| Imposition of sentence on Dr. Frederick A.
Cook, by Judge John M. Killits, on November 21, 1923 |
United States Government, General Services
Administration. From: Federal Records Center, RE: U.S. District Court
Records of the trial of Dr. Cook
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The Court: Now, Cook, you may stand up. What have you got to say as to
why the Court should not pass judgment on you?
This is one of those times when your peculiar and persuasive hypnotic
personality fails you, isn't it? You have at last got to the point
where you can’t bunco anybody. You have come to the mountain and can't
reach the latitude; it is beyond you.
First, we had Ananias, then we had Machiavelli; the Twentieth Century,
produced Frederick A. Cook. Poor old Ananias, he is forgotten, and
Machiavelli—we have Frederick A. Cook.
Cook, this deal of yours, and this conception of yours, and this
execution of yours, was so damnably crooked that I know the men who
defended you, defended you with their handkerchiefs to their noses,
rank, smelling to Heaven.
I wish I could do with you as I might, the way I feel about you; I
wish I were not circumscribed by some conventions, that I think are
mistakes, yet until public sentiment is educated to a better respect
for the law, we have got to respect them to some degree. I don’t think
you ought to run at large at all; you are too dangerous.
Undoubtedly you have got these ill-gotten gains of yours laid away.
Why, one of your counsel came to me this morning wanting to know
something about what the supersedeas bond would be. Not knowing then
just what you should be made responsible for in this case, I fixed it
too low. He said you could not give it—could not put it up. "Why?" I
said to him, as every sensible man would say to him, who wasn’t under
the hypnotic spell of your peculiar personality—like any man whose
brains work—function normally. I said to him, "It is a waste of breath
for you to make any assurances that he has means to put up any kind of
a bond that the court would think to fix”. The money you have taken
in—right now you—are holding money that belongs to poor people all
over the United States. If you had the slightest sense of honor, you
would set up a new trust deed for all you have got—if you had any
sense of honor at all you would write a trust deed and put in the
hands of some trustee for disbursing, in favor of those people from
whom you stole the money, this property that stands in your name, and
not make them go to the expense of a receivership proceeding. I don’t
see how any living man who had any appreciation of the standards of
decency or honesty, can suggest that you ought to hold a penny of it;
that you ought to be permitted to give it to your wife or daughter for
a nominal consideration, easily fixed up, because every penny of it
was robbed from the orphans and widows and credulous old people;
people in the depth of poverty; people anxious to get money enough so
as to ensure a decent burial.
I have a letter today—a pitiful letter—from a Texas woman. A most
pitiful letter—only one of the dozens and dozens of letters that I
have had—saying she was going blind; she knew—she realized that she
was going blind and encountered this lurid literature of yours, that
the bombastic, flamboyant Cox had written, and Stephens had
written—the man you said was crazy—and paid—paid him to write for you.
She saw that and fell for it. Thought you were going to provide for
her old age and blindness. Put every penny she had in your name, to
you.
I got a letter a few days ago from a woman in my State—the most
pitiful thing I have ever read, and I do have some pitiful situations.
Poor creature—just as pitiful as the poor woman from Coshocton, Ohio,
who sat on this stand here (indicating) suffering. She affected your
counsel so that they persuaded you to try and make good. Crippled;
bed-ridden; no means at all; charity for surgical attendance, because
every penny she had was given to the fellow who calls himself "Dr.
Frederick A. Cook".
Oh, God, Cook, haven't you any sense of decency at all, or is your
vanity so impervious that you don't, respond to what must be calls of
decency to you? Aren't you haunted at night? Can you sleep?
I can't begin to absolutely take care of you, I am only conscious of
the fact, which is a vast consolation, that you are under indictment
in my district right now—subject to removal there; subject to
prosecution there, and that this same record that has been made here
can be poured into the ears of honest farmers of Northern Ohio, just
as it was poured into the ears of the honest farmers of Texas. You may
be brought to justice here, and which you will be, probably, if the
Government thinks it is a matter of good policy to do it. One
consolation. If it wasn’t for that, Cook, this sentence I am going to
give you would be a good deal stiffer. I know—I know what my
colleagues in the Northern Ohio District would do to you if they were
standing facing you as I do. I won't have to try that case. Of course,
I would not, because I have got started knowing you too well. I would
not try your case. I would have to disqualify. One contract with you
is enough. But I know what they would do, because I know what kind of
men they are.
Thank God that the statutes of the United States run so that you can
be indicted in every District in which you sent a letter—be
prosecuted, and be prosecuted over and over again, from one District
into another. There isn't probably a District in the United States
from which you could not be prosecuted right now, as a result of
abusing the mails—using the mails. They have jurisdiction everywhere.
What's the use of talking to you, your effrontery, vanity and nerve
are so monumental, so cold-steel, so impervious, so adamantine to what
I have to say, that the only satisfaction I got in saying that, is
that I know that I am voicing the feelings of the decent people of
Texas, without any question; those of them that have brains enough not
to fall for what some of these foolish people call your personality. I
don't know where it is. They call it "personality", whether it is
poker face or false face.
I know it is foolish for me to talk to you, because it don't sting you
at all, but this is the last chance of those who can say anything of
those who can be represented, to voice any expression of contempt for
you.
Now, I am going to do you justice, Cook; I am not going to give you
the sentence you ought to have, because I expect that you will get the
balance of it some place else. You ought to be carried around over
every District in which you exhibited your wares, to be put on
exhibition, as a trifle worn. Those people you swindled in the
Northern Ohio District ought to have a chance to look at you. Those
you swindled in Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, the Southern Ohio
District, ought to have a chance to look at you; Vermont, Wyoming,
California, Colorado, everywhere. New York—these poor people in the
South, many of them, I spent my forenoon answering letters this
morning, just on your account, I can’t do you justice.
It is strange—I don't know why—I would not say for a minute that these
people fell for your personality; I know that you are too hard-shelled
for that, but it is strange that the prosecuting officers have
suggested to me that I be not quite so stiff on you. It is my own
disposition, and my abhorance for such a crook as you are.
The sentence in your case is, if you need any further sentence; a
normal man wouldn't need any further sentence, after what I have said
to you, but you do know you are abnormal. The sentence is your case is
that you be imprisoned in the penitentiary for five years—in the
penitentiary at Leavenworth, on each of the first three counts of this
indictment, but that that imprisonment be served on those counts
concurrently, and so, that is all, you serve five year on those three
counts, and that you serve on each one of the other nine counts, a
period of imprisonment in the penitentiary at Leavenworth, of 13
months, and that you serve those so that when you have served your
sentence on the first three counts you will serve 13 months on the
fourth count, and then you will serve 13 months on the 5th count, and
so on down, until you get through serving this string of counts, and
that you pay a the of $1.000.00 on each one of the 12 counts, and that
you stand committed until you—as to each one of these fines until the
fines have been paid.
I very much regret that that is the maximum of the fine. If it were
$10.000.00 maximum, I would have made it $10.000.00. The Government
ought to have some of this money. If you won’t distribute it back to
the people from whom you stole it, the Government ought to have it,
but that is as far as I can go. And that you also pay—and this is a
part of the judgment of the Court—the costs of the case. I don’t know
what they are taxed at, but you pay them.
Now your bond is—by way of supersedeas, and it shall be a supersedeas
bond—that is fixed in the sum of $75,000.00
That’s all.
Continued... |
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