Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, June 13, 1915, Page 28

¥ = 5 Zaiiy o vt T R AR T 1 S 5 A WA om0y s Heten Dietz, Eleven-Year-Old Daughter of the Outlaw, Parleying with the Sheriff Under a Flag of Truce Just Before Her Father Surrendered OAN F. DIETZ, lumber-jack, home- steader and woodsman, of Winter, Wisconsin, became famous some ten years ago because of the remarkable fight he waged against powerful lumber interests, who, he claimed, were op- pressing him. Dietz is a curious survival of the old-time ploneer. The trouble first arose In 1904, when Qietz's wife acquired a tract of land at Winter, on the Thornapple River. Rest- ing on this land and crossing the river was Cameron Dam, which had long been used by the lumbermen to ralse the water of the river to a sufficlent helght to enable them to float their logs from he forests to the mills below. Dietz belleved that he was entitled to sompensation for the use of the river flowing by his land and notified the Chip- pewa Lumber and Boom Company, € Tost of pluc.toge dovn the river toat they could not do so unless they pald bim for the privilege. " The com appealed to the courts. They obtained an injunction. Dietz rvaded service. Succeasive were made to serve Diets, but he defeated them all. Diets became known throughout the country as the “Outlaw of Cameron Dam.” Atter three or four years of deadly war- fare the lumber interests capitutated. The trouble would probably have ended there, but in 1910 Diets got into an al- tercation with & man at a primary elec- . Handing a sheet to Helen, his Aleven-year-old daughter, he sent her out to the Sheriff to announce his willingness to surrender. Dietz, Mrs, Dietz, and Leslie were ar- rested, indicted and tried for the murder of the Deputy, but only Dietz was found gullty. He was sentenced to life im- prisonment, the death penalty not pre- vailing in Wisconsin. Last December, Governor McGovern commuted Dietz's term to life imprison- ment. Under the parole law, Dietk may now be released In four years. The Gov- ernor's action was largely Influenced by the receipt of petitions signed by hun- dreds of thousands of names which came from every State in the Union. The strange origin of these petitions has Just been revealed and is told here for the first tim: The Strange Story of the Petitions for the Outlaw’s Pardon HALF-STARVED and rain-soaked man fell from exhaustion in Co- lonjal Park, New York City, a few weeks ago and fractured his skull He was taken unconscious to the Wash- ington Helghts Hospital, The only clue to the man's identity at that time were two stiff-covered note- books 1 in the pockets of his tat- tered On the inside front cover cl—u:“nl-.'ttorddudmzhh family property. When the patient recovered consclous- ness he told the hospital authoritiés that he was Leslie Dietz, of Winter, Wis,, son of the famous outlaw of Cam- eron Dam, For the past twentydfive months he had been engaged in secur ing signatures to a petition for the par- don of his father. From State to State he had tramped, enduring all sorts of privations and covering over 12,000 wmiles on foot in the course of his pil- grimage. S0 intent 'was the pllgrim on his mise slon ‘that for days he went without proper food, and starvation, combined with his exertions, often weakened him to such an extent that he dropped in his tracks. That was how he had come to fall*in Colonial Park. The story the patient told was so pathetic and so convincing that most of the newspapers throughout the country printed & sympathetic account of the ac- cident which had befallen the Dlh’rhil‘ How Psy:l;:il;g“y Explains‘ the Strange Delusion of “Leslie Dietz” For the explanation of this strange case let us go back to one of the earllest manifestations of the same complex in childhood. Many children gifted with imagination invite punishment for lying when they are not consclously lying at all. A child will invent some wonder- ful invention and he will then tell his thing whick inflames his childish“mag- fation and he will m-mly claim to have seen or to have been a part of this same ha . The child really be- ifeves what he says. His visualization s #o0 perfect that he actually confuses real- ity with the unreal. \ Another maniiestation is the very ex- traordinary cne that all pgr:oluuu and criminologists know. is tle TheJurp rising New Cha ter deStrande Case of the Outlaw of Cameron Dam” How a Self-Sacrificing and Honest Impostor Collected a Million Names for the Pardon of the Famous John Dietz, Saving Him from Life Imprisonment---and How Psychology Explains noros: T e NV was found, had already resulted in the comimutation of the outlaw's senténce from life imprisonment to twenty years, and who was continuing his arduous task in the hope of securing his father’s im- Wediate release. These stories were read with Interest In Wisconsin, where the adventures of the Dietz family were part of the his- tory of the State, and word wi sent to New York that Lesli y attempt to secure the pardon of his father by peti tion; that, in fact, he had never been further east than Michigan in his life, its Hospital claimin Dietz must therefore be rate impostor or suffering from a mental delusion. : ‘When this startling information was received the “Leslie Dietz” at the hos- pital was further interrogated, and here is the story he told: “So they say I am an impostor—that I am not Leslie Dietz, son of John F. 3'l.lu' the outlaw, of Cameron Dawm, at “If 1 am an impostor, I am certainly the most unusual impostor ever dis- self-accusation of perfectly innocent people whenever any crime whose ele- ments are adapted to impress the imag- ination of these particular people, occurs. Every magistrate knows that following any particularly atrocious murder men and women will write letters accusing themselves of the crime. In many cases men, and \women, too, bave actually ap- peared before the and given them- selves up as the These people #0 into voluminous detall as to just how and why they did the murder. They actually ‘believe that they are the erim- inals. Even when confronted. with the absolute facts that they could mot pos sibly have been at the scene of the murder at the time it was done, they still persist in their self-accusations and immediately invent plausible explana- . ‘ Copyright, 1915, by the Star Company. His Delusion and Labors Dietz, the Outlaw, and His Son, the Real Leslie Dietz, Photographed After Their Arrest In 1910, and Below the Cabin in Which They ' Defled the Authorities for 8ix Years, covered, for no one has ever suggested how I could possibly benefit by repre- senting myself as the son of a convicted murderer and working for his pardon as I have ‘done these past twenty-five months. “During" those twenty-five months I have had some pretty rough experiences. I have gone without food for days. I have slept in the snow when the tempera- ture was 10 degrees below zero. I have worn out twenty-two pairs of shoes, and for days at a time have walked bare foot until T could earn emough by odd Jobs to buy shoe leather. “In some cities that I have gone through I have been arrested as a tramp and a vagrant but,"for the most part, my mis- sion has secured me against such -mis- fortunes. When I started on my errand I weighed 170 pounds. To-day I weigh._ only 135, “l have been through nearly every State in the Union. “I was bora in Gi Bay, Wis,, forty- nine years ago. I was about four years old when my father bullt his log cabin at Cameron Dam on 160 acres which he had acquired in the regular way. “My father is now seventy-six years old. 1have had only one brother and one sister. My brother is Clarence Diets, now tions. It has been noted that always ih such cases the subject is hasy as to the real circumstances of his lite. These people are not liars; they actu- ally believe in what they say. This man Leslie Dietz was a lumber- He may have come from the same ity as the real Diets. He may not. But all his experiences in life, without mflou the actual everyday lite of Dietz. He had lived in the same kind of surroundings he had fought the same kind of fights, and, no doubt, he had seen and sympathised with twenty-six years old, and my sister is Maria, now twenty-two. “I married Kate Finnegan and had two children, Johnny and Mary, sometimes called Mabel. The youngsters were killed in a fight with the sher!ft’s posse in 1908, My wife died in Winter, in 1909. “Our trouble with the lumber interests grew out of their efforts to confiscate our dam. When they found that my father would not submit they did every- thing they could to force us out. “Father.'mother and I were all tried to- gether after we had been In jail about 110 days. Only father was convicted. He is now a Federal prisoner at Waupon, Wis., because the man he shot during the raid on our cal in 1910 was standing vll‘ln the Federal Indian Reservation at the time. “I have already sent 15 petitions from each of the various States I have visited to President Wilson. I addressed them to Carl Schuiltz, a Washington lawyer. Of course, they reached the President, be- cause they bore results.” The startling discrepancies between this story and the facts as ascertained from various reliable sourcés may now be_referred to. " In the first place, the warden of Wau- pon prison declares that Dietz is not and never has been a Federal prisoner. Hence, President Wilson has no power to pardon him. 3 Secondly, John F. Dietz, the outlaw, is not more than fifty years old; whereas, the New York “Leslle Dietz” says he is seventy-six. Thirdly, the outlaw had six children; namely, Leslie, Clarence, Myra, Helen, John and a baby. Fourthly, the real Leslie Dietz is only twenty-four years old to-day, whereas the man in New York says he is forty-nine. Fifthly, the real Leslie Dietz was un- questionably in Mayville, Wis., when his namesake was lying unconsclous in a New York hospital. Sixthly, when shown a photograph of the Dietz family, a day or two after he had told the foregoing story, the New York Leslie Dietz said that a child of twelve or thereabouts who, in fact, is Helen Dietz, daughter of the outlaw, was Clara Dietz, his own daughter, although a day or two before he had said his own daughter was named Mary or Mabel. Seventhly, investigation in Washington failed to reveal any Carl Schultz, a law- yer. When interrogated further as to this, .ae New York Leslie Dietz explained that Schultz, whom he now referred to as John Schuiltz, was in reality a Wisconsin lawyer, having an office in Madison or ‘Wisconsin, but that he was frequently in ‘Washington. When reminded that previ- ously he had said the lawyer's name was Qarl, whereas now he gave it as John, he explained that the man's name was really John Carl Schultz, A dozéen more serious discrepancies of this character pointed conclusively to the fact that this man whose efforts have al- ready resulted in the commutation of the famous outlaw’s sentence, and whose con- tinued work may bring about the man's earlier release, is not Leslie Dietz at all. The fact that he actually believes him- self Leslie Dietz and that under that personality he secured a commutation of sentence for the mans he may never have seen pre- sents one of the most striking phenomena ever brought to the attention of psychologists. How they explain it is told here. Known as the (A Petition for the Parden of John E. Deitf. Outlaw of. Cameron fo;> defending his family and \property. & : % sig. 3 y L Clannntn. UWne Dam, “Leslie Dietz” Who Believes He Is the Son of the Famous Qutlaw and Whose Strange Story Is Told Here, and a Photograph of One of His Petitions. 3 ing to himself: “What would I have done it 1 had been in Dietz's place?” or he may Have sald: “What would I have Dietz?” In minds of this character, p from thinking what he would have done if he had been in Leslie Diets’s place to actually believ- ing himself in Leslie Dietz's place, is a small one. Suddenly he found himself saying, perhaps with surprise at first: “Why, I AM Leslie Dietz” The obses- sion was now complete. The actual facts of his past would begiu to fade from his life. Every day he would feel himself more and more to be Leslie Diets, and his mind would busy it- This man, whoever he is, became to all intents and purposes the son of the out- law of Cameron Dam, wandering about the country, suffering hunger, thirst and other privations in a pilgrimage to save his father. And so intense was his belief in himself that he has impressed it upon everyone he has met, and has actually through his hallucinations done the thing that the outlaw’s owp son could not do— have his father's sentence commuted from life imprisonment to a short term of years. Undoubtedly hefe we have one of the strangest phenomena of the human mind. It parallels In its workings out the Kigantic efforts of the “inspired” delu- .uhu““'hodhlu assumed other per- sonallf and changed the destinies the world scores of times. “