try. She could do no less than try. Verily, verily, was not this
the Voice and Hand of God in the darkest hour of her
tribulation?
On the following morning Clyde was arraigned for sentence,
with Mrs. Griffiths given a seat near him and seeking, paper
and pencil in hand, to make notes of, for her, an unutterable
scene, while a large crowd surveyed her. His own mother!
And acting as a reporter! Something absurd, grotesque,
insensitive, even ludicrous, about such a family and such a
scene. And to think the Griffiths of Lycurgus should be so
immediately related to them.
Yet Clyde sustained and heartened by her presence. For
had she not returned to the jail the previous afternoon with
her plan? And as soon as this was over—whatever the
sentence might be—she would begin with her work.
And so, and that almost in spite of himself, in his darkest
hour, standing up before Justice Oberwaltzer and listening
first to a brief recital of his charge and trial (which was
pronounced by Oberwaltzer to have been fair and
impartial), then to the customary: “Have you any cause
which shows why the judgment of death should not now be
pronounced against you according to law?”—to which and
to the astonishment of his mother and the auditors (if not
Jephson, who had advised and urged him so to do), Clyde
now in a clear and firm voice replied:
“I am innocent of the crime as charged in the indictment. I
never killed Roberta Alden and therefore I think this
sentence should not be passed.”
An American Tragedy
1110
And then staring straight before him conscious only of the
look of admiration and love turned on him by his mother.
For had not her son now declared himself, here at this fatal
moment, before all these people? And his word here, if not
in that jail, would be true, would it not? Then her son was
not guilty. He was not. He was not. Praised be the name of
the Lord in the highest. And deciding to make a great point
of this in her dispatch—so as to get it in all the papers, and
in her lecture afterwards.
However, Oberwaltzer, without the faintest sign of surprise
or perturbation, now continued: “Is there anything else you
care to say?”
“No,” replied Clyde, after a moment’s hesitation.
“Clyde Griffiths,” then concluded Oberwaltzer, “the
judgment of the Court is that you, Clyde Griffiths, for the
murder in the first degree of one, Roberta Alden, whereof
you are convicted, be, and you are hereby sentenced to the
punishment of death; and it is ordered that, within ten days
after this day’s session of Court, the Sheriff of this county of
Cataraqui deliver you, together with the warrant of this
Court, to the Agent and Warden of the State Prison of the
State of New York at Auburn, where you shall be kept in
solitary confinement until the week beginning Monday the
28th day of January, 19—, and, upon some day within the
week so appointed, the said Agent and Warden of the State
Prison of the State of New York at Auburn is commended to
do execution upon you, Clyde Griffiths, in the mode and
manner prescribed by the laws of the State of New York.”
And that done, a smile from Mrs. Griffiths to her boy and an
answering smile from Clyde to her. For since he had
announced that he was not guilty— here— her spirit had
risen in the face of this sentence. He was really innocent,—
An American Tragedy
1111
he must be, since he had declared it here. And Clyde
because of her smile saying to himself, his mother believed
in him now. She had not been swayed by all the evidence
against him. And this faith, mistaken or not, was now so
sustaining—so needed. What he had just said was true as
he now saw it. He had not struck Roberta. That was true.
And therefore he was not guilty. Yet Kraut and Slack were
once more seizing him and escorting him to the cell.
Immediately thereafter his mother seating herself at a press
table proceeded to explain to contiguous press
representatives now curiously gathering about her: “You
mustn’t think too badly of me, you gentlemen of the papers.
I don’t know much about this but it is the only way I could
think of to be with my boy. I couldn’t have come otherwise.”
And then one lanky correspondent stepping up to say:
“Don’t worry, mother. Is there any way I can help you?
Want me to straighten out what you want to say? I’ll be glad
to.” And then sitting down beside her and proceeding to
help her arrange her impressions in the form in which he
assumed her Denver paper might like them. And others as
well offering to do anything they could—and all greatly
moved.
Two days later, the proper commitment papers having been
prepared and his mother notified of the change but not
permitted to accompany him, Clyde was removed to
Auburn, the Western penitentiary of the State of New York,
where in the “death house” or “Murderers’ Row,” as it was
called—as gloomy and torturesome an inferno as one could
imagine any human compelled to endure—a combination of
some twenty-two cells on two separate levels—he was to
be restrained until ordered retried or executed.
Yet as he traveled from Bridgeburg to this place, impressive
crowds at every station—young and old—men, women and
An American Tragedy
1112
children—all seeking a glimpse of the astonishingly youthly
slayer. And girls and women, under the guise of kindly
interest, but which, at best, spelled little more than a desire
to achieve a facile intimacy with this daring and romantic, if
unfortunate figure, throwing him a flower here and there
and calling to him gayly and loudly as the train moved out
from one station or another:
“Hello, Clyde! Hope to see you soon again. Don’t stay too
long down there.”“If you take an appeal, you’re sure to be
acquitted. We hope so, anyhow.”
And with Clyde not a little astonished and later even
heartened by this seemingly favorable discrepancy between
the attitude of the crowds in Bridgeburg and this sudden,
morbid, feverish and even hectic curiosity here, bowing and
smiling and even waving with his hand. Yet thinking, none
the less, “I am on the way to the death house and they can
be so friendly. It is a wonder they dare.” And with Kraut and
Sissel, his guards, because of the distinction and notoriety
of being both his captors and jailors, as well also because
of these unusual attentions from passengers on the train
and individuals in these throngs without being themselves
flattered and ennobled.
But after this one brief colorful flight in the open since his
arrest, past these waiting throngs and over winter sunlit
fields and hills of snow that reminded him of Lycurgus,
Sondra, Roberta, and all that he had so kaleidoscopically
and fatally known in the twenty months just past, the gray
and restraining walls of Auburn itself—with, once he was
presented to a clerk in the warden’s office and his name
and crime entered in the books—himself assigned to two
assistants, who saw to it that he was given a prison bath
and hair cut—all the wavy, black hair he so much admired
cut away—a prison-striped uniform and hideous cap of the
An American Tragedy
1113
same material, prison underwear and heavy gray felt shoes
to quiet the restless prison tread in which in time he might
indulge, together with the number, 77221.
And so accoutered, immediately transferred to the death
house proper, where in a cell on the ground floor he was
now locked—a squarish light clean space, eight by ten feet
in size and fitted with sanitary plumbing as well as a cot
bed, a table, a chair and a small rack for books. And here
then, while he barely sensed that there were other cells
about him—ranging up and down a wide hall—he first stood
—and then seated himself—now no longer buoyed by the
more intimate and sociable life of the jail at Bridgeburg—or
those strange throngs and scenes that had punctuated his
trip here.
The hectic tensity and misery of these hours! That sentence
to die; that trip with all those people calling to him; that
cutting of his hair downstairs in that prison barber shop—
and by a convict; the suit and underwear that was now his
and that he now had on. There was no mirror here—or
anywhere,—but no matter—he could feel how he looked.
This baggy coat and trousers and this striped cap. He threw
it hopelessly to the floor. For but an hour before he had
been clothed in a decent suit and shirt and tie and shoes,
and his appearance had been neat and pleasing as he
himself had thought as he left Bridgeburg. But now—how
must he look? And to-morrow his mother would be coming