THE CHESSMAN CASE
511
or broken or driven to my knees, that I didn't give a damn. But
here is where the tragedy lies: this felt need is compulsive and
negative only.
It
is a need to prove one can do without-with–
out love, without faith, without belief, without warmth, without
friends, without freedom. This negative need to prove becomes
progressively greater and greater . . . the ultimate (conscious or
unconscious) need is to prove that one can do without even life
itself."
How is society to heal such a desperate sickness? Chessman
puts himself in the position of a leper who is also a physician. He
studies his own pains and deformations; he does not find the
answer. Each offender is different from every other. The salvation
of the meanest or the mildest is as complicated and difficult as
the life of every non-criminal man.
It
is tedious, discouraging,
even hopeless. Society is too dull, too rigid, too tired to make the
effort. We do not even want to reform the criminal because of
our anger that we have sometimes tried and failed. Every account
of jails, of guards and matrons seems to show that reform is not
believed in or encouraged.
If
a man might be saved by eight
hours at the piano, the warden is sure to put
him
in the jute mill
to teach him his lesson. The senseless determination of the prison
officials to keep poor Chessman from writing is one of the most
depressing and telling aspects of this sad case. One of the wardens
at San Quentin, admitting that Chessman was not a difficult dis–
ciplinary problem, said, "So far as I'm concerned, our only prob–
lems with him have been literary."
The case:
There was a large element of the sacrificial in
Chessman's execution. Even if he was absolutely guilty, the way of
stating the charge and the decision to give the death penalty
were severe beyond anything we are accustomed to. Further, the
fact that the unusual severity of the sentence, in a case where
murder was not involved or kidnapping either, in any sense in
which the world understands the term, could not be modified
after exhaustive litigation suggests again the sacrificial and sym–
bolic nature of the case.
In
Mark Davidson's study in
The Cali–
fornian
he says, "...Chessman was not convicted of rape, because
in both of the robbery-attack offenses for which he was con–
demned, . the victims persuaded the bandit not to pursue coitus.
