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Collection of 13 letters sent to Robert Cravatt, a juror of the famed trial of Richard Hauptmann, who was arrested for the abduction and murder of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., the 20-month-old son of aviator Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The trial began on January 3, 1935, and lasted until February 13th. Hauptmann was convicted and was ultimately sentenced to death, with Cravatt, a 28-year-old camp supervisor, the last juror to approve the motion for capital punishment. In addition to the letters is an original “Official Pass, Hauptmann Trial,” for the morning of Friday, January 25, 1935, 4.5 x 3.5, annotated “admit” in pencil and issued as No. 36. The letters, a mixture of typed and handwritten, reveal a public torn over Hauptmann’s innocence, with some expressing delight in the verdict and others indignant. A sampling of newspaper clippings is included, which also contain handwritten notes from the letter writers.
Examples include:
An unsigned type postcard, postmarked February 13, 1935, in part: “Why were you not man enough to stand on your own feet in the Hauptmann case and not send an innocent man to his doom…the police covered it up to screen the Morrow-Lindbergh homes…The baby was handed over to sailors on Scandinavian boats and killed because Lindy had the money marked when they told him not to.”
ALS from February 24, 1935, in part: “I cannot understand why you, who are an educated advisor, should have been influenced by those who seem to lack the most essential quality in such a serious decision - that of Mercy.”
TLS on a postcard, February 21, 1935, in part: “Anyone who sanctions capital punishment, regardless of who or what he is, is fundamentally ruthless and case-hardened…God’s laws are higher than man’s laws, His mandate is THOU SHALL NOT KILL.”
ALS, February 18, 1835, in part: “Everyone knows you tried to do the right thing. All over the country the citizens are raving mad at that rotten verdict…He should be free, to Hell with ‘Limburg’ or that rotten judge, ask them to give him a retrial.” In overall fine condition. Accompanied by many of the original mailing envelopes.
