Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 169, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1911 — Is Her Confession an Expiation ? [ARTICLE]

Is Her Confession an Expiation ?

TN n last desperate attempt to sav< ’1 a man accused of the murder ol his wife from life Imprisonment, tc which he was sentenced by the court, Mrs. Anita Schmidt, of St. Louis, hat sent out a public confession that ths night on which the woman was murdered the man in question was with her. Sacrificing the respect of friends and neighbors, blasting her own good name and her future, she has sent her appeal to the supreme court to save the man, counting upon her husband’! forgiveness, since the whole affair took place when she was for a time separated from him. , But even the . tale of dishonor which the woman has told to the lawyers; even the affidavits as to the time and place and the bringing forward .oi witnesses, seem likely to prove that the physician now in jail did go horns before dawn, and told conflicting stories of that occurrence thereafter.

He explains his efforts by the declaration that he was endeavoring tc shield Mrs. Schmidt, and so the dual sacrifice has been made and the legal aspects of the case muddled by “honor.**

The man’s part, his acquiescence in the trial and sentience to shield the woman, is very big and fine if It was sincere, and the world will pay him homage for it; but the woman —was she right or wrong to confess her part In the tragedy of that night, In what she know might be a vain effort to save him, since she told the same story six months before to the trial judge, and It did not keep the man from conviction? Had she the right to blast* her own name, to bring notoriety and shame upon herself, her own family and her husband's family, to save a man from punishment for a deed that she does not actually know he did not commit?

Should her thoughts have been of him or of those near and dear to her, upon whom her story would bring grief and shame and the added burden of sharing hdr guilt? These are the questions that remain 'unanswered, despited the columns in the daily news about the extraordinary story. If her confessioh brings about the freedom of the accused man she may go back to her home and hide her shame behind the thankfulness that she has paid the debt for her sin. But if she does not succeed—if after all It is proved by the law that the man returning home from her side, murdered his wife—what will eh&diave gained? Will she then think? the«confession worth while?

These are questions that only women searching deep within their souls can answer: Which do you think is the greater expiation—to have told or to have kept silence? The suffering of the one man, or the suffering of those bound to her by the-closest-ties of nature and love?