The Loeb-Leopold case - The Clarence Darrow Collection

The Loeb-Leopold Case
be built without the destruction of human life. No
great building can be erected but that unfortunate
workmen fall to the earth and die. No great movement
that does not bear its toll of life and death; no
great ideal but does good and harm, and we cannot
stop because it may do harm.
I have no idea in this case that this act would ever
have been committed or participated in by him ex-
cepting for the philosophy which he had taken liter-
ally, which belonged to older boys and older men,
and which no one can take literally and practice
literally and live. So, your Honor, I do not mean
to unload this act on that man or this man, on this
organization or that organization. I am trying to
trace causes. I am trying to trace them honestly.
I am trying to trace them with the light I have.
There is something else in this case, your Honor,
that is stronger still. There is a large element of
chance in life. I know I will die. I don't know
when; I don't know how; I don't know where; and
I don't want to know. I know it will come. I know
that it depends on infinite chances. Do I live to
myself? Did I make myself? And control my
fate? Can I fix my death unless I suicide? I can-
not do that because the will to live is too strong.
My death will depend upon chances. It may be
by the taking in of a germ; it may be a pistol; it
may be the decaying of my faculties, and all that
makes life; it may be a cancer; it may be any one
of an indefinite number of things, and where I am
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