Dorothy Thompson

Buffalo News/April 4, 1936

“To the accredited members of the Press:

“You are hereby invited to be present as a witness at the execution by electricity of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, No. 17400, which will occur at this prison on Tuesday the 31^st day of March, 1936. The hour of 8 P. M. has been designated by me for such execution, and you will kindly arrange to be at my office in this prison not later than 7:15 o’clock. You are respectfully requested to advise me immediately upon its receipt of your acceptance or declination in order that I may make my arrangements. This invitation is issued to you in order that you may give to the newspapers or press association, which you represent, a correct and authentic account of the execution. Under no circumstances is this invitation transferable. Yours very truly,

“MARK O. KIMBERLING

“Warden of the State Prison, Trenton.”

Sends Regrets

Dear Mr Kimberling:

As one of the millions of people making up our commonwealth, to whom your kind Invitation is really addressed, I am sending you this answer. As I write these lines,  I still do not know whether the party which has already been postponed so many times, will be on tonight or not. But I know that if and when it is, the invitation will go forth again. It is addressed to some 30 newspapermen and through them to me, an American citizen. For these reporters will only be present as proxies for the rest of us.

It is with this in mind that I should like now and in advance to send in my regrets.

I know that your invitation is cordially meant. I know, too, that there would be bitter disappointment if the American people through the American press were not permitted to witness the event which has been so often scheduled. I understand that hundreds of people are willing just to stand outside the walls in the chilly rainy weather to watch for the signal which will indicate that another soul has gone to his Maker.

Betting Was Strong

I see by the papers that on Wednesday expectant crowds “strained against the police lines” for any sign that would tell them that they had been in on the kill. I know too that the pleasure-loving public that is always good-naturedly ready to take a chance on a sweep-stake horse or a prize fight has put up a heavy book on Bruno Richard Hauptmann’s chances, with the betting going strong on whether he’ll live or burn. And if people have got money on a thing they have some rights, don’t they? I presume that they have.

Besides, you wouldn’t want to disappoint the children. All those little boys that have been congregating in the neighborhood lots, whistling and whooping and hand-clapping. And all the people who have bought precious parking space from owners lucky enough to have land around the prison, and all the people in windows that overlook it.

All Soon Know

Your invitation is for them. For when and if the deed is done, and the newsmen rush across the street to the block house, to the telephones and the telegraphs, it will only be a few minutes before we shall all, vicariously, have been witnesses in the death house. We’ll know just what Hauptmann’s last words were, whether he bore up well or collapsed. We’ll know just how much juice it took to put him out, just how his body jerked, just what his convulsions were. Maybe even there will be another stroke of luck. Maybe, as in the Snyder-Gray case, some enterprising reporter will be able to smuggle in a camera. Then our 20 proxies will really have fulfilled their mission. No doubt the American public will be edified, no doubt it will have been proved that “crime doesn’t pay!”

And nevertheless, Mr. Kimberling, if you don’t mind I shall not come to this party. Somehow, Mr. Kimberling, it is not the kind of good clean fun that I like. Perhaps I am just a little squeamish but I am willing to take the word of a prison doctor, the executioner, the spiritual adviser, and the other necessary officials as to how and when your prisoner died. I would be satisfied to read just one line about it in the newspaper!

Not an Expert

But then of course I am not one of the countless thousands who have tried the Hauptmann case. I did not think that my legal knowledge, my information or my acquaintance with astrology were sufficient to enable me to sit in judgment on the whole matter, on the judge, on the jury, on the prosecutor and on the attorneys for the defense. I am not a handwriting expert, a wood expert or an amateur detective. As long as I live in a country governed as I have been led to believe by law I have felt it necessary to accept the opinion of the New Jersey Court of Errors end Appeals, the New Jersey Court of Pardons and the Supreme Court of the United States on this case as I would on all others. It has always seemed to me that a criminal case is a matter for the courts and the police and not something to make a Roman holiday for the masses. And I am not involved In New Jersey politics or with either party.

Not Accepting

It may surprise you to learn that I did not even attempt to attend the trial, where the personal invitations were more generous. Somehow I was not pleasurably titillated by the opportunity to witness a father’s grief and a mother’s agony and take my lunch along.

I am sure that when the greet event covered by your invitation occurs a great many people will have a very good time, and that newspapers will immediately increase their circulations for one day. So in declining your invitation I do not presume to speak for the American people. But as I live, I believe that I speak for more millions of them than can be imagined.

Yours very truly,

DOROTHY THOMPSON