(the following excerpts, chosen by Thaw, were republished in his book The Traitor)
"No one has contended that for the two years nearly that he has been in the Tombs he has been crazy. Honorable counsel does not contend that he sits there a crazy man, or that he sat there a crazy man a year ago." (3010 O. R.)
"The things that are not in this case and that I cannot put in this case, are the significant things. I am told by my learned opponent that all Pittsburgh is here—put them on the stand. Is J. Denniston Lyon here, a banker with whom he did business, an honorable gentleman, I fancy, from Pittsburgh? One is scarcely inclined to do business over a number of years with a crazy man. Is Josiah Thaw called to the stand to testify as to his appearance and conduct and whether rational or irrational at the time he was allowed to make a will disposing of a large estate? Was there anything in that will that showed a lapse of memory?
"As I said before, all these men at the whist club, all these people that must have known him socially or in business relations for years at Pittsburgh or elsewhere—people whose testimony I cannot take, the girl's mother for instance, was there, and consenting, this defendant's own mother. Do you think, gentlemen of the jury, when you look at Mrs. William Thaw on the stand, that she is the type of woman that would allow an insane son to marry? I think not. But there is no one called but these servants and retainers. And when a man like Roger. O. 'Mara or Gleason gets here by accident—not a word. They have known him for years-but not a word." (3037 O. R.)
"When Longfellow—a most reputable attorney in this city—was he taking fees all these years from a man that he deemed insane and irrational? No one but newspaper men and women who see distorted faces and lips wide open and mouth twitching, and Coroner's Jury—the tailors and candlestick makers who happened to see him with his eyes like a white bulldog's—those are the ones that are called.
But people who have had opportunities for years of observing him—why were not they called as to their opinions as to his rationality or irrationality? And so Miss Pierce and these other witnesses to the will are not asked." (3038 0. R.)
"Now passing from that testimony to that of [Harry's] mother. You saw her on the stand in her age and in her sorrow and in her sickness. Did she impress you as a truth-telling woman? She did me. It seemed to me that not even to save the life (sic) of this boy, the child born to her in the hour of sorrow, would she have lied. I take it that every man who heard her testimony could not help but be touched by it. I take it that no man could have in his heart to believe for one moment that that mother would lie. I take it, sir, that you or I, trying this case and having the person on the stand who was certainly friendly to us, and yet by her face and bearing bespoke a noble character, I take it, sir, that we would have gone into the details of thirty-six years of a loved son, and inquired of her at what period and when there was anything done that seemed to her irrational." (3057 O. R)
"Never for a moment, although her boy's life may be in jeopardy, does she strengthen her testimony. Restraint and balance all through." (3058 O. R)
"That he should have taken her to his den maintained by that miserable group of degenerates and perverts who did maintain it, some of whom have been mentioned here does not that arouse indignation on your part? How much more additional enmity would it have aroused on your part if that had been done to the woman you loved?" (3062 O. R.)
"Now the marriage came. They came to Pittsburgh to be married, and again think of the people that could be called here to testify to erratic acts and irrational conduct that were not. The mothers of both parties were present. One is not called, and the other does not describe it as irrational. The mother says he was excited that day. He had worked very hard. He had to draw up his will, or get it into the shape in which he finally executed it, and he was alarmed lest the mother of the girl should not give her consent, the girl being under age, as he supposed." (3064 O. R)
"When the marriage is over, they go to California, and return, and go with the old lady to the country, and there, as she expressed it, pathetically enough, they were happy and contented until they returned to Pittsburgh in the fall of 1905. . . . They were happy and contented." (3065 O. R.)
"The terrible story that she told on the stand, a story which in its essential details, in my judgment, is true. I did not think so once. I think so now." (3076 O. R.)
"That there was such a place in 22nd Street and 24th Street as she had described, is as true as you sit there and I stand here. That it was maintained by a miserable group of degenerates, some of whom are living today in this town, and some of whom have had their names mentioned in the course of this trial, is true. That it was maintained as a coarse, gross place for sexual orgies is as true as I stand here and you sit there. And I say if it was the issue that we were trying here, whether Stanford White deserved it—we might not differ." (3077 O. R.)
"Was even the mother asked whether for the thirty-six years of life, this man's life, she knew of an occasion when in her opinion his conduct impressed her as irrational?
"Could he climb the mountains of Tyrol and be much interested in mountain climbing, as she would tell you? …And I remember in his letter to Longfellow about suits for kidnapping—did he have intelligence?" (3080 p. R.)
“Would not that put fire into the heart of a man? Would not that make him feel aught towards White with enmity that nothing could satisfy but that man's blood ? Would it make you feel that way? Aye-it would make any man feel that way. And if he has taken life—if he could not have justified himself in the forum of the law, he may have justified himself in a higher forum." (3081 O. R.)
"If he had killed for it and killed quick, he could have been forgiven." (3083 O. R.)
"Now, gentlemen, it is not necessary to say to you that you play Bridge Whist for fun. You play Bridge Whist for fun the same way that you play Draw Poker for fun. Gates, and Frick, and Drake were playing Bridge Whist to enervate their faculties, I suppose. . . . Of course they were playing there for money. This defendant seemed to hold his own with the best of players there. . . . But do you think, whatever you may think of some of them in regard to their financial dealings—do you think that these men would deliberately sit down to take money from a lunatic? Think as badly of some of them as you may, do you think that these men, many of them men of high standing in the community—do you think they would sit down and play with an irrational person and take his money from him playing cards?
"Do you suppose I do not know this man Hummel? Do you suppose that for the thirteen years I have been actively engaged in the administration of the criminal law in this city, and later on for three or four years, that I was not looking for that fellow; and after six or eight years, when I came to the office I now hold, I got him and put him where years ago he deserved to be? No words that contain his baseness are too strong. And everything that rests on his testimony alone should receive no weight. The significant thing is not whether the affidavit is true. I do not believe its contents are true except he has in it all that matter about travel" (3084 O. R.)
"Time and time again she talked to him, explaining to him, as she puts it, eulogistically, that White was a grand man, that he was gentle and kind, that everybody cared for him and save for this one awful occurrence he was all that a gentleman should be. I read there between the lines. She played one against the other. He had been told when he saw her coming from the theatre, that she was Stanford White's girl. She was calming him. The note in Martin's—'the blackguard has been here, but has gone out.' That calmed the jealous mind that had been told of these things. The month before—within a month-what need to carry to him the tattle of the name of May McKenzie, that Stanford White said he did not believe they were happy, but he would get her back. That is calming him. That White had kept him out of the club. That she had written White from Boulogne. That she had received these letters from White. That Thaw wanted to put White in the penitentiary. All these things pouring in on this man who loved the girl. Do they show insanity? They show motive." (3086 O. R.)
"Now they say that the codicil-that he picks out certain cases and there leaves money for certain purposes. Take the people whom he left it to. Were not they appropriate people to stop this sort of thing? Do you know anything about the girls he mentioned there? Do you know anything about whether he is correct or not in the relations he describes? I cannot tell you because I. cannot go into that. I must not inject into this case things that are not there. But I must warn you not to draw a conclusion that any single one of these statements about one of these girls is untrue—because there is no evidence of its untruth before you. There is no evidence of delusion in the slightest degree on his part. You have no evidence that that assumption is untrue. And enough to you has been shown of what White was, and what those two houses were to make it not incredible—that his assumption in that codicil and will were true." (3089 O. R.)
"Certain people would be only too glad to have this fellow adjudged a lunatic, so that the thing could not come It." (3090 O. R.)
"Did Roger O 'Mara; when he was Chief of Detectives of Pittsburgh, advise an insane man to carry a pistol? When he told him, O 'Mara, and got his advice about carrying a pistol, did Roger O 'Mara advise an insane man to do it?" (3091 O. R.)