The Loeb-Leopold case - The Clarence Darrow Collection

The Loeb-Leopold Case
by making a law punishing kidnapers of children to
death.
I believe that progress is purely a question of the
pleasurable units that we get out of life. The pleasure-
and-pain theory is the only correct theory of morality,
and the only way of judging life.
That is the doctrine of Leopold. That is the doc-
trine expounded last Sunday in the press of Chicago
by Clarence Darrow.
I want to tell you the real defense in this case,
your Honor; it is Clarence Darrow's dangerous phi-
losophy of life. He said to your Honor that he was
not pleading alone for these two young men. He
said he was looking to the future; that he was think-
ing of the ten thousand young boys who in the future
would fill the chairs his clients filled, and he wants
to soften the law. He wants them treated, not with
the severity that the law of his State prescribes, but
with kindness and consideration.
I want to tell your Honor that it would be much
better if God had not caused this crime to be dis-
closed; it would be much better if it had gone un-
solved, and these men went unwhipped of justice; it
would not have done near the harm to this com-
munity that will be done if your Honor, as Chief
Justice of this great court, puts your official seal of
approval upon the doctrines of anarchy preached by
Clarence Darrow as a defense in this case. Society
can endure, the law can endure, if criminals escape;
but if a court such as this court should say that he
315