Edison and the Electric Chair_ A Story of Light and Death - Mark Essig [54]
IN MARCH 1888 the New York State Assembly's Judiciary Committee reported favorably on Gerry's execution bill, and the full Assembly passed it. The Senate Judiciary Committee, however, subjected the measure to a curious revision. It eliminated the clause substituting electricity for hanging while leaving in place the other provisions. A member of the committee considered electrical execution "so radical" that he thought it deserved another year of study. The full Senate, however, restored the excised provision and passed the bill by a vote of 87-8. The version of the bill passed by the two houses was essentially the same one Gerry drafted, with a few notable exceptions: The dissection clause was omitted; religious services were not forbidden; and the victim's family could claim the body. But the commissioners got most of what they recommended. Electrical executions would take place at three state prisons, with fewer than twenty witnesses, and unclaimed corpses would be buried in quicklime. The press gag clause survived. On June 4 Governor David B. Hill signed the bill into law.11
The bill encountered surprisingly little opposition from lawmakers in its path through the legislature, and most newspapers backed it as well. Some observers did worry that a humane method would destroy the deterrent effect of capital punishment. Gerry later admitted that killing with morphine was rejected in part because it might "make death somewhat agreeable" and "rid it of its terrors." Electricity seemed to strike the proper balance between humanity and terror. In Gerry's view, "Criminals would infinitely more dread a silent going away—to be deliberately killed by a terrible but silent force to them unknown." Park Benjamin, a prominent electrician, agreed, explaining that "the instant extinction of life in a strong man by an agency which it is impossible to see, which is unknown, may create in the ignorant mind feelings of the deepest awe and horror, and prove the most formidable of all means for preventing crime." The new execution law tapped into the sense of mystery surrounding this invisible force that no one could properly explain. Lightning from the heavens splintered trees, and the artificial lightning of battery and dynamo carried telegraph messages, produced blazing light, and cured illnesses. The power to kill was the latest manifestation of electricity's magical powers.12
Although terrifying, electrical execution was also said to cause no physical suffering, therefore offering more evidence of the glorious progress of civilization. "The state of New York may pride herself in the fact that the gallows is to be banished and a more humane and scientific method of executing criminals is to be instituted," Scientific American wrote. According to the New York Times, "It will be creditable to the State of New-York to be the first community to substitute a civilized for a barbarous method of inflicting capital punishment." With Olympian certitude the Tribune insisted that "no right-minded person can fail to approve the enactment of the law."13
A FEW VOICES nonetheless declined to approve. "Talk . . . about cthe dark ages' and 'barbarism' is nonsense," the Buffalo Express wrote. "We know what hemp will do, but we don't know what electricity may do. This movement is a pure scientific experiment, in which criminals are to be killed to test an open question."14
The Express realized that—beneath a veneer of scientific authority—the death penalty commission's report was full of holes. In support of its recommendation, the report provided three sorts of evidence: testimonials from electrical experts such as Thomas Edison, none of whom had personally investigated electricity's ability to kill; reports of accidental deaths from electricity, which had not occurred under controlled conditions; and the dog-killing experiments of