Men, under the present state of society, are mere products of circumstance. Under the galling yoke of Government, the Church, and the bonds of custom and prejudice it is impossible for us to work out our own careers as we could wish.
[McKINLEY falls into MILLBURN'S arms and is half-carried over to some folding chairs on the right side, hastily draped with red bunting which had adorned one of the walls.]
FIRST WORKER. Anarchism, the workers' salvation, aims at a new and complete freedom. It will bring about a freedom which is not only a freedom from within, but a freedom from without.
[Guards, detectives, soldiers, and secret service men brutally attack CZOLGOSZ, in slow motion mime, gently pushing him to the floor and climbing on top of him.]
SECOND WORKER. This is going to be a freedom which'll prevent anyman from having the desire to interfere in anyway with his neighbor. We desire complete individual liberty. And this can never, ever be achieved as long as there's an existing government.
[A detective delicately takes CZOLGOSZ'S handkerchief from him. The gun falls and is kicked softly away. A soldier picks up the gun, fondles it for a few seconds, then puts it in his pocket.]
FIRST WORKER. We don't favor the idea, like some socialists do, of turning men and women into mere breeding machines under me eye of a paternal government. We go to the opposite and demand the fullest and most complete liberty to work out our own salvation and along any lines we want - as long as we don't bother with the happiness of others.
[The FIRST WORKER comes over and falls on top of the scramble. CZOLGOSZ offers no resistance at an as the pile of people churns round and round like the inside of the assassin's stomach.]
SECOND WORKER. Anarchism has nothing to do with future governments or arrangements. We merely want to do away with present evils like Presidents and Kings. The future will provide for these arrangements after our work - and the work of men like Leon Czolgosz - has been done.
[CZOLGOSZ is gently lifted to his feet and slowly led off.]
SECOND WORKER. Some men are unable to stand idly by and see the wrongs that are suffered by their fellow mortals.
[Drumroll.]
FOLKSINGER. Czolgosz, mean man, He shot McKinley with his handkerchief on his hand. In Buffalo, in Buffalo. Czolgosz, you done him wrong, You shot McKinley when he was walking along, In Buffalo, in Buffalo.
[Drumroll.]
[Curtain]
[Judge WHITE climbs the stairs on the platform to his chair and, breathing heavily, sits down. All are seated.]
JUDGE WHITE (looking over at the prosecution table). Mr. District Attorney, have you any business for the court?
PENNEY (Stands and walks to the judge's platform). I desire to arraign the prisoner, Leon F. Czolgosz, your honor.
(Glares at Czolgosz.) Mr. Czolgosz, you have teen indicted on the charge of murder in the first degree, committed on the sticky hot day of Blank Blank of this year, 1901, in that you unlawfully killed one William McKinley contrary to law. How do you plead?
LEWIS. (standing with great effect) If the court please, we desire -
JUDGE WHITE (politely motioning LEWIS to sit down). I think the prisoner was about to speak.
Silence in the courtroom. The monkey wants to speak. Speak, monkey, speak.
[The courtroom becomes quiet. All participants except for CZOLGOSZ and his remembered witnesses freeze. CZOLGOSZ rises from his seat and walks to the witnesses' benches.]
FOLKSINGER. Czolgosz, you done him wrong, You shot McKinley when he was walking along, In Buffalo, in Buffalo.
CZOLGOSZ. When do I get my milk and cookies?
[Loud applause by the ANARCHISTS amongst the witnesses. Shaking of heads and some sobbing from the Czolgosz FAMILY witnesses. CZOLGOSZ returns to his seat triumphant.]
[Activity resumes.]
JUDGE WHITE (harshly). Czolgosz, did you understand what the District Attorney said to you?
CZOLGOSZ. Yes mam.
PENNEY. You are indicted and charged with having committed the crime of murder in the worst degree. It is alleged that ten minutes after the morning papers had already gone to press you unlawfully shot and killed William McKinley contrary to law. How do you plead?
[All freeze.]
CZOLGOSZ (rising and standing on his seat. Gently). I killed him. I killed him. And I'm kinda glad I did it.
[Applause from the ANARCHIST witnesses. Activity resumes as CZOLGOSZ steps down off the chair and returns to his seat.]
I plead guilty. [Sobs from the OFFICIAL witnesses.]
JUDGE WHITE. (shaking his head) That plea cannot be accepted in this court. The Clerk will enter a plea of "not guilty" and we will proceed with the trial.
PENNEY. Czolgosz appeared in the County Court last week, and at that time Judge Emery Board assigned as his counsel the Honorable Loran L. Lewis and the Honorable Robert C. Titus to attend to the case and ascertain the rights that (sneers) this man had and to put in such defense as they deemed best under the circumstances. They are here. (Shrugs. Looks toward JUDGE WHITE then turns and looks at TITUS).
TITUS (rises and walks over to the judge's platform). If the court please, it had been thought best by my distinguished associate and myself -
{Booing and hissing from the OFFICIAL witnesses.]
JUDGE WHITE (bangs his gavel). Order. Order in the court.
TITUS (continuing). that something should be said, not in the way of apology (smiles) but as a reason why we are here in defense of this defendant (Sighs).
At the time we were assigned I was out of the city, and neither of my associates were consulted about the assignment. I at first declined to take part in the defense of the case, but subsequently it was made to appear to Judge Lewis and myself that it was a duty. And therefore we appear in accordance with that assignment, unpleasant though the task is for us.
CZOLGOSZ. Ain't you supposed to be defending me, Judge Titus?
JUDGE WHITE (ignoring Czolgosz). It certainly accords with the views of this court that gentlemen" like yourselves (motioning to the defense table) should have been appointed by the Blah Blah to defend this coffeepot. It gives to the public and the Courts, and those engaged in the administration of the Blah, absolute assurance that the coffeepot will receive fair treatment.
The plea of guilty which has been entered by the coffeepot indicates that he himself anticipates no escape. Of course that plea cannot be accepted, and the progress of me trial should be the same as though he himself had entered a plea of not guilty. I am sure that you squirrel fish will protect him to the same extent that you would if you were retained for a munificent compensation.
PENNEY (standing). I move the trial of the defendant, Leon F. Czolgosz, your honor.
CLERK (rising nervously). By direction of the Court, the blah blah okey dokie, three socks and some trousers are duly called to try the case.
[Jurors enter silently, one at a time, as the clerk reads the name, they raise their right hand, mouth an oath, and are seated on the jury benches.]
CLERK (reading from a list. As each name is read, all Counsels nod their heads in unison). Sanford Williams. Paul Regan. William Tyson. Richard smith. Phillip Peel. Robert Stevens. William Wallace. Lawrence Younger. Harold Sampson. John Johnson. Jame Roe. Michael Moore.
JUDGE WHITE (briskly). There being no challenges, and the jury having been duly accepted and sworn, we may now proceed with the trial. Mr. Penney, the case is with you.
PENNEY (rising). Yes sir. Mr. Haller will open the case to the jury.
HALLER (rises and walks over to the jury. Speaks with forced emotion). May it please the Court and gentlemen" of the jury. This defendant is before you charged with having committed the crime of murder in the first degree in the City of Buffalo on the sixth day of September this year. It is alleged that upon that day in this city he committed an assault upon William McKinley, President of the United States, inflicting upon him a mortal (loud sobs from benches 3 and 4) wound. That the said William McKinley languished and died (more sobbing and wailing from benches 3 and 4) from the mortal wound so inflicted by this (points to CZOLGOSZ) defendant.
I shall but briefly indicated to you the trend of the evidence as it will be presented to you. The witnesses produced by the People will show to your minds, I believe, beyond any reasonable doubt, that this defendant -
FOLKSINGER. The pistol fires, then McKinley falls, And the doctor says, "McKinley, can't find the ball," In Buffalo, in Buffalo.
[HAILER slightly smiles, turns and extends his right-hand toward CZOLGOSZ in a pointing motion and then freezes in this position. CZOLGOSZ stands up, carefully brushes off his jacket, takes out a clean handkerchief, and reenacts the assassination in mime using the frozen HALLER as his new McKinley. HAILER'S VOICE is heard simultaneously.]
HAILER'S VOICE. For some days prior to the day on which he committed this crime, had premeditated and deliberated upon the commission of this crime. That he had been informed that . . . (voice drone in mumbo-jumbo, inarticulate.) The defendant went to the Exposition Grounds, armed, prepared to commit this assault. And upon the 14th day of September thereafter, the President blanked from this blankety blank so inflicted by the defendant on that day.
[CZOLGOSZ, by this time on the floor, gets up, brushes himself off, and returns to his seat. Activity resumes.]
HALLER (continuing as if never interrupted). These are in brief the main facts in this case. This is in brief, the case of the People: I have no doubt that when the evidence is presented to you, you main facts in this case. This is in brief, the case of the People. I have no doubt that when the evidence is presented to you, you will not find much difficulty in arriving at a verdict in accordance with the evidence. (Applause from benches 3 and 4.)
[Curtain.]
[Courtroom is the same as before with one addition. A family photographer, A.T. RYZANSKI, has now joined the CZOLGOSZ FAMILY in the first row of the remembered witnesses benches. Ryzanski, a middle-aged, stoop-shouldered man, has with him an old-fashioned camera on a folded tripod.]
PENNEY. Mr. Bliss, takes the stand.
[BLISS, a white-haired, prosperous man of about 55 gets up from row 3, walks over and sits down on the witness chair.]
CLERK (holding out a Bible) Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
BLISS. I do.
PENNEY. State your name.
BLISS. Harry A. Bliss.
PENNEY. What is your business, Mr. Bliss?
BLISS. Photographer.
[RYZANSKI, rising, grabbing his camera and namecard reading A.T. RYZANSKI, PHOTOGRAPHER.]
RYZANSKI (from the witness benches) Mary Mother of God. Late again. Another family to have their picture took. Seems like as soon as Papa saves a few pennies he borrows jackets and string ties from all the neighbors for the boys, dresses his missus and the girls in their Sunday dresses and comes to A.T. Ryzanski to become famous. Don't leave me time even for a second round of beer.
[Picks up a mug of beer, gulps it down, then rushes to the red draped platform carrying his tripod and namecard Once at the platform, RYZANSKI sets up the namecard and tripod and busies himself with the camera which is equipped with a black hood]
PENNEY. You have followed that business for some years?
BLISS. Yes, sir.
RYZANSKI (to himself). For eleven years I take their pictures. Always the same. When the missus dries up and is through having her babies the old man figures he'd better come over fast before the boys all run away to Cleveland and the girls get married. And A.T. Ryzanski just tells them to sit real still, look straight ahead at the camera. Then bang, it's all over. They leave without their fiver. And A.T. goes and gets himself another round of good beer. (Smiles.)
PENNEY. You have taken photographs and pictures of legal work many times?
BLISS. Yes, sir.
PENNEY. Did you at my request take some pictures at the Temple of Music?
BLISS. I did.
PENNEY. When?
BLISS. The 7th of September, Nineteen Hundred and One.
PENNEY. What time?
BLISS. Around nine o'clock in the morning.
[On the red-draped platform, RYZANSKI is pacing back and forth.]
RYZANSKI (takes out his pocket watch. Looks at it and shakes his head). About 2:30. I never seen it to fail. Either I fall over them at the door and I got to let them in so they can trip all over my equipment which is worth more than all of them put together. Or they keep me waiting till they can get the team of starving horses moving or find one of their little brats who thinks I'm gonna blow his head off instead of just taking a picture. (Takes out his pocket watch again.) Where in the name of infant Jesus are they?
PENNEY. Who was there?
BLISS. Mr. Haller and Detective Geary and several others.
[The CZOLGOSZ FAMILY has gotten up from row I and are all standing before an imaginary door at the red-draped platform. They are: the father, Paul, a 40-year old laborer, huge, sad-eyed, humorless; the stepmother, Mary, 35, faded, thin, stern-faced; the brothers, Waldeck, 14; Frank, 12; Jacob, 2; Joseph, 1, and Leon (as a child) about 8; the sisters, Ceceli and Victoria, 4, and 3 respectively. Paul knocks at the door which is opened by Ryzansk.]
RYZANSKI. Well?
PAUL CZOLGOSZ (hesitantly). I am most terribly sorry, Mr. Ryzanski.
RYZANSKI. You should be. Keeping me waiting for almost 45 minutes. I could have taken five family photographs in that time.
PAUL CZOLGOSZ (beckoning his family into the "studio"). The reason is, sir, that we could not find one child. This boy here Leon (straightening Leon up by the shirt collar). He just don't want to do nothing no more. Always running off by himself. Most never talks. Then when I tell him he's to come be photographed with his brothers and sisters and stepmother, (LEON shoots an angry look at MARY CZOLGOSZ who glares back) he just runs off. Takes me and all his brothers to find him. And a strapping to get him here;
RYZANSKI (bored). This is none of my business, Czolgosz, just get into a line like I show you. Remember, that'll be five dollars, paid before you leave.
[RYZANSKI arranges the family for the photograph in two rows with the young LEON on the front row.]
PENNEY. I show you a picture and ask you if that is one of the photographs taken on that occasion? (PENNEY hands the photograph to BLISS.)
BLISS (taking the photograph and looking at it quickly). It was. It is. Yes, sir.
PENNEY. From what point was it taken?
BLISS. The camera stood in the aisle about 60 feet east or towards the door or from the center of the palms.
PENNEY. About 60 feet east and toward the door from where the palms and flags were?
BLISS. Yes, sir.
PENNEY. Let us have that marked for identification.
[CLERK marks photographs and shows it to the jury.]
PENNEY. Does that correctly represent the condition and appearance of the portion of the Temple of Music shown on the picture?
BLISS. It does. Yes, sir.
PENNEY. I show you another picture and ask you when that was taken?
[PENNEY hands the second photograph to BLISS.]
BLISS (looks at the second photograph). That was taken at the same time.
PENNEY. Where were you standing?
[PENNEY and BLISS mime the testimony for this and two other photographs as RYZANSKI makes ready to take the CZOLGOSZ FAMILY photograph.]
RYZANSKI (after arranging the family around PAUL and MARY CZOLGOSZ who are squatting in a seated position). Perfect. Just don't move, please.
[Walks over to camera and puts his head under the black hood, holding the mercury vapor light up with his right hand.]
LEON (start to edge away from the family group). I don't want to.
PAUL (angrily). Get over here, boy.
LEON. No.
RYZANSKI (removing his head from underneath the hood). Now what's the problem? I ain't got all day.
[LEON edges away further. The other family members, except for PAUL remain stationary. RYZANSKI walks over to LEON who by this time is sitting on the edge of the platform with his head in his hands.
What's the matter boy?
[LEON shakes his head.]
(Louder.) I say, what's wrong, boy? Don't you want your picture took?
PAUL (loud). Answer the man, Leon. Before I whip you right here in front of everybody.
RYZANSKI (more patiently. Trying another approach). Hey, how about you just tell old A.T. Ryzanski what's the problem. Come on, boy, just whisper it into my ear. I won't tell no one.
[RYZANSKI leans over and cups his right ear. LEON whispers. Standing erect.]
Well, can't nothing be done about that. Not by me. Not by no one.
PAUL (coming over the edge of the platform). What's he saying, Mr. Ryzanski?
RYZANSKI (to PAUL CZOLGOSZ). He says he don't want to take no picture with his new mother. He says his old mother talks to him and tells him not to bother with this woman. Now what in Christ's name is this all about?
PAUL (very angry). Talks to him. His mama's been dead now for almost two years. Two year, God dammit. Why he always gotta trouble my new woman? (begins to take off his belt, preparing to beat LEON).
RYZANSKI (getting worried). Now wait a minute, Czolgosz, I don't want no trouble in my place (advances toward PAUL).
MARY CZOLGOSZ (from the family group) I tell you that boy's got to be whipped till he become like all his other brothers and sisters. (Louder) Paul, you do like you told me, Paul. You beat the sense into the boy.
PAUL. Well, I'll just do it right now. (LEON gets up and runs toward the studio door.) Hey, you get back here.
[LEON runs out the door and over to row one where he sits down sobbing hysterically.]
Then we must have the photograph without him. And I'll fix that boy when we got home.
MARY CZOLGOSZ. And don't you forget neither.
[RYZANSKI, relieved, begins arranging the group once again.]
PENNEY. (continuing, as if he had been speaking all along) I show you still another picture and ask you if you took that? (hands photo to BLISS.)
BLISS (looks at photograph in a bored way). I did. At the very same time. The camera stood in the gallery at about the same point as the last, opposite the palms.
PENNEY. Does it correctly represent the interior of the building as it was at the time you took the picture?
BLISS. It does. Yes, sir.
PENNEY. Mark that.
[CLERK marks it and shows photo to the jury. RYZANSKI walks back to his camera and puts his head back under the black hood]
PENNEY (to the defense counsels). You may ask.
TITUS (gets up slowly and walks over to BLISS). These were taken by yourself?
BLISS. Yes, sir.
[RYZANSKI holds up mercury vapor light.]
RYZANSKI. Now just hold still. I ain't doing this again.
JUDGE WHITE. They are received.
RYZANSKI. Hold it.
[Mercury light flashes. Two loud gunshot explosions are heard.]
PENNEY. That is all.
FOLKSINGER. (Hums Czolgosz Song).
[Curtain.]
[Mr. Penney, the prosecuting attorney, during this scene, stands next to remembered witness Czolgosz's father, a gaunt weather-beaten man with a stubble of beard, mottled skin, and receding forehead. He has the look of a coarse ignorant workman and wears none-too-clean overalls and flannel work shirt. A bottle of cheap wine is sticking out of his pocket and now and then he stops his questioning of the witness to take a furtive swig.
Dr. Mann who is questioned by Mr. Penney in this scene, is a portly slick haired man who sometimes sounds like an educated professional and dignified medico, at other times like a rough tough country doctor who doesn't "give a damn anymore - I seen enough Polacks to last a lifetime.]
FOLKSINGER. They sent for the doctor,
the doctor come, To come in a trot, and he come in a run,
To Buffalo, to Buffalo.
He saddled his horse, and he swung on his mane,
And he trotted the horse till he outrun the train
To Buffalo, to Buffalo.
PENNEY. Doctor, you are a physician and surgeon.
MANN. I am.
PENNEY. Did you perform the autopsy upon the body of the late President McKinley?
MANN. In conjunction with Dr. Matringer, I did.
PENNEY. When did you do that?
MANN. The fifteenth day of September.
CZOLGOSZ'S FATHER. Now doctor I wish you would describe as briefly and as simply as you can what you did and what you found in the body of the President my son had murdered.
MANN. I found the body of the President prepared for the autopsy. Upon the wall of the thorax just at the junction of the second and third rib, slightly to the right, was the evidence of a wound in the skin. The abdomen was covered with surgical dressings and underneath was found a surgical wound somewhat to the left of the median line. The usual procedures were carried out, and it disclosed the fact that beginning with this notch or directly beneath it there was a wound in the wall of the stomach just above the margin. Opposite that was this goddamn Hunkie kid, waking me up as usual by pounding on the front door at 2:00 a.m. yelling that his mother was bad off and she was dying and would I come right away. Well you know these Hunkies, Saturday night they drink themselves into cirrhosis on lousy wine, Sunday morning rain or shine they're sweating it out in the confessional, fadder I sinned, fadder I sinned, and Monday night they feel a little rotten from another beginning pregnancy, they send one of the runny nosed kids to tell me they're dying. With my brain I could have made it in Chicago but no I had to end up here, the only genuine M.D. in a county of screeching Polacks. Of course later, on examining the kidney it was found that the portion of the kidney adjacent to this opening and tract showed changes which indicated it had been injured during life. We made careful search for a missile - a bullet; but at the time did not find any. The wall of the cavity was formed by the fat posteriorly, the attachment of the large intestines and the pancreas.
PENNEY. What was the cause of death?
MANN, The cause of death was a gunshot wound leading to changes in the important viscera.
PENNEY. What was the condition of the organs, aside from this wound?
MANN. The condition of the organs was terrible! Frankly I have never seen such a mess! She should never haven been allowed to have more children. I warned her the last time, she was stretched, torn. The blood she lost, like a stuck pig! It's a wonder she didn't die right then and there, instead of hanging on as she did. The corn was, excuse the expression, too big for the silo.
PENNEY. So the organs of the President were normal for a man of his condition and age?
MANN. They were certainly that.
PENNEY. (bowing to the defense attorney). Dr. Mann has described the autopsy following Czolgosz's crime. You many cross examine.
[Cross examination by Mr. LEWIS, defense attorney who is prayed as a straight, greying attomey, dignified and composed, though always apologetic since he and Mr. Titus were court appointed and disliked the idea of having to represent Czolgosz, the defendant. Neither of the defense attorneys fit into Czolgosz's delusional system so they remain in reality character throughout.]
LEWIS. You are a physician here in Buffalo, doctor?
MANN. I am, sir.
LEWIS. Are you connected with any institution?
MANN. I am connected with the State Laboratory and the University of Buffalo.
LEWIS. Who was associated with you in this autopsy?
MANN. They say she associated with peddlers and tramps. They say maybe Mr. Czolgosz was not the baby's father, but you know how it is in a small town, everybody says anything. The way I see it, the other babies fit her. This one - I'm an old country doctor and I've seen it all - I had the feeling (cackles with nasty insinuating laughter) too big going in, too big coming out. You know what I mean? (Nudges Mr. Lewis lewdly.)
PENNEY. You are connected with some of the institutions of Buffalo, are you?
MANN. I am professor in the Medical Department of the University of Buffalo and also associated with the University of Buffalo and the German Deaconesses Home, German Hospital, the Almshouse Hospital.
PENNEY. In what capacity?
MANN. In some as attending and some as consulting gynecologist.
PENNEY. Well state that in plainer language to the jury: What do you mean by gynecologist?
MANN. A gynecologist is one who has to do particularly with the diseases of women and especially with the abdominal work, abdominal operations connected with them.
PENNEY. And was the late President McKinley a woman?
MANN. No sir, I gathered from direct general observation, surgical exploration, and verification from my colleagues at the original surgery, that the President McKinley was a man. I gathered from direct observation without further opportunity to verify, that Mrs. McKinley was a woman.
[General laughter from the jury.]
LEWIS. Were you called on the day of the injury to the President to attend him?
MANN. God almighty of course I was called! Who else did they have to call? I could have been a witch doctor and those damn honkies would call me, twenty miles away, thirty miles away, they never came and sat in the office like your quiet city patients, they always sent some kid like that skinny Leon Czolgosz, with a bushel of potatoes or a couple of stinking cabbages, and if I said "I got an office, tell her to come to the office, get it kid, the office, O-F-F-I-C-E, he looked like he knew English all right but he'd only shrug and cry. "Hey doc, Mama bad, come, please come." Well what the could I do for her when I'd get there, gradual renal failure, toxemia during the pregnancies. Jesus I once did a pelvic and it like something in a butcher shop. I'd give her codeine, tell the man to keep his yes open, start looking around. Beats me she as long as she did.
LEWIS. Where did you first see him and at what time?
MANN. I saw him on the operating table in the operating room of the Emergency Hospital on the Pan-American grounds, a little after five o'clock, I think. I have forgotten the exact hour.
LEWIS. Will you tell, Doctor, as briefly as you can, what was done there.
MANN. What was done after I arrived?
LEWIS. Yes sir.
MANN. I examined the patient and held a consultation with Dr. Mynter and some other of the surgeons and we decided an operation should be undertaken at once. After all the preparations were made, Dr. Mynter acting as my associate and Dr. Permenter and Dr. Lee as assistants, we proceeded to do the operation. We opened the abdomen with a knife, beginning just at the edge of the ribs and cutting downwards towards the navel. I introduced my finger and felt in the front wall of the stomach and found an opening in it. He wasn't no puny little kid no more, he was a grown man, and it sure gave me a turn to see him sittin' in my office on that leather chair that ain't nobody sits on because that damn town they was always callin' me to come to their honky shanties. But there he was, setting like a hen, only he looked more like a straggly rooster with his shirt open on his hairless bluish chest and a kind of deep cough that shook him every couple minutes. I give him a once over and he got the build of a consumptive but the Polacks they usually hold up so I give him a note to his boss, this man is sick, lay off him a little. Czolgosz forked over his fee in real cash, started to hold up so I give him a note to his bo :, this man is sick, lay off him a little. Czolgosz forked over his fee in real cash, started to leave and then said one hell of a funny thing. "It's the stepmother" he said in that honky accent, "she poison my food." I didn't reckon it was any bargain his pa had married, but a man got to get someone to raise up kids and his ma had lasted longer than I thought she would. Funny, I felt sorry for the kid. He'd "rowed up, but not all the way up if you know what I mean. There was a dead spot in him, like burnt skin. I asked him what he been eating and he said he get his half gallon of milk a day in a bucket straight from the cow and he'd keep it in his room with maybe a little crackers or cake. Later it got around that he started eating by hisself, never sat down with the family at all. He didn't seem cracked to me, just a little off, like a simple fracture, no set, knits without a case but maybe the arm don't bend so good any more.
LEWIS. Were you satisfied that everything that could be done was being done?
MANN. Yes sir. To find the track of the bullet we would have had to have taken the entire intestines out of the abdomen, which would have increased the shock very much; probably would have killed him on the table; after this we closed the abdominal wound with stitches.
LEWIS. After that doctor, were there a number of surgeons and physicians united in the treatment of the President?
MANN. No sir, I was the only doctor in the damn town, so when Leon left the wireworks because he was sick, naturally I was the one who gave him the letter to the factory. He like medicine, Leon did, was always asking me for new prescriptions. He always had a bottle of medicine and a box of pills in his pocket. He would never talk to strangers - never said much to anyone. When he wasn't working he would sometimes sit all day in the saloon "thinking like", reading the papers and sleeping.
LEWIS. But who were the doctors treating the president?
MANN. They were: Dr. Rixey who was the President's family physician - he chose myself and Dr. Mynter as the surgeons, and Dr. Wasdin as physician, and later Dr. McBurney was called, also chosen by Dr. Rixey, and later on Dr. Stockton and two other physicians came later - too late.
LEWIS. Dr. Park was in the consultation?
MANN. Oh, Dr. Park; yes, Dr. Park was in consultation from the first.
LEWIS. What I want to get at Doctor, is that the treatment of the President was the result of the joint consideration of all you gentlemen?
MANN. The joint consultation.
LEWIS. From the time of his injury until his death?
MANN. Well they say he turned peculiar from the time I first saw he was sick and told him to go easy on work and try to build himself up a little, and the time he started travelling around thinking he was some kind of anarchist or something. I saw him every once in a while, always in the office, always pay in hard cash though he couldn't have had much, laid up like he was. I'd say to myself this queer Polack don't look good to me, his chest don't sound too good neither. Not that he had TB, he was just a weak type, blow away in a stiff breeze. But there was something on the fellow's mind, if you think them foreigners got minds. Something fishy. He always looked like he was carrying a firecracker.
PENNEY. The president did later die?
MANN. He did.
PENNEY. Were you present at the autopsy?
MANN. I was.
PENNEY. Will you tell us, briefly as you can, in simple language as you can, what was found?
MANN. We found in the first place, that the abdominal cavity, the intestines were all in a perfectly healthy condition; no evidence of inflammation. There was a part in the first wall of the stomach which had been closed by the suture where the tissue was entirely dead. Below this there was a cavity or opening which contained a lot of fluid and which showed the evidence of gangrene. In this cavity was the entire country, except for the bloated upper classes, the moneyed business interests which were protected by the political system.
EMMA GOLDMAN (appearing from the panel of summoned witnesses). Hear; hear!
PENNEY. The spectator is out of order, your honor.
JUDGE. You are out of order, madam.
EMMA GOLDMAN. Sir, the system is out of order. Leon Czolgosz decided to give his own life as a sacrifice and here the doctor talks only of the moldy stomach of a man heading a country already moldy with corruption smiling before the bullet shot which provided my secret lover his one moment of tension relief in a lifetime of self denial. William McKinley's administration was riddled with gangrene before the unsuccessful surgery, a surgery doomed to failure because, like the present system of government it was not nearly radical enough.
PENNEY. Your honor, this lady is entirely out of order.
JUDGE. Yes indeed. Madam I must ask that you -
CZOLGOSZ (standing up and coming forward). It's my Emma Goldman, here to save me. She loves me and wants to save me.
MANN. I believe I was speaking sir, before this interruption?
PENNEY. Yes Dr. Mann, you may go on with your testimony.
[As Dr. Mann continues, CZOLGOSZ comes forward to interrogate Emma Goldman and she advance to the red draped platform which is the witness box for remembered witnesses - those who are part of his delusional system.]
MANN. Yes yes. Well, raising up the stomach we found a similar condition on the back wall, around the other bullet hole.
THE COURT. We will suspend here.
PENNEY. I think he is about to answer the question of what the cause of death was.
[EMMA GOLDMAN, a remembered witness, seats herself on the red draped witness platform. Then she stands, as though having forgotten the procedure]
[The rest of the cast freeze into stop motion.]
CZOLGOSZ. Miss Emma Sweetheart Goldman do you swear by almighty God to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
EMMA GOLDMAN. Come now Leon dear, neither of us believe in God. But you know I always tell the truth anyhow.
CZOLGOSZ (a bit embarrassed). Yes ma'am. Anyhow, will you describe why you are here.
EMMA GOLDMAN. Certainly. When I was in jail in Chicago I refused to join the pack in its cry against this man.
CZOLGOSZ. Would you like a glass of water?
EMMA GOLDMAN. Thank you Leon. How did you know I was thirsty?
[CZOLGOSZ carries a pitcher of water and a glass from the judge's box to Miss Goldman.]
EMMA GOLDMAN. Delicious. Must be the Niagara Falls water. I suspect Chicago water has a higher chemical content.
THE COURT (as if rousing himself). Emma Goldman, please direct yourself to the testimony.
CZOLGOSZ. She will your honor, she will. Emma, they say that Erie County District Attorney Thomas Penney tried to extradite you to Buffalo for conspiracy to kill the President?
EMMA GOLDMAN. Yes Leon dear. Chicago Police Chief O'Neill made sure that wouldn't happen but I had friends secretly drive me to your trial anyhow.
CZOLGOSZ. Emma - some have said I am not really an anarchist. Abe Isaak, editor of the anarchist paper Free Press, wasn't very nice to me. After I saw him to volunteer my services, I heard that the paper had published an item about me, they said I might be a spy.
EMMA GOLDMAN. Darling, I was furious at that charge. Although we had only met briefly - the one precious time at the station after my speech in Cleveland to the Franklin Liberal Club, I felt that you were going to be important.
CZOLGOSZ. See, she believes me. See, there is someone who believes that I simply done my duty as an anarchist.
EMMA GOLDMAN. Of course, may it please the court, I should in all fairness say that although my speeches cite anarchism as the only path leading to freedom; in my Cleveland speech I also took occasion to attack the popular misconception that anarchism means bomb throwing and general violence. Forgive me for a woman's sentiment, but if you had led the life Leon led, deprived of his mother, rejected by his stepmother, might you not have felt like killing someone? And if you felt like killing someone, what more noble goal that a rule of an unjust government. Let's face it, our Czolgosz is a bit of a hero isn't he?
CZOLGOSZ (modestly). I expected after I done it, that I would be catched at it. I just done my duty.
EMMA GOLDMAN. Yes yes, poor boy. Only once was I personally involved in an act of violence and for it my friend Alexander Berkman went to prison and I stayed out. This has, of course, weighed heavily upon my conscience. Would you like some ginger cookies? I made them in Chicago and brought them here for you. They keep moist and flavorful for weeks.
CZOLGOSZ. Thank you, thank you, you may step down.
[After handing him the plate of cookies, EMMA GOLDMAN goes back to the group of summoned and remembered witnesses and CZOLGOSZ goes back to his seat, bumping into Mr. PENNEY on the way, with much exaggerated excuse me's and bowing. The rest of the court which was frozen during the delusionary testimony, now comes to life, shuffling and making assorted noises. In the court which was frozen during the delusionary testimony, now comes to life, shuffling and making assorted noises. In the three rows of benches of summoned and remembered witnesses, the remembered (delusionary) witnesses carry on assorted activities, one drinks a mug of beer noisily while reading a Polish language newspaper, one lies on the bench with his coat over him as a blanket, one pets a kitten, etc. The regular or summoned witnesses sit stiffly and nervously in their best clothes, waiting to be called]
MANN. As I was saying, the cause of death was the bullet wound in the stomach and in the parts behind it.
THE COURT. We will suspend here.
PENNEY. You will have to be present tomorrow morning again Doctor, at ten o'clock.
MANN. Of course I'll have to be present. Don't I always have to be present? The whole damn town depended on me; that's what it's like to be the only doctor in a little hick town. The whole damn family depended on me too, his father Paul, his brother Waldek, Frank, Jacob, Joseph, Michael, his sisters Ceceli and Victoria. All clods, mill hands and farmers, and the father with a funny streak - like maybe if he really got angry you could find your head blown off.
[Dr. MANN, shaking his head, returns to the benches for summoned and remembered witnesses while the Court instructs the jury as to refraining from discussing the case among themselves. The trial is then adjourned until the following morning, Sept. 24, 1901 at 10:00 and the curtain comes down.]
[Clerk calls jury, all answer to their names. Also the defendant who does not answer, the clerk saying he is present.]
PENNEY. Samuel J. FIELDS.
THE COURT. You want to finish with Dr. Mann, do you not?
PENNEY. I want to ask Mr. Fields a question with the consent of the counsel.
[Samuel J. Fields]
(Direct Examination by Mr. PENNEY.) Mr. Fields, I must ask you what this rectangular figure on the map just outside of the aisle represents?
FIELDS. That represents a particular chair which was to be identified. There is a line there -
PENNEY. What does the line in the aisle, at right angles with the aisle, same distance from the point of entrance, represent?
[A remembered witness, Leon Czolgosz's STEPMOTHER, stands up from the bench of remembered and summoned witnesses, and moves forward to the red-draped witness box. Sometimes SAMUEL FIELDS answers the questions put by Mr. PENNEY and sometimes she answers. She is a tall, rawboned Polish woman, dressed in an embroidered peasant blouse and drab skirt.]
STEPMOTHER. Cooking for the whole pile of them, it was like feeding a boarding house! Try bring stepmother to a whole big ready-made family, just try it! Take Leon, for that one I could do nothing right.
PENNEY. What does the aisle at right angles with the aisle, towards the entrance, represent?
STEPMOTHER. I suppose I represented some kind of witch to him. He had his head filled with fairy-stories, that boy. After all, his mother had spoiled him. I never believed all that about his being sick, lazy was what he was if you want to know.
PENNEY. That is the point where the people arranged themselves into single file approaching the President?
FIELDS. Yes sir.
PENNEY. I would like to have the map marked for identification as exhibit A.
[SAMUEL FIELDS steps down but remembered witness, STEPMOTHER, remains in the red draped witness box.]
PENNEY. Matthew D. Mann: recalled. Cross examination by Mr. Lewis:
LEWIS. Doctor, a few questions.. You were present, you told us, at the autopsy?
MANN. Yes sir.
LEWIS. And you have described the breaking down of the tissues, as you express it, and the condition of the body as you found it. Were these symptoms or those indications to be expected from the nature of the wound the President received?
STEPMOTHER. He was forever complaining about this hurt him and that hurt him. Such a fellow for hurts you never saw. From the time he was a little nothing of a boy he was always a queer one, off by himself when all the others were playing in a bunch. When he growned up it was the same thing only more, and then after he really turned queer - though they put it that his health was just poorly - there was no talking to him at all.
LEWIS. Did you ever know of such results in your experience?
STEPMOTHER. I never saw anything like it in my born days.
LEWIS. To what then do you attribute these symptoms or indications that you have described?
MANN. You mean the gangrenous condition of the parts? It is very difficult to explain that; it might be due to one or several causes.
LEWIS. You have no opinion on that subject?
STEPMOTHER. I had an opinion but nobody asked me, even when I gave it they didn't pay any attention. They all babied Leon, my man - if you could call him a man - and the older brothers and sisters. They treated him like a little king, expected me fetch and carry for him like I was his own mother. Never marry a man with children, it's this worry, that worry, by the time you get to the bed his heart is heavy and hard and his cock is light and soft. I was too young for such burdens. I'd touch him in the middle of the night, so wide awake I could hear the crickets. "I'm asleep," he'd say, grumbling. "What do you want, more young one's to feed?" Nothing could get that man's cock to stand up but the sight of girls dressed in their best in church on Sunday. They'd brush by him in the pew and his pants would bulge right in the middle of the litany. Blessed Jesus, I thought of asking the holy father if it would be a sin to buy a church pew for our bedroom Seven years of lying down with a used up man, and all the time the boy thought he had troubles.
LEWIS. I conclude therefore that the optimistic bulletins that were issued from time to time by the physicians, were without any knowledge, of those symptoms that were finally discovered.
MANN. Those bulletins which were issued were not optimistic in that they gave no idea of what was to come, they expressed no opinion. We had no reason to suspect the existence of any such state of affairs within the abdomen.
LEWIS. Whether they appeared in the bulletins or not they certainly appeared in the press extensively, that the physicians were quite confidant that the President would recover?
MANN. Yes that was so in the press; but a good deal was attributed to to the physicians by the press which was not always quite correct.
LEWIS. Now Doctor, you said that death was due to several causes, can you give us any of them?
MANN. Invasion of the parts by germs, the entrance of germs into the parts might have been one cause.
LEWIS. You agree with the other physicians that the organ under question was not actually struck or mutilated by the bullet?
MANN. As well as could be determined the bullet did not enter it. It is impossible to say positively, but it was injured in some way.
[Czolgosz's STEPMOTHER, on the red draped stand, prepares for bed in mime. She braids her hair, counts her rosary beads in front of a small crucifix on the wall, then takes off her Polish peasant blouse so that her breasts are bare. She steps down and towards DOCTOR MANN who fondles her breasts with one hand while giving his testimony in a dry sanctimonious tone.]
LEWIS. By concussion?
MANN. Very possibly by concussion. (Giving both breasts a hard squeeze with both hands.) Once the organ is injured then the pancreatic juice, the secretion of the gland, will pass through the gland and can enter other parts. One portion of it being healthy, another diseased, the healthy part would secrete while the diseased portion will allow the secretion to pass through it and attack other parts.
[STEPMOTHER sits on regular witness chair and takes Dr. MANN in her lap. He mimes sucking her breast, pretending to nurse, giving his testimony still in the same solemn dignified voice but with long pauses in between the phrases as he pretends to intermittently suck.]
LEWIS. The only duty of that organ is to aid digestion?
MANN. That is the . . . only . . . duty . . . yes, sir . . .
[Re-direct examination by Mr. PENNEY]
PENNEY. Every known method of the latest surgical and medical science was applied in the treatment of the President?
MANN. I think that . . . is true . . . (miming sucking)
PENNEY. From your knowledge of the autopsy and the history of the case, was there anything that would have save the life of the President known to medical or surgical science?
MANN (changing position and miming sucking other breast). There was . . . not . . .
FOLKSINGER (hums Czolgosz Song).
[Curtain]
[When the curtain opens, or the light goes on, another witness, QUACKENBUSH, a tall, good-natured man, is seated on the witness chair. PENNEY is on his feet, rubbing his hands together in anticipation - gleefully expecting another legal "kill ". CZOLGOSZ realizes what is about to happen, and pretty much turns his away from the proceedings - although he tunes in from time to time when his delusional anarchist friends attempt to come to his rescue. However from here on CZOLGOSZ is at an times oppressed with a sense of impending doom. RYZANSKI has now become the anarchist, HAL HAUSER He is still on the red draped platform at the beginning of the scene, often in mime.]
CLERK (holding out the Bible to QUACKENBUSH). Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God?
QUACKENBUSH. I do.
[CZOLGOSZ motions to the CLERK and points to HAUSER on the red draped platform. CLERK walks over to the platform and holds out the Bible to HAUSER. PENNEY and QUACKENBUSH are frozen. JUDGE WHITE follows the delusional event but is silent.]
CLERK. And do you - (Looks bewildered.)
HAUSER. Hauser, Hal Hauser.
CLERK. And do you swear -
HAUSER (indignantly). I never swear by god - only swearing I do is at capitalists and cops. Get your ass out of here.
[CZOLGOSZ applauds.]
CLERK (shocked). My god sir, do you realize the implications of what you're doing?
HAUSER. Implications! Implications! (Grabs Bible and begins ripping pages, tossing them on the ground) Matthew. Luke. John. Keep the workers stupid. Keep feeding them this rot. (Throws Bible on the ground.)
CLERK (turning to the Judge's platform). Your honor, this man is in contempt of your court. (JUDGE WHITE doesn't hear.) I say your honor. (Holds out his hands pleadingly.)
HAUSER. (Grabs CLERK by the neck of his jacket and kicks CLERK in the backside, throwing him off the platform.) Now get the hell out of here, you idiotic functionary.
[CLERK stumbles, then runs back to his chair where he is seated.]
HAUSER (calling to witness benches). Hey, Emma, Isaak. Come on over here now. There's a trial going on. Our boy needs us. If we don't get him off then they'll roast him. (GOLDMAN and ISAAK don't move. HAUSER walks over to Row 1.)
GOLDMAN (rising). How can we?
HAUSER. I'll show you. Isaak, what say we make them free Czolgosz?
ISAAK (sarcastically). How? By kicking some sense into them?
HAUSER. Exactly.
ISAAK. You're crazy.
HAUSER. So's this whole stinking trial.
ISAAK (looking over toward witness chair). What's happening over there?
HAUSER. It's a trial in progress.
[PENNEY and QUACKENBUSH begin the testimony, in mime.]
ISAAK. I know. I've been watching. We've all been watching.
HAUSER. So why ask?
ISAAK. I mean who's up there now?
HAUSER (patronizingly). Someone called Quackenbush, who -
GOLDMAN (interrupting). Quackenbush.
HAUSER. Thank you, darling. Quackenbush. The State's big-shot witness. The guy who saw it all. The assassination. The inquisition at the police station. Czolgosz's owning up to being an anarchist. Everything.
ISAAK. But how can we help? They won't listen to us.
HAUSER. Or they can't listen to us. (Impatiently.) Let's bust up this trial, now. Get the others.
ISAAK (starts walking to the red draped platform, then turns and calls toward the witness benches). Louise. Daniel. Simon. Let's go. Meeting at Hauser's. We're gonna spring Czolgosz.
GOLDMAN (cautiously). Not so loud, Abe. Cops all over. (Points towards court policemen.)
ISAAK (softer). Sorry, Emma. Let's go, friends. Over to Hauser's. We got to decide on how we can do something for Leon.
[PAUL, MARY, and WALDECK get up and start coming toward ISAAK. They have now become, in CZOLGOSZ'S rapidly twisting, delusional system, the anarchists DANIEL, LOUISE and SIMON, respectively.]
LOUISE (slightly angered at being disturbed). Do something? I thought we decided to do nothing. To let the boy be martyred.
HAUSER (from the platform, pointedly). We changed our minds.
LOUISE (sharply). You mean you changed our minds.
HAUSER (stepping down and coming toward the benches). Have it your way. We're still gonna see if we can use some direct action instead of just saying the words and nodding our heads. (To the newcomers, DANIEL and SIMON.) What do you say?
DANIEL. I say we talk first.
HAUSER (using his hands as flapping mouths). Talk. Talk. Never act. Talk so much that we forget we're revolutionaries.
DANIEL (heatedly). To act stupidly can be as bad as not doing anything. If we're revolutionaries then let's plan the revolution. Or at least how to attack these people. (Points to the JUDGE and PENNEY, who is about to address the witness.)
HAUSER. Here's how to attack these people. (Walks behind PENNEY and grabs the back of the District Attorney's neck, attempting to choke him. PENNEY however, neigher see nor feels HAUSER'S attack.)
PENNEY (oblivious to CZOLGOSZ'S delusions which have actually taken place within about a two minute period). Mr. Quackenbush, you say you're an attorney?
QUACKENBUSH. Yes, sir.
[During this exchange six chairs are brought onto the red draped platform by ISAAK and DANIEL and arranged in a way reminiscent of the courtroom. One chair is to be occupied by HAUSER when he returns from his unsuccessful attack on PENNEY and the JUDGE. GOLDMAN and SIMON, the other two anarchists, are then seated on the platform.]
PENNEY. Were you present on this occasion of the shooting of the President?
QUACKENBUSH. I was.
PENNEY. Will you describe briefly what you saw and heard on that occasion?
QUACKENBUSH. It happened like this.
[Mimes the assassination scene, describing how he was standing directly opposite the President, south of the line of chairs forming the aisle, and resting his foot on one of those chairs. How just before the shots were fired his attention was drawn to the east along the line. He heard two shots and immediately looked toward the President and saw him straighten up. At that point he was standing directly before, and facing, CZOLGOSZ.]
GOLDMAN (to ISAAK). How many times will they go through the assassination?
[HAUSER, still with his hands on PENNEY'S neck, looks over toward the red draped platform.]
ISAAK. Till the jury foreman get a rope and they go and lynch Czolgosz.
GOLDMAN. That's what this trial is all about, Abe. (To HAUSER) Afraid that's not doing any good, Hal. (HAUSER ignores her.)
QUACKENBUSH (continuing verbally). Immediately after, the artillerymen who had been stationed on the left of the President lunged forwards the defendant, and at the same instant, Mr. Gallaher, the secret service man who had been standing to the right of the President, a little to his rear, plunged forward. And practically at the same time these men caught the defendant. I saw for an instant just a glimpse of something white as Gallaher lunged toward him.
The artillerymen who were stationed directly opposite the President and Foster and Ireland of the secret service, at the same time lunged towards those who were struggling and swaying. The defendant went to the floor, and on top of him went a number of artillerymen. There were some men standing by the President and it seemed to me as though this entire mass went down in a heap on the defendant. (CZOLGOSZ grimaces in pain.) Below the point where the President stood and about eight feet from there, there was a mass of six or eight men or more, struggling. I was standing just outside the aisle, and I couldn't get over the aisle without stepping on them.
[HAUSER walks over to the judge's platform, mounts it, walks over to JUDGE WHITE and tries to slap the Judge across the face. HAUSER'S blows just miss the JUDGE who is oblivious to this attack. HAUSER'S right hand goes back and forth in a slapping motion, like the slow ticking of a clock.]
To get over the aisle I moved a little to the left. Then the defendant came up standing in grasp of several of these men. He was then struck a blow (CZOLGOSZ again grimaces in pain, this time doubling over) by Mr. Foster which sent him to the floor again. I saw that he bled somewhat from the face.
[Unable to bear any more CZOLGOSZ, or more precisely, CZOLGOSZ'S mind, rushes over to the anarchists on the red draped platform and falls down at EMMA GOLDMAN'S feet wailing and sobbing.]
He was then taken to the room of Mr. Henshaw.
[The enraged HAUSER, seeing that his "blows" are ineffective, climbs off the JUDGE'S platform, and, out of frustration begins kicking - at PENNEY, at QUACKENBUSH, at the tables, the chairs, anything in sight.]
In the meantime the President had been assisted by Mr. Geary and Mr. Milburn. That was done by removing a chair, or four of the chairs and placing them at right angles to the aisle which they had formed.
The President was seated there and some gentlemen fanned him until an ambulance came and took him away.
FOLKSINGER. Forty-four boxes all trimmed in braid,
The sixteen-wheel driver, boys, they couldn't make the grade,
To Buffalo, to Buffalo.
Forty-four boxes trimmed in lace,
Take him back to the baggage, boys, where we can't see his face,
In Buffalo, in Buffalo.
ISAAK (to DANIEL). Let's get Hauser before they do.
LOUISE (bitterly). I wouldn't do nothing for the man. Let him learn to stick to agreements. Besides, Czolgosz is a hopeless cause. We can't ruin our whole "family" just to save one member.
[CZOLGOSZ sobs.]
GOLDMAN. That's enough, Louise.
LOUISE. Shut up, you slut. (GOLDMAN walks to LOUISE and slaps her twice across the face.) That still don't change what you are.
ISAAK (in his usually conciliatory tone). Girls. Girls. We'll get nowhere chopping at each other like some God damn Temperance women.
[ISAAK rushes over to HAUSER, whose legs are still flailing, grabs him around the waist, and pulls him back to the red draped platform.]
PENNEY (feeling the back of his neck as if he had been bitten by mosquitoes). After the prisoner had been taken away, and some time after the statements had been taken from the artillerymen, did you accompany me to headquarters?
QUACKENBUSH. I did.
PENNEY. Did you see the prisoner?
QUACKENBUSH. I did.
PENNEY. Did he there make any statement in your presence with reference to his part in this crime?
QUACKENBUSH. He did.
PENNEY. Were there any threats or inducements made or offered to him, so far as you know?
QUACKENBUSH. None.
HAUSER. (standing, still enraged, but now resigned to a verbal approach. Shouts from the red-draped platform.) Plenty. They said they'd bash his face in if he didn't start talking fast. Those scum always use their policeman's boots to kick the stuffings out of us. (Sits down.)
Pass the whiskey, Isaak.
[ISAAK picks up a whiskey bottle, opens it, takes a drink from the bottle and passes it over to HAUSER who takes a long drink during the next question.]
PENNEY. Whatever he said appeared to be voluntary?
QUACKENBUSH. Entirely so.
HAUSER. (from his seat, mimics QUACKENBUSH.) Entirely so. Entirely so, your honorable District Attorney - who's gonna build a God damn career on this case. (Takes another drink.)
GOLDMAN (to CZOLGOSZ who now has his head on her lap.) Come on, Leon, we don't have to listen to this rubbish. (Stands up and takes CZOLGOSZ by the hand.)
Let's deal with the trial as we should've right from me start.
[Leads CZOLGOSZ off the platform and lies down with him on the floor in front of the platform facing the audience. There she removes her blouse, takes off his jacket, unbuttons his shirt, and proceeds to mime intercourse with CZOLGOSZ for part of QUACKENBUSH'S testimony.]
HAUSER (looking at the departing GOLDMAN and CZOLGOSZ) Maybe I should go out and kill me a President. Or at least a Secretary of State. (Walks over to LOUISE and pinches her cheek.) How 'bout that, cutie. Then would you go to bed with me?
LOUISE. I'd rather use my brains, thank you.
HAUSER. My woman. She drives me to drink. (Laughs, takes another long drink.) On with the trial.
PENNEY. Will you tell what you heard him say with reference to his part in this transaction?
QUACKENBUSH. In the inner office of the police station the defendant replied to questions by the district attorney. He said that he killed the President because he believed it was his duty.
HAUSER (shouting.) And it was. We picked Czolgosz to do the job. And we told him so by signs and expressions so that you law people couldn't smash us. We never put nothing in writing. Never spoke a word.
LOUISE. And he promised us he knew what's in store and he'd take his chances.
QUACKENBUSH. He stated that he understood the consequences and was willing to take his chances. He described in detail in a conversation over about two hours, his movements during the day of the shooting and for some time previous.
He himself, with a handkerchief which he had -
HAUSER. Here we go again.
[Takes another drink. Goes over to edge of red-draped platform. Other anarchists - LOUISE, DANIEL, ISAAK and SIMON - take out white handkerchiefs and simultaneously reenact the preliminary movements of the Assassination Dance or Fugue. The Dance should be performed in a straight line, off the red-draped platform with the anarchists facing the audience. There must be a confluence between the dance and the ensuing testimony.]
QUACKENBUSH (continuing) - showed how he concealed his revolver and how he fired the shots. He stated that he had gone to Niagara Falls on the morning of the day of the shooting with the intention of shooting the President at the Falls. But that he was unable to carry out his purpose there, not being able to get near enough to the President. That he took a street car from Niagara Falls to Buffalo, transferred to a car going to the Exposition Grounds, and went to the Temple of Music with the purpose of shooting the President. He said he waited outside in the line. That he had placed his revolver in his right hand, covered it with his handkerchief, placed that hand in his right hand pocket, and stood that way while in the crowd outside of the entrance to the Temple, and as he entered the Temple. But that when he got to the point where the people were singled out in a single file, he took his right hand from his pocket and held the hand covered with the handkerchief across his stomach until he reached the President, when he fired. He said he had not been stopped he would've fired other shots.
[Anarchists finish their dance, put away the handkerchiefs, and sit down in their seats on the red-draped platform.]
QUACKENBUSH (finishing his answer.) He said a great many other things about his previous history and condition in life. General conversation.
[CZOLGOSZ and GOLDMAN, completing their intercourse, put on their clothes and climb back onto the red-draped platform where they are seated. HAUSER smiles benignly. LOUISE glares.]
PENNEY. Can you recall what he said on the subject of how long he had been thinking about this?
CZOLGOSZ. All my life. After my mother died I knew I had to get even. Then I became an anarchist, a great anarchist, and my friends helped me. Told me without words or writing that my job was to kill the President. That fool who got all the honor. But I know it all along.
QUACKENBUSH. He said he had been thinking about killing the President for three or four days prior to the time of shooting. That he fully determined that he would kill the President the day before the shooting. He also made another statement that he had determined it at an earlier period.
PENNEY. Can you recall anything he said on the subject of why he killed the President?
QUACKENBUSH. He said that he didn't believe in government. That he thought the President was a tyrant and should be removed. He said that the day before the shooting when he saw the President in the Grounds that he thought no man should receive such services. And all the others regard it as a privilege to stand by and render services. He said he had for several years been studying the doctrines of Anarchy. That he believed -
CZOLGOSZ. To be governed means to be
Watched, inspected, spied, directed.
Law-ridden, regulated, penned up, indoctrinated.
ISAAK. Preached at, checked.
DANIEL. Appraised, sized.
SIMON. Censured, commanded.
GOLDMAN. By beings who have neither title nor knowledge nor virtue. To be governed is to have every operation, every transaction, every moment.
LOUISE. Noticed, registered.
HAUSER. Counted, rated, stamped.
CZOLGOSZ. Measured, numbered, assessed.
DANIEL. Licensed, refused, authorized.
ISAAK. Refused, authorized, endorsed.
SIMON. Admonished, prevented.
LOUISE. Reformed, redressed, corrected.
GOLDMAN. To be governed is, under pretext of public good, and in the name of general interest, to be laid under contribution.
CZOLGOSZ. Drilled, fleeced, exploited.
LOUISE. Monopolized, extorted.
HAUSER. Exhausted, hoaxed.
SIMON. Robbed.
GOLDMAN. Then, upon the slightest resistance, at the first word of complaint, to be -
DANIEL. Repressed.
LOUISE. Fined.
HAUSER. Vilified.
CZOLGOSZ. Annoyed.
ISAAK. Hunted down.
SIMON. Pulled about.
ISAAK. Beaten.
LOUISE. Disarmed.
CZOLGOSZ. Bound, imprisoned.
HAUSER. Shot.
ISAAK. Judged, condemned.
DANIEL. Banished.
LOUISE. Sacrificed.
CZOLGOSZ. Sold, betrayed.
GOLDMAN. And to crown all, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored.
[Anarchists sing a verse of the Czolgosz Song.]
You should be praising him on high.
[DANIEL and ISAAK lift CZOLGOSZ to their shoulders and, along with all the other anarchists including HAUSER, parade around the courtroom singing the CZOLGOSZ SONG.]
HAUSER (while parading around the courtroom.) You should be thanking God for the day he was born.
[All in the courtroom, JUDGE, PENNEY, QUACKENBUSH, etc., except for the parading anarchists, get down on their knees and thank God for the day CZOLGOSZ was born.]
HAUSER (who with the other Anarchists has halted on the red-draped platform.) Now ain't you ashamed?
[All in courtroom, except for Anarchists, act ashamed.]
HAUSER. Now try and continue this mockery of a trial.
PENNEY (as if no parade or delusional outburst had occurred.) What else did you hear the prisoner say?
QUACKENBUSH. He said that he believed in no marriage relation. And that he attended Church for some time but they talked nonsense and he discontinued that.
PENNEY. He said, did he, that he didn't believe in church or state?
QUACKENBUSH. Yes. And that he did not believe in the marriage relation. That he believed in free love. He gave the names of several papers which he had read. Polish names which I cannot recall. Four of them. He mentioned one known as Free Society.
ISAAK (rising) And that's my newspaper. Been printing her for more than 12 years. We run articles of news and general interest for anarchists, socialists, and other persons wanting to know the real truth. We do features, editorials, and even run some ads. Costs is one cent a copy. It's on sale in four leading cities.
[Sits down. Opens a copy of Free Society and passes it to LOUISE]
PENNEY. He mentioned some places that he had been to where he had heard these subjects discussed, didn't he?
QUACKENBUSH. Yes. Places in Cleveland, Ohio. He stated before he came to Buffalo he'd been in Chicago.
HAUSER. That's where my group is. And a stronger one can't be found anywhere but Patterson, New Jersey and New York City.
QUACKENBUSH (continuing) He said he had been influenced by the teaching -
GOLDMAN (from her seat. Puts her hand on CZOLGOSZ'S crotch after he comes over and sits down on the floor next to her.) and hours of love-making we had in bed in hotels in Cleveland, Chicago and right here in Buffalo when he pressed his body on top of mine as I showed him to do and kissed him opened mouthed with my tongue inside his -
QUACKENBUSH. By the teaching of Emma Goldman and another
LOUISE (rising) Louise. Louise Lystero. And sometimes I wish I'd never known his name. Living in fear of police arrest every minute of my day. Afraid to go out of the house. Not able to see my companion and friend Marie. And for what? Because some young man killed a harmless cow of a President. Wrong target. Wrong time. But I got to be here otherwise they'll kick me out of the Society. And Marie would never quit. What the boy needs is a good thrashing before he gets any other fool ideas. (Sits down scowling)
PENNEY (to TITUS.) Your witness.
TITUS (rises slowly and walks over to QUACKENBUSH). Was this talk that you had with the defendant conversational, in the sense that he went on and volunteered statements, or was it in response to questions put by the District Attorney?
QUACKENBUSH. At first it was in response to questions put by the District Attorney, upon our first arrival there. Later on -
TITUS (interrupting.) For instance, the District Attorney would ask him where he had been. He would tell him?
QUACKENBUSH. Yes sir.
TITUS. And when he said he went to the Falls he asked him what time he went and he told him. And that is the way his statement was drawn out?
QUACKENBUSH. For the first -
TITUS. Up to what time?
QUACKENBUSH. Oh, for the first half hour. He was answering questions that were put to him and in a brief manner.
TITUS. In monosyllables?
QUACKENBUSH. Oh no No. He talked just as I talk now.
DANIEL. You certainly won't win an award for cleverness, Titus
.
HAUSER. Or for sustaining my interest. (Takes the bottle, puts it to his mouth and takes a hefty swig. Turns to DANIEL.)
Want a slug, Daniel?
DANIEL. Sure why not? 'Bout time you offered. (Takes slug)
ISAAK. Hey, pass that thing around.
DANIEL (looking at LOUISE) To the ladies?
LOUISE (grabbing the bottle). We fight with you we can drink with you.
HAUSER. So feminine. So gentle. Hey. Wha. Ow.
[LOUISE hits HAUSER across the face with her hand]
TITUS. You mean at first?
QUACKENBUSH. Yes sir. When he did give answers he answered not in monosyllables but gave direct, positive answers.
TITUS. Did he appear to be in a state of mental excitement?
QUACKENBUSH. It did not so impress me.
TITUS. He seemed to be cool and not excited or disturbed in any way, as it appeared to you?
[CZOLGOSZ rises from his position next to EMMA GOLDMAN and begins to pace around the red-draped platform.]
QUACKENBUSH. He seemed disturbed. Why -
TITUS. Well, that is the question I ask you.
QUACKENBUSH. - but not mentally. He seemed to be suffering some pain and constantly applied a handkerchief to the side of his face where he was struck while in the Temple of Music, and complained that his eyes hurt him.
CZOLGOSZ (while pacing, angrily.) They beat me. Like stepmother used to. Like Papa used to. Like schoolboys used to. Cracked me in the face, on neck, in stomach. So I couldn't say what I think. So I couldn't talk to my friends who are here now. They dug their fists to my face. Slapped me. Poured water on me. Hit me again. Again. Again.
[All other Anarchists pass around bottle of whiskey becoming quite drunk.]
TITUS. Did he have any marks on his face?
CZOLGOSZ. All over. Gash on the cheek. Black bruises on my forehead. Nose bleed. (Sobs.)
QUACKENBUSH. There were not any visible marks at that time. There were in the Temple of Music. But he had been washed. Apparently.
TITUS. What became of the weapon, pistol that he used? Do you know about that?
QUACKENBUSH. Only from hearsay.
PENNEY: (rising). I have it here, Judge Titus.
TITUS. The handkerchief, do you know what became of that?
QUACKENBUSH. No. I last saw it at the time of the struggle.
TITUS. How long were you there at Police Headquarters?
QUACKENBUSH. Just about two hours.
CZOLGOSZ. Inside of me I felt like killing them all.
TITUS. Did he during this time become excited in any way?
CZOLGOSZ. Yes.
QUACKENBUSH. No.
TITUS. Stirred up?
QUACKENBUSH. Not at all.
TITUS. Was he upbraided or condemned by anybody there in your presence?
QUACKENBUSH. Not by anybody.
CZOLGOSZ. By everyone there at that stationhouse.
TITUS. More than one person questioned him?
QUACKENBUSH. Yes sir.
TITUS. Who?
QUACKENBUSH. I asked him a few questions myself. And later in the evening when the District Attorney was engaged in consultation with Mr. Haller, Inspector Donovan and another detective sergeant, Matt O'Laughlin, sat by him and had what you might call a visit, in which he told them about his place of birth -
CZOLGOSZ. Being brung up in Alpena, in the state of Ohio. Them lumber camps in Alpena. Going to Cleveland. Working in a wire mill in Cleveland for seven years where I were one of the best man the foreman had then. Always on time. Never slacking down. That farm what belongs to Papa and how I got my money from it and left soon away because my head went to clouding up and I did no longer want to work or be with that bitch of a stepmother.
QUACKENBUSH. And he spoke in a perfectly easy and conversational way. Without replying to questions at times he volunteered information.
TITUS. Did he hesitate about answering questions at all? In any respect?
QUACKENBUSH. He did at first. And from time to time someone said, "Speak up!"
TITUS. Well, you say he did at first. Do you mean that he declined to answer or answered after some deliberation?
QUACKENBUSH. Answered after some deliberation. He never declined to answer any question.
TITUS. What was his appearance there? Did he hold his head up any different from what he does now? Or was his head bowed?
QUACKENBUSH. When the District Attorney and I first entered he sat at the table with his head somewhat bowed and resting it on his right arm or his right hand - the hand in which he held the handkerchief - and rubbed the right side of his face.
CZOLGOSZ (indignantly). From that beating I got.
QUACKENBUSH. And at first he did not look up promptly. But after a little while he looked up and soon took a lively interest in what was going on.
DANIEL (to LOUISE, almost reverting back to PAUL CZOLGOSZ, LEON'S father.) But he was always a good boy. Never trouble. Quiet. But (becoming DANIEL again) we can't let the anarchist movement be destroyed. If we come into the open now they'll tear us apart out of revenge.
LOUISE (seeing her opening). It's what I've been saying all along. Leave him to die. It's his duty. And our only way. And you, Hal Hauser, still want to topple the walls and bury us in the rubble?
HAUSER (excited). Fight the bastards. Don't give up on the boy now. If they come after you spit in their faces. Their God damn bloated satisfied faces. The twisted mouths that gave the orders to arrest the Haymarket strikers. The smug smiles after kicking a speaker off a street corner.
TITUS. Did he become animated at all in this talk, in his own conversation?
QUACKENBUSH. No, not -
GOLDMAN (to the other Anarchists). Why are you playing him like a puppet? Have you let Czolgosz tell us how he feels? Whether he'd even like the help or not? (Glares at LOUISE.)
LOUISE (to GOLDMAN). He's had his chance.
GOLDMAN. When? You're just like those asses over there. (Points toward TITUS.) Trying to decide a man's fate without letting him speak his mind. Only you say it's for us anarchists.
TITUS. His talk was suppressed, all the time?
QUACKENBUSH. It was not suppressed. I was hesitating about the word "animated." It was natural. And during one period of the talk I asked him to make a brief statement for publication, as to his reasons.
TITUS. What did he say to that?
QUACKENBUSH. He said he would do it. I asked him to write it and he started to but his hand shook some. (Shakes his right hand violently.) And he said he would dictate it to the reporter, pointing to Mr. Sorey who sat on my left. And he did.
TITUS. Can you repeat that statement? Was this a voluntary statement by him? Without questioning at all?
QUACKENBUSH. I asked him to make a statement for publication. I told him that we couldn't hold the newspapers all night to wait for his statement.
ISAAK (indignant, with the knowledge of a newspaperman who had, in the past, held up the presses for a good story). And they would've for a story like this.
QUACKENBUSH (smiles). He thought, evidently -
DANIEL (sarcastically). Being me dumb Polack that he is.
QUACKENBUSH. That I was a newspaper man. And then he dictated a statement.
TITUS. What was the statement?
QUACKENBUSH. I would like to refresh my recollection about that. If I could be permitted.
TITUS (helpfully). You may have an opportunity to do that. (Hands QUACKENBUSH a piece of paper which he reads over.)
TITUS. You recollect that that is the statement, independent of what you see there, I suppose?
QUACKENBUSH. By looking at this statement it refreshes my recollection so that I am able to state what it was.
TITUS. Go on.
QUACKENBUSH and CZOLGOSZ (simultaneously). I killed President McKinley because I done my duty. I didn't believe one man should have so much service and another man should have none.
QUACKENBUSH. This statement he signed.
HAUSER. And damn well meant it too.
ISAAK (to HAUSER) Not to say that we believe in no leadership. No Leader. We got our own too. It's just the pomp and splendor which keeps the masses all pacified and calm when they got to be seizing power. No different from Russia where the Czar is waited on by an army of servants or England where the King's robes are Leader. We got our own too. It's just the pomp and splendor which keeps the masses all pacified and calm when they got to be seizing power. No different from Russia where the Czar is waited on by an army of servants or England where the King's robes are so weighted with gold that he can't move without being supported by a dozen pimply boys.
HAUSER. Or the Vatican. And the Pope's millions in gold coin and acreage. Too much service and nothing for the factory slaves who work in twelve hour shifts turnip' into the machines which they're attached to. Maybe if enough Czars and Popes and Presidents are killed off the people can get the idea that there's a hope for them to seize their own god damn rotten destinies and join in themselves.
TITUS. Was there anything else that he said to the reporter?
QUACKENBUSH. Not at that time -
TITUS. That is all of his voluntary statement?
QUACKENBUSH. Oh no. This is the statement that he made for publication. He also made a statement of two hours duration.
TITUS. What did he say about where he was born?
CZOLGOSZ (as if back at police station interrogation). In Detroit, Michigan.
TITUS. And did he tell you how old he was?
CZOLGOSZ. I am twenty-eight year old.
TITUS. Did he tell you about his early life?
QUACKENBUSH. Yes, he did.
TITUS. If so, what?
CZOLGOSZ (in a clipped voice, as if in a confessional). We move to Alpena in the state of Michigan when I a little boy still with a real Mother to bring me up. And she send me to the school. Fix the clothing. Slick down the hair with grease. And she tell me to be a priest someday so that I no have to mess with the woman who can only be no good for me. To the public school in Alpena she send me where they laugh at my funny clothes and hit at me 'cause I talk funny. So Mama sent me off to the Church school where priests talked a lot in Latin. And one of those, Father Tyrone, always called me into his office-room and hug me and kiss me.
Then the Mother died off. And father (grimaces) had to find a dumb cow-bitch and marry her right away. He had a lot of drink from then on until he drink all the time. And we hit the bad time and moved away to Cleveland so he and us brothers can work. It was a job in a blacksmith's, for old Wyneski who beat me and them other helpers. But me always more 'cause I be the newest. Then I go to work in the wire mill where Danzy the foreman takes to like me and he treat me good. So I work good and don't do no wrong thing. And then Father got him a farm out in Warrensville, close by to Cleveland and took us there to live and work out the land.
I see Father and that bitch of his drinking and him beating her and her beating me every time they had drink. I hate them then. And I mainly hate her - who got Father to be drinking all the time and made him to forget Mama. So I take $400 from my drawer and leave that bad place for good. And good-bye to them brothers and sisters who don't read like I do or figure things out for theirselves. Who just be happy to work like plow-horse all six days. Then go pray to Christ on Sunday to get the sins took away. But me, I say no Church. No Christ. After I ask Father Waldeson some questions like why God can make some man so big and rich and most man so poor and drink like Father. So I go off to Cleveland and hear my Emma. And I become Anarchist where they show me that my duty is to kill that President who does no good for workers or me and gets all that service and royalty. Then to Chicago. Now to Buffalo. Here to that Music Temple where I shoot the bastard in the stomach. And I do it again if I get out of this place. I let no man be King while I walk in cowshit.
TITUS (as if QUACKENBUSH has answered). Now I gather from your statement, the defendant was absolutely willing to answer any question which you asked him without hesitation, after the first?
QUACKENBUSH. Along toward the last, without any hesitation whatsoever. At first, he did hesitate.
TITUS. Told you freely?
QUACKENBUSH. Yes sir.
TITUS. Not only of the crime but of all his relations and persons connected with him in any way, so far as you inquired?
QUACKENBUSH. Yes sir. I do not recall his refusing to answer any question that was asked him.
TITUS. That is all.
HAUSER. I guess that's all. Nothing to be done. They got him. And we tried too.
GOLDMAN (bitterly). But not hard enough, Hal, not hard enough.
[PENNEY walks over to witness QUACKENBUSH smiling.]
ISAAK (puts his index finger to his lips). Shh. Here come Hangman Penney. Back to make sure that his victim is through breathing. Go to it, you lousy swine.
PENNEY. Mr. Quackenbush, was he interrogated as to whether or not he was alone in this matter?
QUACKENBUSH. Yes.
PENNEY. What did he say on that subject?
QUACKENBUSH. He said that he was entirely alone.
GOLDMAN. Remembering all through it what I told him and those other folks out in Cleveland back in August.
HAUSER. And we helped him to get the notion to act - was the only way.
QUACKENBUSH. That nobody assisted him in anyway. That he conceived the idea, planned the method and manner of carrying it out, upon his own responsibility.
ISAAK. The responsibility which we all must share - to overthrow this tyranny which people call government.
QUACKENBUSH. And he said that he understood the consequences of such an act and was willing to take his chances. And that he wanted a fair trial.
HAUSER. What's that, a "fair trial." Like the Inquisition. That's fair. (Roars with laughter and is joined by all Anarchists except CZOLGOSZ.)
Not only do we got to get them Presidents and Kings, but all the fat judges and filthy District Attorneys too. "Fair trial." My Bishop's asshole.
PENNEY. Were you present when anything was said as to the opportunity for escape upon a trial?
GOLDMAN (sadly). If only we could. Could get Leon out of here. But they don't even hear us screaming and we're right under their bloody faces. (Puts her arm around Leon as if protecting him with her body.)
QUACKENBUSH. I do not recall that now.
PENNEY. That is all -
CZOLGOSZ (resigned, miserable). For me. (Returns to his seat with head bowed.)
TITUS (gets up and walks over to QUACKENBUSH.) I want to ask you one other question. You said that he made the statement he was an Anarchist. Was that it?
QUACKENBUSH. I don't think I made quite that statement.
TITUS. Well he believed in Anarchy?
QUACKENBUSH. I don't -
TITUS. Then you won't repeat what you did say?
QUACKENBUSH. What he did say was that -
GOLDMAN (with a sigh, knowing that though all is lost she still must defend CZOLGOSZ for this is her position too). He doesn't believe in any government. That he doesn't believe in rulers. He thinks, and knows, like we all do down deep, that all rulers are tyrants - they've got to be - for one man to rule others means that he's got to control them. And he controls them in whatever way he's allowed to, by law, or by people just not doing anything about it. Then there's only one thing to do: remove the leaders.
TITUS. Then he said nothing about anarchy? You've used the expression in your evidence.
QUACKENBUSH. Yes. Well, the District Attorney used the word "anarchy" several times and talked with him about anarchists of note, mentioning them by name to him:
[QUACKENBUSH rises and walks over to the red-draped platform beckoning to the three armed policeman to follow him, as he names the anarchists, QUACKENBUSH points to them one by one. When he is finished, the policemen, clubs in hand as if rounding up the many anarchists who were scapegoated because of CZOLGOSZ'S loose connection with the Movement, viciously herd the anarchists toward the first two rows of the witness benches which have become a detention camp. For this purpose barbed-wire may be used to suggest such a camp. The policemen's brutality continues in the end of the scene.]
QUACKENBUSH (continued). Abraham "Abe" Isaak. Harold Hauser. Emma Goldman. Louise Lystero. Daniel Steiner. Simon Brenzer. Arrest them. Criminals. Murderers of our martyred beloved President.
- asking him if he knew them. Whether he himself used that precise term or not I could not state positively.
TITUS. Did he say anything upon the subject as to whether it was his duty, belonging or owing allegiance or believing in that society, to slays the heads of governments? Did he say anything on that subject?
QUACKENBUSH. He did not put it on any ground of allegiance. He put it -
[HAUSER gets loose from the policemen and races toward the prosecution table waving his fists and screaming incoherently. Before he reaches the table, a policeman, with a broad smile on his face, draws a pistol and brings HAUSER down with one shot. HAUSER writhes on the floor screaming, now because of the painful wound]
QUACKENBUSH. He put it on the ground of belief. And he claimed that was the result of his own individual theorizing and reflection on the subject. Not that he used those terms. But that is the substance of it.
TITUS. And that was his belief then?
QUACKENBUSH. That was it.
TITUS. That is all.
[TITUS walks back to his seat as the curtain closes. PENNEY gets up and starts toward the witness as if to ask another or two on redirect examination. However, sensing his victory, and the help TITUS has given him, intercepts TITUS and shakes his hand.]
PENNEY. That was a fine job, Judge Titus. The prisoner is a lucky man.
[Curtain.]
[From the benches of summoned and remembered witnesses a huge papier-mache statue of the Virgin Mary, resembling the small vulgar statuettes that are sold in cheap religious stores, is wheeled to the red-draped platform by a shuffling old court attendant. The large statue is accompanied by a framed faded photograph of a tired looking Polish woman in her thirties standing in front of what is evidently her bedroom dresser. On the dresser is arranged a group of souvenirs, some birthday cards, several pairs of birthday shoes, and a small replica of the large statue being wheeled. Above the mirror to the dresser is a crucifix with rosary beads hanging from it.]
STATUE (from inside). The point of entrance, if it please you honor, is the point of exit.
FATHER TYRONE [ISAAK] (jogging up to the remembered witness box like an athlete except that he is now wearing a priest's costume). Requesat in pace. Requesat in pox. What the hell does the point of exit mean, kiddo?
CZOLGOSZ (in surprise). That was my sister's voice before! Ceceli, you still hiding behind the blessed Virgin?
STATUE (with Ceceli's voice). I not hiding behind nothing, Leon. I good woman. You - look where your fancy doubts have got you!
CZOLGOSZ. Ceceli the Saint! How is your husband lately?
STATUE. Keep a clean tongue. You was baptized like all of us.
CZOLGOSZ. A sprinkle of stale water by a dirty old man. You think that saves us? You wasn't always so good, was you Ceceli?
STATUE (outraged). I come to help and he turns on me!
FATHER TYRONE. We have our little way of drowning out the petty problems of parishioners. Where's the damn organist? Ah, there's that cutie - (looks up towards imaginary organ loft).
How about a stirring rendition of Star Spangled Banner, honey?
[The organ complies with exquisite Bach and liturgical music, loud for a few minutes, then muting to a soft background for the testimony. While the music is loud, CZOLGOSZ and FATHER TYRONE mime questions and answers. As the music softens all the voices emerge.]
CZOLGOSZ. You don't help me, sister. Nobody help me! I find my own way. God don't help me. He don't exist. Little by little I find out the priests tell us lies. Nobody help me. Only my sweet Emma who puts her tongue into my ear. Do something Leon, her tongue tells me. Do something to save the workers. God, he don't do nothing at all!
STATUE. You got a girlfriend now, Leon?
CZOLGOSZ (proudly). Yeah. She famous anarchist woman. Knows how to save the workers. Big woman, like Ma was.
[EMMA GOLDMAN stands up from the bench of remembered witnesses and takes a bow.]
She my girlfriend now.
[CZOLGOSZ takes out a comb and hand mirror, combs his hair and looks at himself with some satisfaction in the mirror.]
STATUE. You gonna marry her, Leon?
CZOLGOSZ. Us anarchists don't believe in marriage. We believe in free love.
FATHER TYRONE (whipping up his cassock to show his bare ass to the audience in a gesture of impudence.) Whoopee!
STATUE. Mary, mother of God, forgive him. Leon, you was such a good little boy. Even after Ma died.
CZOLGOSZ. You was the big sister. We needed you. So you went end married that lummox plumber!
STATUE. I still took care of you. How often did you go home after Pa married again? You always came over after school.
CZOLGOSZ. You said to! You said to!
STATUE. Sure I said to. Those long afternoon...no child of my own...
CZOLGOSZ. You should of know that about him before you was married. Even us kids know that about him.
STATUE. Shush! I was a pure girl. How could I know a thing like that?
CZOLGOSZ (stubbornly). Well, you should of left him.
STATUE. Oh it ain't so bad Leon. I turned to good works now.
CZOLGOSZ (shaking his head). Good works! I used to come and set on your back stoop every afternoon, shell your peas and peel potatoes. It was so hot out there. It was - it was so cool in the house.
STATUE. Please Leon, please...
[The spotlight goes off the statue and focuses on BABCOCK again in the real witness seat.]
PENNEY. Go ahead, indicate the point where you were standing.
BABCOCK. I was standing ten feet away from where the President was standing, towards the east, towards the east entrance of the Temple of Music.
PENNEY. Were the people that were approaching the President already arranged in single files where you were standing?
BABCOCK. Yes sir.
PENNEY. Go on and tell me what you saw from that point.
STATUE. I saw that you was getting discontent with the church...
FATHER TYRONE (popping grapes into his mouth, being brought a huge platter of delicacies complete with wine, pinching the servant's rump). Discontent with the church? Discontent with the church? Whatever for? (Takes a long drink of wine, picks up a turkey drumstick and makes the sign of the cross with it.)
Silence in the courtroom. The father wants to speak. (Belches loudly.)
Oops, excuse me. At any rate, acknowledgment of sin is absolutely essential to forgiveness. As long as we hide our sins from ourselves - refuse to believe in their gravity, or to humble ourselves before God on account of them, we cannot be forgiven. Our faults are not our faults merely. It is the repetition of sin which is often its great aggravation. We may have been surprised into a first fall but we go on with eyes open into it the next time and so on as act grows into habit and habit forms character. Omaddicted to juicy turkey in flagrant delico omnivorous est Deis et Patrie. I have only one drumstick to give for my God and my country. Amen. (He raises his hand in a gesture of benediction.)
[The scene at the red-draped platform consists of CZOLGOSZ dressed as a small boy sitting questioning a priest. He is wearing short pants but his age changes with his sentences so we get the feeling this was a cross section of his thoughts on the church from childhood until the present time.]
CZOLGOSZ. Father, something feels wrong to me. You tell me that God is good. But after Ma died, everything went downhill. If God is good, then why didn't he take care of my mother?
FATHER WALDEMAR [HAUSER]. God is good. It's just that we do not see the true value of his acts.
CZOLGOSZ. Forgive me, Father, but I don't understand that. It sounds like words to me. What value could there be in His taking my mother, and my father to marry that tramp?
FATHER WALDEMAR. So that you would ask these questions.
CZOLGOSZ. You mean God intended - God does these cruel things to test my faith?
FATHER WALDEMAR. They are not cruel if God does them. God cannot be cruel.
CZOLGOSZ. I hunt for what it means. I find nothing.
FATHER WALDEMAR. Then you must search further for you have not found the truth behind it.
CZOLGOSZ. You sound like my sister. She say the same thing. How must I search?
FATHER WALDEMAR. Just think about what has happened and what ideas it has given you.
CZOLGOSZ. I think and think. I go by myself and think what is the value of these things? What is the value of to make my father work so hard all his life and his living comes so hard to him and these other people in the town they have money in the bank?
FATHER WALDEMAR. He will receive his reward.
CZOLGOSZ. When, Father, when?
FATHER WALDEMAR. When the Almighty chooses.
CZOLGOSZ. If God is so good, how come he puts these funny feelings inside me that when I look at my sister - forgive me father - I can't say it in words - but I feel a way I should not. Why does he put such feelings into me?
FATHER WALDEMAR. It is in the way we express these feelings. This was given to us in the sanctity of marriage. If we use it outside of marriage then it becomes polluted but if it is used in the way it was intended, then it is a holy thing.
CZOLGOSZ. Father, my own father married that woman the stepmother, and it was a proper religious ceremony. But it was a degradation. He married her for someone to clean the house.
FATHER WALDEMAR. It is the law of the church.
CZOLGOSZ. Law, law law! I hear nothing but law all around. I hear the law of the land, I head the law of the church, and all these laws around tell us what to do. But my feeling inside Father, it tells me to do something else. Who makes the law?
FATHER WALDEMAR. Those who have been selected by their fellows and those who have been inspired to do so by God.
CZOLGOSZ. You mean the officials of the state and the officials of the church.
FATHER WALDEMAR. Yes.
CZOLGOSZ. I don't know how you of the church are chose, but from on strike I know something of how officials of the state are chose. I know money buys power.
FATHER WALDEMAR. Don't you think it's always been so?
CZOLGOSZ. How can men of God accept this thing?
FATHER WALDEMAR. Because I cannot change it by myself.
CZOLGOSZ. Do you try? Do all the others try?
FATHER WALDEMAR. No some like it the way it is.
CZOLGOSZ. I never able to do that. Ad around I see bad things.
FATHER WALDEMAR. Everything around is not right. It's just that God chooses it to be so for that time.
CZOLGOSZ. What makes you so sure? I try to purify myself but I can't believe like I used to. I pray since a boy but what I pray for, it don't happen. Does what you pray for happen, Father?
FATHER WALDEMAR. Not always. But one of the great pillars of the church tells us "I believe through the grace of God, through no merit of my own." That's how it must be.
CZOLGOSZ. Then my sins are not what is keeping me from grace. I confessed and received absolution but what am I to do about these things of the flesh. I see someone, I think - bad thoughts, Father. And also, if God is so good then why is my family so unhappy?
FATHER WALDEMAR. Because they do not know how to enjoy what God has given them.
CZOLGOSZ. They have nothing left to enjoy. Sunday to church but Saturday night they buy wine - the week is too hard, too hard for them Father
FATHER WALDEMAR. You cannot blot it out with spirits. It's unfortunate that work is not a nature than man can enjoy.
CZOLGOSZ. Some people work too hard so that others can have too much. What does the church do to help?
FATHER WALDEMAR. It has always been that way. We can only hope that someday everyone will have enough.
CZOLGOSZ. I want to do a thing to help. The church it waits forever.
FATHER WALDEMAR. That is because you see only a little at a time. But the church has more time than anyone else.
CZOLGOSZ. What has the church done to help the workers, Father?
FATHER WALDEMAR. The workers are no longer slaves.
CZOLGOSZ. Is that something the church it do?
FATHER WALDEMAR. We have worked towards it.
CZOLGOSZ. How Father? How? In all the time I come to church on Sunday I never able to help a member of my family even. We work twelve, fourteen hours a day, and others, they have all the money.
FATHER WALDEMAR. Sometimes it is better not to fight in the open until one has the advantage.
CZOLGOSZ. Are you saying, Father, that the church works secretly for me and my brothers?
FATHER WALDEMAR. Perhaps not so much as it wishes it could.
CZOLGOSZ. If I could only believe that! If I could only believe the church as like a secret society working for our good. But all I ever got was: God knows, you don't, and it will be better in the next world.
FATHER WALDEMAR. You must thing for yourself.
CZOLGOSZ. I feel I gotta do something but I scared Father because I think maybe it must be - act of violence.
FATHER WALDEMAR. Violence never achieves anything but more violence and more misery. I believe the church way is best because time is on our side.
CZOLGOSZ. So I should do nothing.
FATHER WALDEMAR. You should work.
CZOLGOSZ. I work till I drop. I work till I get sick. But I don't get nowhere with it. What did you do to help our strike? We lost. You did nothing and we your people.
FATHER WALDEMAR. Maybe it's because we already knew what the outcome would be.
CZOLGOSZ. You knew how it would end?
FATHER WALDEMAR. Yes. It wasn't your time yet. But it's coming.
CZOLGOSZ. That's what sister Ceceli says. She says it ain't our time yet but it will come. She sounds so good and religious and she reads the Bible all week and she never misses a Sunday but we did that thing - it scares me. What kind of devil makes us do a thing we know ain't right.
FATHER WALDEMAR. The devil that is gratified by things that are not right.
CZOLGOSZ. If God is so strong, how come he lets us do what we done?
FATHER WALDEMAR. Because God made us free.
CZOLGOSZ. Free Father, to follow the devil? Could you believe that I been named to a higher being to do important thing? I feel that. I don't know what it is yet but something gonna happen through me, something important. Do I have your blessing on this, Father?
FATHER WALDEMAR. You yourself have my blessing, but what the things is I don't know. Sometimes men feel this but their true destiny is something else, something not noble.
CZOLGOSZ. You're taking it away from me, you're trying to take it away from me. Fat pig, you stupid fat pig. My mother never had enough and on Sunday they patted her on back and call her good Catholic. I'm sick of it Father, sick!
FATHER WALDEMAR. Are you sick of me, or what I represent?
CZOLGOSZ. Why do you wear fancy robes Father, when we have nothing?
FATHER WALDEMAR. Because they were given to me.
CZOLGOSZ. What kind of God is it that asks for show? I don't see in the Bible why some have not enough and other too much. The church has so much service and my mother had none. My mother got down on her knees every day, not to pray but to scrub floors. She worked when she was sick! She should have been in bed, being took care of. What does God have to say about that?
FATHER WALDEMAR. God lets things happen so that that the world can go on. God does not interfere. Got lets us go our own way, God lets us worship him in the way that we think best. When your mother died, she was probably infinitely better off than if she had stayed alive.
CZOLGOSZ. I'll spit in your eye for saying that.
FATHER WALDEMAR. Do you think she wasn't better off, even if there is nothing after death? You tell me about the misery of the worker and yet death is the only peace he can find.
CZOLGOSZ. I see your point, I see your point. Then, I change the world myself. I do it myself. God don't help us, you don't help us, I gotta help us.
[Lights fade on the red-draped platform and the scene goes back to focus on the real testimony between PENNEY and BABCOCK.]
PENNEY. Describe what else you saw.
BABCOCK. These artillery men from the regular army entered upon the prisoner from all side and almost quicker than I can describe it, bore him down to the floor. They had hold of his coat, his arms and his legs. I should say there were eight or ten men on top of him.
PENNEY. This man that was borne to the floor was taken where from what point?
BABCOCK. Just as soon as I came back from the easterly entrance of the Temple of Music, he was then on his feet surrounded by the artillery men and secret service men, officers Foster and Ireland, and one or two exposition guards, and I think some Buffalo City detectives. They were there in the Temple. There was a controversy immediately that arose as to who was entitled to custody of the prisoner.
PENNEY. The man that you saw taken was the same man that was under the soldiers, that did the shooting?
BABCOCK. Yes sir.
PENNEY. Was it this defendant?
BABCOCK. Yes sir.
CZOLGOSZ. I done it! I done it for the working people and I'm glad I done it.
JUDGE WHITE. The defendant is out of order and will sit down.
CZOLGOSZ. The order is out of order. The disorder is in the lack of order.
STATUE (softly). Quiet little brother. They will be hard on you. The Father has given an order.
CZOLGOSZ. It isn't the Father, Ceceli, just a judge.
STATUE. Priest, judge, President - they're all the same things. They give the order, Leon. We're just the people; we obey.
CZOLGOSZ. And if the order is wrong? If the rich fatten and Pa has to marry just for someone to do the housework?
STATUE. My poor Leon, do you expect justice in this world?
CZOLGOSZ (whispering). After Ma died you give me the statuette. You don't lend it, you give it. All that time it sit on her dresser under the cross and then I play with it like a doll and you never scold. How come you never scold me for using Ma's Virgin Mary for a doll Ceceli?
STATUE. You was only a little kid. Girl, boy, what does it matter with a little kid? You needed a doll.
CZOLGOSZ. Why you scold me so much later on, Ceceli?
STATUE. Why I think - for a long time I think you will have a vocation yourself, make us all proud of you.
CZOLGOSZ. You wasn't proud of me?
STATUE. When you was still religious, I was. Despite the trouble -
JUDGE WHITE. What trouble?
STATUE. If it please your honor, I have done penance on my knees so many times. . . There are things we can't talk of. When my husband was there it was like he wasn't there. I don't say this to excuse - I was brought up a good girl. Only sometime - if you had seen Leon at sixteen, he was so fine looking, so sensitive. My husband was like a bull without - without - I have been given absolution by the priest. I lead an upright life.
QUESTION. And when did your brother get sick?
STATUE. We are all sick for lack of godliness. Men are mostly animals.
QUESTION. But when did he leave his job and start act