Dime Novel Desperadoes: The Notorious Maxwell Brothers

15. The Lynching at Durand

dUD 15 The Lynching at Durand In the fall of 1881 almost everybody in America hated Charles Guiteau , and officials were concerned that he would “perish by mob violence” if the public could get access to him. Unable to lynch the presidential slayer, people in towns across the country expressed their desire for vengeance symbolically, by hanging and burning him in effigy. As one Illinois newspaper reported in late September, “The ball was started in Deadwood [Dakota Territory] on Tuesday, where the hanging and burning was done with the wildest excitement; a like demonstration took place on the same evening in Chicago, and another in Wheaton, Ill.” The symbolic lynchings continued for many days—perhaps more commonly in Illinois than elsewhere because Guiteau had been born and raised in Freeport, near the Wisconsin border. One additional cause of public outrage was the insanity plea used by Guiteau’s lawyer, George Scovill, who was also his brother-in-law and, incidentally , a resident of Waukesha County, Wisconsin. He not only disclosed to the press Guiteau’s strange beliefs—the most notorious being that God had directed him to kill the president—but pointed out that some of the slayer’s relatives had also experienced mental problems, and that as a child he had lost his mother at age seven and had been repeatedly beaten by his intensely religious father simply because he had a speech impedii -xvi_1-408_Hall.indd 238 3/22/11 2:00:27 PM 239 The Lynching at Durand ment. According to one newspaper report, some family members felt that he was “a downright lunatic,” and several years before the assassination, “a physician stated, after examination, that he was unfit to be at large.” Guiteau was, in fact, mentally unbalanced, but the idea that such a plea, if accepted by the jury, would save him from the gallows was exasperating, even intolerable, to many Americans. As the editor of the Canton Register in Fulton County put it, “When a man is sane enough to plan and carry out a dastardly, cold-blooded murder, that man is sane enough to hang. It is high time that the ‘mad men’ in this country were given plainly to understand that sane people have some rights which lunatics are bound to respect.” As that commentary suggests, the newfangled insanity plea seemed to contradict the all-important tenet of personal responsibility, which was central to the moral vision of most Americans. How could evil be opposed and justice be asserted if perpetrators were not held accountable? Also, many people felt that society could be protected only by severely punishing offenders, not by understanding their problems or helping them. In short, public anxiety often made the comprehension of a lawbreaker, and compassionate treatment of him, virtually impossible. An article in the Pepin County Courier, for example, declared that Guiteau was simply “a thoroughly bad man,” and thus he deserved the “vengeance” that “good citizens” should administer to such “hyenas of society.” As those terms also suggest, most people maintained a mythic, polarized view of their relationship to violent lawbreakers: us “good citizens” versus those thoroughly evil “hyenas of society,” who are not at all like us. In fact, some commentators, such as the editor of the Peoria Transcript, declared that Guiteau was “a natural-born criminal,” a man “whose moral nature was essentially vicious and perverted.” If that was true, however, in what sense could Guiteau be held responsible for his actions, being the victim of a vicious, inherently evil nature that he did not choose to have? The public’s mythic view also held the “good citizens” blameless for any and all violence in their culture, while licensing them to exact “vengeance” on those who broke the law to prey upon them. And that vengeance was often expressed by lynching. Of course, deep down, there was a relationship between the society that perpetuated such a mind-set and the prevalence of violent crime. Ironically, even Ed Maxwell shared the general outrage at Guiteau’s assassination of the president. While in jail at Menomonie, he told Edward Johnstone, “That was a cowardly act of Guiteau’s, and you bet I’d like to have a shot at him from my Winchester. I wouldn’t miss him . . . and I i-xvi_1-408_Hall.indd 239 3/22/11 2:00:27 PM Dime Novel Desperadoes 240 wouldn’t wound him slightly either. Guess if...