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9 Crim. Def. 49 (1982)
The Trial of the Century

handle is hein.journals/ciiafen9 and id is 247 raw text is: r LLEGENDS AND LANDMARKS Gerald F. Uelmen Viewers of Ragtime, the film based on E. L. Doctorow's popu- lar 1975 novel, are treated to some fascinating glimpses of the trial of Harry Thaw for the murder of Stanford White. Seventy-five years later, this trial still has a strong claim to the label given to it by contemporary newspaper accounts: the trial of the century. The label is not only justified by the bizarre cast of witnesses who testified and the spectacular result. It is also justified by the court- room giants who appeared as counsel in the case. Defendant Harry Thaw was the 35 year old heir to a Pitts- burgh fortune estimated at forty million dollars. He enjoyed flaun- ting his wealth by lighting cigars with $5 bills, and throwing elabo- rate parties for chorus girls. He was well known to the madams of the New York Tenderloin, where he frequently satiated a fetish for whips and young girls. He had been a problem child from his earliest years, in and out of san- itariums, expelled from Harvard, frequently arrested for irrespon- sible pranks. Always hovering in the background was a doting mother, ever ready to bail him out and keep the cash flowing. Victim Stanford White was everything Harry Thaw was not. The 53 year old architect was at the peak of his career, being con- sulted by wealthy patrons for everything from dining room fur- niture to decorations for elabo- rate parties and parades. He felt equally at home in Fifth Avenue society and in more raffish com- pany on Broadway. His crowning success was Madison Square Garden, built in 1890 at a cost of $4 1/2 million. It contained a huge arena for circuses and con- ventions, a restaurant and con- cert hall, a roof-top theatre, and hovering over it all, a three hundred foot tower, in which Stanford maintained a suite for private L__ f entertaining. Between the two men was Evelyn Nesbitt, a beautiful show girl who attracted much attention perform- ing with the Floradora Sextette. Evelyn was also dominated by a doting mother, who broke up Evelyn's romance with a dashing young actor named John Barry- more. Mama encouraged Evelyn's relationship with the chief sugar- daddy of Broadway, however: Stanford White. White was an extremely generous man. The only flaw in his worshipful romance with Evelyn, however, was the fact that he was already married. So Mama steered Evelyn into the arms of Harry Thaw, whose $80,000 a year allowance made him a most eligible bachelor. For over a year, Evelyn bounced back and forth between Thaw and White. At one point, White took her to lawyer Abe Hummel's office to swear out an affidavit describing whippings she received from Thaw. Nonetheless, she returned to Thaw and married him on April 4, 1905. Thaw certainly knew that his beautiful bride had little to blush about. In the years before their marriage, she had been named as co-respondent in some of New York's juiciest divorce scandals. Nonetheless, he became obsessed with the thought that Stanford White had seduced his wife. He sought out opportunities to con- front White and embarrass him with ugly accusations. On June 25, 1906, while White was watching the opening night performance of Mamzelle Cham- pagne at the rooftop theatre of his Madison Square Garden, Harry Thaw walked up, pointed a pistol in his face, and shot three times. He then held the pistol over his head in a gesture of surrender, saying He deserved it. He ruined my wife. The murder trial of Harry Thaw was an elaborate show, financed by the Thaw family fortune. Har- ry's mother hired a half dozen of the leading lawyers of the day to defend her son. As Chief Counsel, the family settled on Delphin M. Delmas, the Napoleon of the Pacific Bar. Delmas, who received a $50,000 fee for his performance in the Thaw trial, combed his forelock to resemble Napoleon, rumored to be one of his ances- tors. Delmas, who was born in France, probably started that rumor. He served as District At- torney of Santa Clara County in California, and later achieved great prominence in a monumental pro- bate battle over the $10 million estate of the partner of Henry Miller, the German immigrant who became California's cattle- king, running 100,000 head of cattle on his 750,000 acres in the San Joaquin Valley. Delmas was an orator of the old school, whose sonorous tones could fill a con- vention hall. He gave the speech nominating William Randolph Hearst for President at the 1904 Democratic convention in St. Louis, a nomination seconded by a less prominent young lawyer named Clarence Darrow. Delmas carefully prepared Evelyn Nesbitt for her starring role as chief witness for the defense. Demurely dressed in the navy blue suit of a schoolgirl, she des- cribed her alleged seduction by Stanford White. She claimed that, after pushing her in a red velvet swing in one of his studios, he drugged her with champagne and ravished her while she was un- conscious. Delmas elicited every imaginative detail, including her assertion she had previously been a virgin. The testimony was eag- erly reported by the leading news- papers in such graphic terms that President Theodore Roosevelt asked the Postmaster General whether it was possible to prevent the mailing of these newspapers as pornography. In his closing argument, Del- The Trial of the Century? *- CRIMINAL DEFENSE, page 49

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