Submitted by the defense in the Harry Thaw Trial 1907
"I know that Stanford White was a human monster. I know that much of what Mrs. Harry Thaw has stated as a witness is true. I know that Stanford White's den in the tower of Madison Square garden was as she has described it. I know that White made a business of destroying young girls. I know of at least one specific instance. .And what I know I learned after I had been given the first clews by Harry Kendall Thaw himself.
"My first knowledge of this case dates from the summer of 1905—about a year before the killing, I should say. One afternoon a tall, well-dressed, well-bred young man came to me in my office in the Temple Bar building. He seemed to be laboring under excitement, and it was evident that he was desperately in earnest. He opened the conversation by asking me if I were interested in the suppression of vice. Then he wanted to know if my society gave special attention to the arrest and punishment or men who preyed upon young girls. I told him that we did. He jumped up abruptly, said he would see me again, and left without telling me his name. At the door he stopped long enough to say he would see me again.
"A few days later he came back, still laboring under strong emotion. He then introduced himself. As nearly as I can recall he said:
"'I am Harry Kendall Thaw of Pittsburg. I want to tell you of a man who has betrayed more young girls than any other man in New York. He is particularly given to pursuing the young girls of the stage. It is a debt which society owes to itself to halt him now, before he brings shame and sorrow any more victims.'
''That in effect was his statement,although of course I asked him a great deal more of the matter. He left after securing my promise to investigate. He agreed to pay the cost of looking into the case. He at once mailed me a check of sufficient size to defray the necessary expenses, and subsequently wrote me several times upon the subject of White, asking each time what progress we were making.
"Our investigation confirmed to a great degree what Thaw had told me. Our detectives were astounded at what they discovered. We worked hard and I learned a great deal, but of all cases these are the hardest to prove under the rules of evidence, and before risking an arrest I determined to catch White.
"I learned that his rooms in the tower were as Mrs. Evelyn Thaw had described them in the trial. Two of our detectives endeavored to hire rooms in the same tower in order to watch his goings and comings. The deal was almost completed when one of the detectives made a bungle. Something which he said or did gave the alarm to the janitor, and, although we were on the waiting list for a long time, and although several times apartments in the tower were vacant, we were never able to secure a suite or a single room.
"We were still vainly trying to arrange a trap for White from which there would be no escape when he dismantled his room in the tower.
"I learned positively of one case of White’s conduct to a girl only 15 years old almost identically as Mrs. Evelyn Thaw describes her own case, but the girl was in the chorus of a road company, and we could not reach her and make a witness of her. We got evidence of other things—things that convince me that what Harry Thaw's wife now swears is true. I believe in her story and base that belief upon what I know of the man.
"The last time I saw Harry Thaw was only two or three weeks before he shot White. He appeared to be in a desperate state—like a man who is well nigh frantic. He said to me wildly, 'You must keep on, you must stop this man, he must be stopped now—at once."