Springfield Leader and Press from Springfield, Missouri • Page 29

Sen It TuLon A Uttr After Hi ''X' 'y Br WINIFRED VAN 7 4 7 fee tu rn Vi iv 3d iXt 'UUJ DUZER. Al'KW diiys spo a pprsonalile younp follow wlm fhowed the ntnmp of education nd culture despite the lines of dlmlpation In Ms face, waa led Into the Asylum for the Criminal lnnane at Cheater, III. The door clanged behJnd Tiim and he settled down to apend the rest of his years perhaps, as a madman among dangerous lunatin. It waa the final bit of "business," the "tag," in tho drama that Russell T. Scott, bandit and slayer, has lived and at thr same time acted out as if it were a stape production, during the past five years.

Scott is in the asylum instead of his grave because American jurisprudence fnrlikls the exe cutinti of an insane man. If ever he is proved be nunc, the State may drag him out of his living toiiili and demand that he be "hanged by the neck until dead" for the oHiherate murder of Jo.ph Maurer, a twenty year old cleric in a little basement dmjj store across from the City Hall in Chicago's Loop district, one night in Ajnl, He is declared Insnno because of "cell shock, tho result i.f three times being sentenced to die and each time reprieved in the very shadow of tie jrallov.8. This, at least, is what tho jury found. 15ut besides beinjf a millionaire, confidence man. hobo, iiiinman, bootleKtfer and dope peddler, Scott also has been an actor.

He was said to have been a very' poor actor, the type described as "ham" by the profession. But, curiously enough, it was tho role of all others that be fancied himself in most; the only one hat. he carri'd over into successive phases of his life, and allowed dominate each. And Scott is still an actor. When I saw him in his cell four days before he was to die on the gallows under the last sentence of death, he was acting.

In his own mind he was dramatizing his plight; ho saw it as a wonderful play in which he was the hero and star." Each new thing that happened was but "action," moving the plot along to its big climax. That the climax meant his end never seemed to occur to him. Inr.tead it was his scene," and a chunce to reach histrionic heights never before dreamed of. Incredible as it may seem, Russell Scott already had acted out his life and death drama on the stage! And, just as in tho vaudeville tketch he had saved his brother by a last minuto pleading with the Governor, so now, in life, he expected his brother or Bomeone to step forward and plead to save him. He took it for granted that fate had written into this big play soma part that would dissolve the charges surrounding him and set him free with a dramatic flourish I In four days he was to go to ignoble death.

Oiit beyond the prison walls his aged father and mother were moving heaven and earth to find evidence that would save him. His sorrowing young wife was over in Detroit soliciting subscriptions from sympathizers with which to pay for his further defense and another, chance. But he wasn't interested in these things. He didn't even care to talk about them. Instead he wanted to tell me what a great actor he had been.

"I stopped show in Blanktown." "I was a wow in Tankville." This is what he said. He dramatized everything. Lines from his sketch crept In. That sketch was an act called "The Shadow," and Scott himself wrote it. It told the story of two accused of a murder.

One escaped; the other was sentenced to hang. The one who escaped worked tirelessly to secure evidence which would free his brother and clear himself of suspicion. One the, very night of the execution this brother, believing he had unearthed facts which would prove convincing, risked his liberty and SPRINGFIELD LEADER, SUNDAY ilORXINli, MOM OTTE off fl me Sir How Russell Scott, Convicted Slayer, Portrayed Scenes for Audiences That Were Later Paralleled Written by Keott a Kew Hours ftefore He Wu to Have IWn Hanged. lie Waa Asked 1o rite the Miivf. So That It Could Be I'sed in His Behalf to fieeur a Blay of Execution.

life by going to the home of the Governor and telling his story. Ha pleaded desperately and dramatically. And ten minutes before the Innocent man was to mount tho gallows, tho Governor isued a reprieve. In the play, Scott took the part of the brother who pleads with the tiovenior. The story does not exactly paralM his real life drama, yet when he found himself moved Scene from "The Shadow." a One Act I'laylet in Which Scott Appeared in Vaudeville, and Which Paralleled Mis Own Case in Many Warn.

In the Photograph Scott, the Figure on (he Left, Is Shown heading With the Governor for the Life of His Brother. kz wit 4 A'" FrV A .1.1" i SEPTEMBER 13. 1 jt i in Ghastly Earnest and How His Crazed Mind Thought It AH Make Believe. til I imi I Hy LA jtf tx ft to the stage of real life he still was playing tho part of the innocent man condemned to pay the price of another's wrong. No matter what may have been tho actual facts of his case whether it was his hand or the hand of his brother Robert, as he declared, that shot down the drug clerk ho seemed to have hypnotized himself into believing that some a fr 4 "(f 2rLV IWh.

eleventh hour happening would Bave him as dramatically as it had saved him in the plav. And, strangely enough, something did save him! Almost when the death mnrch was ready to start, a telegram A drama In Which RoMell Seott Appeared In Chicago. Tliylng th Tart of "Joey the Dnp." Shown Above In a Iramatle 6ena reached Governor Small of Illinois from Detroit. It waa signed "Robert Scott" and It saiil; "I am the.one that shot Joseph Ma'urer. Delay hawring of my brother.

I will be in to surrender myself." A reprieve was rushed to the prison. Investigation proved that the message did not come from Robert Scott, but from a telegraph operator who sympathized with the condemned man. And it was the delay caused by the telegram which made the further hearing which saved Sotl's life. Paranoia was the form of insanity the illustrious provided through the funds collected by little Mrs. Scott, convinced the court afflicted their client.

It is a mental disease characterized by delusions of persecution, and KIK necitpiti)) in ta fQimrnv r.f Ir. Harold lluluert ami Jamei Whitney Hall, tinted alienists, beset the actor. It was, they said, principally because of the three Wracking experience I.atest Photograph of Mrs. Scott. Who I ought aliuntly and Succcshfully to Save Her Husband rrom the (, allow.

of close tic to death That his mind gave wav; experiences that would shatter tho reason of a man and Scott is not strong. Psychiatrics i av that another attribute of tho au A i. fv. At I' Hith Ulga i'etrora. JTimrement Is peculiar susceptibility to suggestion Not only will sustained suggestion urge the victim of paranoia into fantastic forma of behavior, but it will actually bring about the dreaded "split personality," they explained.

The sufferer then believes he has taken the mental and sometimes the physical characteristics of someone else, often an imaginary character. Ha lives the life of (hat person as he conceives it to be, or as it has been suggested to him. Such a condition, perhaps, would account for Scott's acting of "The Shadow" through his own life and death drama. Undoubtedly it would ex filain other eccentricities of conduct, notably a ong stretch of real life acting of another character he played on the stage "Joey the Dope" in the gripping drama "Hurricane." Olga Pttrova was the star of "Hurricane" when it appeared on Broadway two years ago. Scott was not a member of the New York Company but, as "Robert Brister" he played in the Chicago company.

Six years ago Scott, then twenty four, labored with his brother Robert, in a one room suite of offices in Windsor, Canada, to perfect a selling organization. Within four years the business bad spread all over Canada and Scott was talked of as a "boy millionaire" and "money wbanl." Then the brothers undertook th financing of a $30,000,000 international bridge between Detroit and Windsor. It was too much for them. The business was swept away and Scott lost his personal fortune. Even then, however, he was not so badly off.

It seemed that something might be saved out of the ruin. But a Boston manirurist, Dorothy Newburg, sued him for $50,000, alleging breach of promise. He had wooed her on trips tp Boston, she said, representing himself as unmarried. After a sensational lawsuit, a jury awarded her $10,000. Scott was without money to pay the judgment.

Imprisonment lay before him. His wife, with the revelation of his gross infidelity, left him temporarily. Broken, he fled and hid himself. The ex millionaire became a hobo and wandered through Canada working for a day at a time at small, drudging tasks. He drank to sottishness and sought further solnce in drugs.

Then he found a place on the stage and for a time it looked as if he would "come back." But he took to bootlegging and peddling dope and the confidence game. Then came the desperate and final phase of his career. He learned that tho easiest way to get money was to take it away from somebody with a revolver. He went out on tho Ktreots of Chicago with a gun. His brother went with him.

After no less than twenty five successful "jobs" came the night when they tried to rob the drug store in tho heart of the city's theatrical district and when the boy clerk, who resisted, was killed. Robert Scott escaped. But Russell waa arrested the next morning as be waa preparing to leave the city. And it was only when alienists established a "dream world" for Scott, a land of shadows In which he lives with his fancies, that he was saved from paying with his life for that night. It was in this "dream world" that I found him, acting over again his life and death drama Which once he acted on the stage..