The Loeb-Leopold case - The Clarence Darrow Collection

The Loeb-Leopold Case
his dreams and his phantasies and living in an unreal
world, but the age of adolescence comes on him with
all the rest. What does he know? Both these boys
are in the adolescent age; both these boys, as every
alienist in this case on both sides tells you, are in
the most trying period of the life of a child; both
these boys, when the call of sex is new and strange;
both these boys, at a time seeking to adjust their
young lives to the world, moved by the strongest
feelings and passions that have ever moved men;
both these boys, at the time boys grow insane, at
the time crimes are committed; all of this is added
to all the rest of the vagaries of their lives. Shall
we charge them with full responsibility that we may
have a hanging? That we may deck Chicago in a
holiday garb and let the people have their fill of
blood; that you may put stains upon the heart of
every man, woman and child on that day, and that
the dead walls of Chicago will tell the story of the
shedding of their blood?
For God's sake, are we crazy? In the face of
history, of every line of philosophy, against the
teaching of every religionist and seer and prophet
the world has ever given us, we are still doing what
our barbaric ancestors did when they came out of
the caves and the woods.
From the age of fifteen to the age of twenty or
twenty-one, the child has the burden of adolescence,
of puberty and sex thrust upon him. Girls are kept
at home and carefully watched. Boys without in-
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