The Loeb-Leopold case - The Clarence Darrow Collection

The Loeb-Leopold Case
which was a criticism of all moral codes as the world
understands them; a treatise holding that the intel-
ligent man is beyond good and evil; that the laws
for good and the laws for evil do not apply to those
who approach the superman. He wrote some ten or
fifteen volumes on his various philosophical ideas.
Nathan Leopold is not the only boy who has read
Nietzsche. He may be the only one who was in-
fluenced in the way that he was influenced.
I have just made a few short extracts from
Nietzsche, that show the things that Nathan read
and which no doubt influenced him. These extracts
are short and taken almost at random. It is not
how this would affect you. It is not how it would
affect me. The question is, how it did affect the
impressionable, visionary, dreamy mind of a boy?
At sixteen, at seventeen, at eighteen, while
healthy boys were playing baseball, or working on
the farm, or doing odd jobs, he was reading
Nietzsche, a boy who never should have seen it, at
that early age. Babe was obsessed of it, and here
are some of the things which Nietzsche taught:
Why so soft, oh, my brethren? Why so soft, so un-
resisting and yielding? Why is there so much disavowal
and abnegation in your heart? Why is there so little
fate in your looks? For all creators are hard, and it
must seem blessedness unto you to press your hand upon
millenniums and upon wax. This new table, oh, my
brethren, I put over you: Become hard. To be obsessed
by moral consideration presupposes a very low grade of
intellect. We should substitute for morality the will to
176