FOR THE DEFENSE

Publicity Campaign Favors Nate Leopold

By Harlowe R. Hoyt Whether the public realizes It, a tremendous publicity campaign accompanies the efforts for a parole being made by Nathan Leopold, co-murderer of Bobbie Franks in Chicago in 1924. There's the play, "Compulsion," on Broad: way. Leopold's own story is being syndicated and I understand that this will appear between hard covers before long. During the period when I was

"HARLOWE R. HOYT

bullying an ulcer of the duo denum into a state of docility. I turned back to the records of this case as well as

to the New York reports on the melodrama playing to Broadway capacity. Results are interesting. There's a strong Leopold influence permeating the whole of it, which is something of a surprise so far as the play is concerned. Helped on Play

Meyer Levin, who covered the murder years ago, wrote the novel "Compulsion," based on the crime. He dramatized it but the producer called in Robert Thom to snap it up. There was a ruckus over the changes but the script finally was staged and is playing to capacity. While names are not used, the play opens with Leopold meeting the interviewer. His speech:

"You want to understand me, Artie. The crime was committed that lovely spring day in May, 1924. But it seems as bizarre and unreasonable to me now as it must then have seemed to everyone else. Why can't people judge what I am now? I am no longer a 19-yearold. I am almost an old man. Every cell in my body has changed five times ever since I did that terrible thing. I do not understand what that 19-yearold boy, who was myself; felt or thought. He is a stranger to me. I think of him as my murderer as well as the murderer of Paulie Kessler (Bobby Franks)."

es led to his Identification. He mains as dead as the day he implicated Loeb, who, under was so foully murdered. cross examination, broke down Does Leopold deserve a paand spilled the whole story. role? He still is guilty of the Not until then did Leopold adBobby Franks murder. mit the crime.

Clemency was granted, sparing the lives of the pair, though

than that, he okayed Levin's they laughed and joked script and the author followed throughout the trial, seemingtain references and incidents. his request in eliminating cerly, innured to any human feeling. They were given life for murder and 99 years for kid-

So much for the play, though I might add that it presents Leopold in a sympathetic light napping. These sentences have as one who was led astray by been reduced so that Leopold Dick Loeb, his homosexual is eligible for parole. partner in crime.

What is of interest to me is that. Leopold shows no remorse

or regret in the crime but takes the attitude that it is a scientific study to be regarded objectively.

Leopold's own story as syndicated starts at 9 o'clock on the night of the murder and continues, so far as I have read, to the confession by Loeb of the senseless murder. Nowhere in this printed portion does LeoDick Loeb is dead, succumbpold express regret at the enormity of the crime. Nor ing to razor cuts inflicted by a prisioner whom does he detail the efforts to fellow cover it during the period the sought to force into homosexpair were at liberty. Instead ual relations. Clarence Darrow he expresses concern for his is dead-but for him the pair family and details his social might have gone to the galactivities and love for a young lows. Judge Caverly, who alone sweetheart. Just what has he was responsible for the senoverlooked so far? He's Overlooked This

That the two of them de-, cided to perpetrate a murder in December, 1923, and devoted much of their time plotting it! until the fatal day, May 22, 1924.

According to their confession, Leopold suggested that they pick up a young woman and rape her before killing her.

This was discarded as too dangerous.

Once the plan was completed, Leopold drove about the streets looking for a victim while Loeb scouted about. Anyone would do. They finally picked on 13-year-old Bobbie Franks.

They enticed him into their rented car. Loeb, it is generally accepted, beat him over the head with a chisel, forced rags soaked with hydrochloric acid into his mouth, and, when he was dead, covered the body with a laprobe.

Then they drove to a road house restaurant, parked the car, and went inside to eat.

Driving to a spot previously selected, some 20 miles away, they stripped the body. Leopold donned hip boots and carried it to a culvert where he stuffed the poor remains head first into the drain. And These, Too

It's an interesting plea, more Then they returned to the! Interesting when you learn that city and that is where Leopold Nate Leopold wrote it. More picked up the recital. The things he overlooks from there are these:

Next morning the two took the rented car, cleaned it as best they could of bloodstains, and parked it to be found later.

The following morning they took the typewriter on which the ransom notes had been written, tore its keys out, scattered them in the Jackson Park Lagoon, and dumped the typewriter further on.

Discovery of Leopold's glass-

he

tence, retired to England in a couple of years and was lost sight of. Bobby Franks re-