PAGE 12
It Could Happen Again To-Morrow
by
But this gruff old man was not to be cajoled into pleasanter channels than the course his mood steered for him.
“We’ll waive that too. Anyhow, the mother’s evidence was enough.”
“But was there anything else other than the mother’s unsupported story for you to go on and be guided by?”
“What else was needed?” he retorted angrily. “What motive could the mother have except the motives that were prompted by mother love? That was a devoted, desolated woman if ever I saw one. Look here! A daughter without cause suddenly turns upon her mother and tries to kill her. Well, then, either she’s turned criminal or she has gone crazy!
“But why should I go on debating with you a matter which you don’t know anything about in the first place and in which you have no call to interfere in the second place?
“I don’t want to be sharp with you, young woman, but that’s the plain fact. The duty which I undertook under the law and as a reputable physician was not a pleasant one, and it becomes all the less pleasant when an unqualified layman–laywoman if you prefer to phrase it that way–cross-examines me on my judgment.”
“Doctor, let me repeat again I have not sought to cross-question you or belittle your knowledge. But you speak of the law. Do you not think it a monstrous thing that two men even though they be of high standing in their profession as general practitioners, but without special acquaintance with mental derangements–I am not speaking of this particular case now but of hundreds of other cases–do you not think it a wrong thing that two such persons may pass upon a third person’s sanity and upon the uncorroborated testimony of some fourth person recommend the confinement of the accused third person in an asylum for the insane?”
“I suppose you know a person so complained of–or accused, as you put it–has the right to a jury trial in open court. This girl that you’re so worked up about had that right. She waived it.”
“But is a presumably demented person a fit judge of his or her own best course of conduct? In your opinion shouldn’t there be other safeguards in their interests to insure against what conceivably might be a terrible error or a terrible injustice?”
He didn’t exactly sneer, but he indulged himself in the first cousin of a sneer.
“You’ve evidently been fortifying yourself to give me a battle–reading up on the subject, eh?”
“I’ve been reading up on the subject–not, though, for the purpose of entering into a joint debate on the subject with anyone. But, doctor, I have read enough to startle me. I never knew before there were such laws on the statute books. And I have learned about another case, the case of that rich man–a multimillionaire the papers called him, which means I suppose that at least he was well-to-do. You remember about him, I am sure? A commission declared him of unsound mind. He got away to another state where the legal processes of this state could not reach him. The courts of that other state declared him mentally competent and capable of managing his own affairs–and for a period of years he did manage them. Here the other month, under a pledge of safe conduct, he returned to New York on legal business and while he was here he carried his cause to a higher court and that court ruled him to be sane and entitled to his complete freedom of body and action. But for years he had been a pseudofugitive in enforced exile and for years he had carried the stigma of having been adjudged insane. This thing happened, incredible as it sounds. It might happen again to-day or to-morrow. It–“
“Excuse me for interrupting your flow of eloquence,” he said with a labored politeness, “but I thought you came here to discuss the case of a girl named Vinsolving, not the case of a man I never heard of before. Now, at least I’m not going to discuss generalities with you and I’m not going to sit here and join with you in questioning the workings of the law either. The laws are good enough for me as they stand. I’m a law-abiding citizen, not one of these red-eyed socialistic Bolsheviks that are forever trying to tear down things. I believe in taking the laws as I find them. Let well enough alone–that’s my motto, young woman. And there are a whole lot more like me in this country.”