A Desperado's Views

A DESPERADO'S VIEWS

Gustave Marx Tells Why He Became an Outlaw.

FOR SAKE OF MONEY, NOT GLORY

Could Earn $25 a Week, but That Was Not Enough--"Risk Life No More In Holding Up Than Upon Scaffolding Painting," Says Chicago Man--A Schoolmate's Tribute.

Gustave Marx, the young desperado of Chicago whose confession has cleared away the mystery surrounding six murders, is pronounced by alienists a victim of the dime novel, of gang feuds and of the lawless dance hall. Reared in a rough quarter of Chicago, Marx and the three accomplices he accuses drifted naturally into outlawry.

"It wasn't so much dime novels, I guess," said Marx as he lounged against the grating of his cell. "We were not trying to be bad men for the glory in it. We needed the money; that's all.

"I was making $25 a week as a painter, but that is not enough when you are hitting up the races. Did I ever expect to reform? Well, I guess not. I could never have gone back to the old slow life on $25 a week. What's life anyway? To enjoy yourself till you die, isn't It? And you can't die more than once, can you? I knew they"d get me sooner or later, but I made up my mind I'd have a good time as long as it lasted and then take my medicine.

"The men were killed because they did not obey orders quick enough. Some of them made foolish moves after we had the drop on them, and these moves cost them their lives."

Marx's companions, Harvey Vandine, Peter Niedermeier and Ernest Roeski, are fugitives, with a score of police on their trail.

"We had decided to kill Roeski," said Marx, "because we could not trust him. He slipped away and did not take part in the car barn robbery.

"None of us trusted Niedermeier," he continued. "I was not afraid of him telling on me, for he was worse than I was, but he was tricky, and I was afraid he would shoot me in the back and grab all the money after he did some job. I always kept him covered and would have killed him first had he attempted anything. Vandine was honest. I trusted him.

"They can't hang me but once. I was never afraid of anything. I always expected to be killed. I wish Í had been killed when I shot Quinn.

"Yes, I used to read the Bible when I was home. That was a bluff for the old folks. I wasn't much on the read - only newspapers and some thrillers, of course. But any one who tries to follow out dime novel methods in holdups will get caught every time."

"Then how did you get into the life?"

"I couldn't see that I would be risking my life in a holdup any more than I did every day on a rickety scaffolding painting. Our first job fell through. We were regular amateurs. We were going to hold up a Northwestern train at Janesville, Wis. We planted some powder in the woods near there, but it was discovered, and the game was up. Then we came back to Chicago and held up the Clybourne Junction station of the Northwestern on July 3."

"How did you spend your money?"

"Oh, drinking and going to dances. I had a girl, of course, and it took quite a bunch of money to keep her going.

"Niedermier and Vandine were the best shots in Chicago. They could plug a quarter every time forty feet away. We had planned to go to the 'Hole In the Wall' country, in Wyoming, when it got too hot for us here.

"I've fired more than 10,000 cartridges. We spent a lot of our money for ammunition. We would go into a shooting gallery and shoot away $10 and then go on to another. We knew that success depended on our being quick and sure shots."

Detective Quinn had been warned that Marx would shoot to kill. Quinn had his hand on his weapon in his overcoat pocket when he approached Marx, yet was shot and killed before he could defend himelf.

"Nobody could lick Marx," said a former schoolmate of the youth, "and many a time I have gone blocks out of my way to avoid him. He used to chew tobacco in school. When we gave the teacher an apple shower, Gus always stole all the apples. Once he had a gang that went about stealing marbles from the boys on the playgrounds. It ended by his stealing all the plunder from the rest of the gang, and when they protested he licked them one after another."

J. M. Fitzgerald. a criminologist, has examined Mars. He says:

"In the study of thousands of men I have never seen one who was of such a pronounced type of the 'daredevil' sort--the deliberate, merciless desperado. Not a word of emotion escaped bis lips during one hour's interview. His moral perceptions are blunted and abnormal."