Creighton University

On Sunday afternoon, May 22, 1910, an event occurred which was destined to make the Creighton Observatory known all over the world, in popular as well as in scientific publications. On that day at 2:50 P. M. a suitcase containing a pistol and a large number of sticks of dynamite was discovered by the police on the porch of Tom Dennison's house at 1507 Yates street, A string attached to the trigger of the pistol came out of the closed suitcase, and was fastened to a screw eye in the porch, A person, not noticing this string, in attempting to lift the suitcase, would pull the trigger and thereby fire the pistol, explode the dynamite, kill himself and wreck the building. That same day Frank Erdman was arrested and charged with the crime.

Tom Denison was the well-known leader of a political party, although he himself never ran for office. As is natural, he did things that were not right in the eyes of another party. This party then engaged Erdman to secure some evidence against Dennison, This was known quite generally, so that the two men were mortal enemies, and, as witnesses attested later, Erdman swore he would dynamite Dennison some day. Now Erdman was a desperate character, who had already spent several years of his life in penitentiaries and had just escaped from the one in Colorado and was therefore perfectly capable of carrying our his threat.

It was the belief of many people, and was so publicly expressed by the attorney for the defense in the subsequent trial, that Dennison really feared that Erdman would carry out his threat, and therefore placed the suitcase with bogus dynamite on his porch and then called the police. To increase the deception, he hired a man that resembled Erdman to wear clothes similar to those the latter was accustomed to wear, and to walk about the neighborhood with a similar suitcase.

The trial was to begin on December 6. The judge was Lee 5, [Lester?] Estelle, and the prosecuting attorney, James P. English, both belonging to the faculty of the Creighton School of Law. The attorney for the defense was John C. Yeiser, who in this trial really made a stroke of genius that any lawyer could be proud of. He found out very soon that the only real evidence against his client was the testimony of two girls, Helen and Julia Hageleit, about eleven and fourteen years old respectively, who said they had seen Erdman in the neighborhood of Dennison's house at about the given time carrying the fateful suitcase, and although they did not see his face, they could identify him by his limping walk and the clothes he wore.

If this testimony could be made worthless, Yeiser felt sure he could win his case. There seemed to be only one way of invalidating it, and that was in regard to the time the girls saw Erdman. Upon inquiry he found that they had just come from St. Paul's Lutheran Church, at 28th and Parker streets, about a mile from the Dennison home, and had attended a confirmation ceremony there which had begun at about 2 o'clock and ended about three, Further questioning of the girls and of the minister and his wife elicitated the fact that the girls had lingered about the church for a while, and that two 4x5 inch photographs of the group of seven girls and two boys had been taken, for which the minister's wife made the exposure. In securing copies of these photographs, Yeiser seemed to feel instinctively that he had in his hand the evidence he needed, if he could only make the pictures talk. After a prolonged scrutiny he noticed a rather pronounced shadow in the right upper corner of one of the photographs, He then remembered vaguely that he had read somewhere - it was my article "When was the Photograph Taken?" in the Scientific American of September 24th 1904 - that a shadow in a photograph marked the time of the taking. Quick as a flash then came the hope that the time his picture was taken would be after 2:50 P. M. when the police discovered the dynamite suitcase, Yes, but who would find the time for him? His friends directed him to see me about the matter, This was on December 2.

I entered into his ideas with enthusiasm, because I foresaw wider scientific glory that would bring to the Creighton Observatory, I went at once with him to the place of the shadow and made some preliminary measurements, Coming back to the college I consulted a shadow diagram I had drawn about six years before and published in The True Voice of November 18, 1904. I said the time was about 3:20, but to he sure I would like to remeasure my lengths more accurately. Yeiser's eyes brightened at once, and he offered to get a surveyor to help me. Although I could have done the work myself. I was glad to have the experience of a professional, who could then also, if necessary, testify to the genuineness of the measurements.

The next day the three of us went to 28th and Parker streets. The surveyor had brought along his transit, level, staff, and steel tape As it was easy to identify the object that had cast the shadow, we measured the distances the shadow had fallen down, eastward and northward.

On the following day I computed the time. I had four ways of doing this, because in the astronomical triangle made by the zenith, the pole and the sun, I knew one side from the latitude, and a second from the day of the year, and the third side and one angle by measurement. I therefore knew four out of the six parts of the triangle. And as only three are required to be known, I could treat each one of the four in turn as an unknown. This therefore gave me four ways of finding the time, The results were 3h-21m-12s, 3h-21m-31s, 3h-21m-29s 1h-21m-33s. As the extremes were only 21 seconds apart, I could safely say that the average of the four, 21 minutes. 26 seconds, or 21 1/2 minutes after 3 o'clock, was surely within one minute of the truth.

The problem was, scientifically speaking, really only an elementary one, so that any practical astronomer could have solved it. But everyone of them, and myself included, would have hesitated to testify to the results of his computations in the solemnity of a court of law, for fear, not of the mathematical calculations, but of the accuracy of the measurements of the position of a shadow, which, as everybody knows, has a very indistinct border, and this the more, the farther the object and its shadow are apart. What finally induced me to take up the case were two facts, first, I had solved a similar problem before in regard to the time a photograph of our Observatory had been taken (May 2, 1893), and secondly, in this case I had four methods of solving it and these differed less than half a minute from each other. So that, when Yeiser asked me the momentous question, "Will you swear to this in court?" "Yes," I replied. "if I can get President Magevney's approval." This was easily obtained after I had explained matters to him.

On Friday morning, December 9, 1910 1 made my first appearance in a criminal court. Yeiser had advised me to remain within hearing distance of the telephone bell in the college. He would then call me half an hour before I would be needed and thus not waste many hours in an uncongenial environment This was in the old court house. I took the oath with due solemnity, and the clock before which I took it, has hung now for many years on the west wall of what was long called the Assembly Room on the first floor of the main building of the college, but is now the reading room annex to the library. I gave my testimony which invalidated that of the Hageleit girls. These girls were probably very sincere, but had very likely seen the dummy whom Dennison was said to have engaged, and who was walking in the neighborhood and not knowing that the police had already a half an hour ago or, more found the dynamite suitcase.

The attorney for the prosecution asked me among other things whether I did not know that photographs were very deceptive that a picture of a man could be inserted into a group so skillfully that experts would testify that the man was really there, while those that were actually in the group would swear he was not there. I granted all that, I said, but "you cannot put the shadows in the right place, because every one of them must give the same time."

It was owing to my testimony especially that the jury, in handing its verdict, was split six to six. A second trial was therefore necessary. But before it could begin, I  had published two articles on the shadow.  The first appeared in the World-Herald on December 11, 1910, even while the trial was going on, under the title "Tells Exact Time by Shadow in a Photo," and the second is the Scientific American on February 4, 1911, "A Shadow in Court."

The second trial began Monday March 6, 1911. The officers were the same as at the first, except of course the jury. The same witnesses gave the same testimony, and I also was called upon to testify as before. The attorney for the prosecution, James P. English, was at that time the inmost foremost expert criminal lawyer in this state. He realized at once that his only hope of success lay in demolishing my scientific testimony. As he was on the staff of the Creighton College of Law, and had his son in my class, he had a difficult task before him. I am happy to say that he performed it in a masterly manner without the least offense. He did what was probably the only thing he could do, he belittled, and then made fun of all scientific accuracy, especially in regard to weather predictions and to Halley's comet, which had just then caused such a stir. He was full of sarcasm for his opponent Yeiser, and with his witticisms kept the jury in a continuous roar of laughter during the two hours his speech lasted. I did not hear his speech, but some of my students did and reported it to me. The result was a tribute to his skill in handling a jury, which brought in a unanimous verdict of "Guilty."

It will he of interest here to insert the fact that Tom Dennison and the chief of detectives, Stephen Maloney, come to see me several times or at the college with the intention no doubt of shaking my testimony. Once Maloney remarked with emphasis, "Now, we know Erdman did it." "I do not know whether you do or not" I replied, "and I do not care whether Erdman is guilty or not. All I am interested in is the scientific advertisement that my testimony is to Creighton University." And why not? Why should I go to a criminal court and interest myself in such a dubious character as Erdman?

At another time Maloney gave me a copy of what he said was another photograph of the group before the church. It also had a shadow in it, and he wanted to know when the picture was taken. It did not take me long, after he had gone, to realize that this photograph was a trap to ensnare me into a contradiction or into incompetency. It was the first picture of the group taken about twenty minutes before the decisive one at  The shadow in it had been partially but clumsily erased, and another drawn upon it.

Then the people in the group had the identical positions amid postures in every particular that they had in the first picture, which was manifestly a physical impossibility, Further analysis, the details of which I have forgotten, disclosed to me seven reasons why this picture was a fraud, When Maloney heard this, he had enough, and did not care to know the reasons.

The verdict of the jury entailed a sentence ten years in the penitentiary. The defense then appealed to the Supreme Court of the State. As this is not influenced by sarcasm, not by rhetoric but by arguments, and generally proceeds very slowly in its investigations, it was nearly a year, February 23, 1912, before it gave its decision, This was to the effect that the prisoner had been sentenced on insufficient evidence.  Dennison and Maloney then came to me again and said that my measurements and calculations needed verification.  "I have no objection whatever to that," I replied. "But whom shall we get? " they questioned. "Get anybody you like," I rejoined, but he must be a practical astronomer. Give him a copy of the photograph, and let him measure and compute four himself." "Mention somebody," they pleaded. "Well, go to any observatory. Swezey in Lincoln is the nearest,  perhaps he will do it."

And they went to Lincoln and got Swezey. But as his computed time differed only twenty-nine seconds from mine, they gave up and annulled the case. Erdman was then set free. But his freedom did not last long, because the sheriff from Colorado at once laid hands on him and brought him back to the penitentiary to serve out his unfinished term of two years. When these were over he was liberated. He passed through Omaha, but did not come to see me. Whatever my motives were towards him, and of these he had no direct evidence, as an actual fact I saved him from fifteen years in the penitentiary. And that was at least worth a personal word of thanks.

During the time that the Supreme Court was investigating the details of the Erdman trial, the first anniversary of the taking of the photograph, May 22, 1911, was approaching. I went to the place at 28th and Parker streets a few days before and noted the positions of the shadow at 3:21 1/2. On the anniversary itself, May 22, I could not go there because our great fire had occurred only two weeks before and the Assistant City Electrician, Percy McGough, wanted to inspect the wiring in the college on that afternoon. On the following day I saw the shadow at the given time, and then I had the supreme satisfaction to know that on the anniversary itself the position must have been so close to that it had on the photograph that my computed time could have been hardly more than fifteen seconds in error, I now had another argument in my possession, one that would convince any jury and outweigh in their minds all the mathematics in the world. And as the shadow would be in the identical spot at 3:21 1/2 on every May 22,  I could safely defy the world and challenge everybody to come and see for himself.

I did not know until more than ten years afterwards that Mahoney saw the shadow on the day of the anniversary itself and found it to be as accurately at the assigned place as anybody could desire.

On the 23rd or 24th I telephoned the good news to our three city dailies. One of them printed it at once on the 25th. English saw this and promptly called me up and said I was trying to influence public opinion in favor of my side before the Court had decided the case. Of course, I apologized for whatever indiscretion I had been guilty of, and at once begged the other two papers not to publish the item. And they courteously did not.

I felt all along that many well-intentioned and otherwise learned people, to whom astronomical and mathematical methods were unintelligible, had some doubts lingering in their minds about the possibility of my finding the time a photograph was taken from the position of a shadow in it it. While they felt convinced that I would not knowingly testify to a falsehood or to impossibility or even to a probability, still, they thought I might be mistaken. "It cannot be done," Even the five judges of the Supreme Court, whose decisions I read later on in print, did not understand my scientific testimony. Four of them made no reference whatever to it, and the fifth mentioned it only lightly and put it among the other and ordinary testimonies.

A public appeal to a fact which anybody who wished to could verify for himself, was the only practical and decisive answer to such doubts.  Accordingly, when the second anniversary, May 22, 1912, was approaching, I published in the World- Herald on the preceding Sunday, May 19 a short article which the editor entitled "Shadow Will Be There, Says Father Rigge." It reproduced the original photograph with the shadow, and concluded with these words: "Next Wednesday, May 22, will be the second anniversary of the taking of the photograph. Within one minute of 21 ½  minutes after 3 o'clock the shadow will be in exactly the same position it occupied at the time the photograph was taken. It was there last year at that time, and it will be there each anniversary as long as the church stands. Anyone interested in the matter may go to 28th and Parker streets and verify the fact for himself."

When I came to the place shortly before the appointed time, I was delighted to find that a class of students had preceded me, and especially that the Omaha Daily News had sent a reporter and a photographer to the scene. No other people were present, although I had advertised the fact with sufficient prominence and had even sent a copy of the paper to Estelle, English, Yeiser, Dennison and Maloney. At my suggestion the photographer made three exposures, the first at 3:20 1 /2, a minute before the computed time, the second at 3:21 1/2 exactly on time, and the third, at 3:22 1/2, a minute after. How accurately the middle picture gives the original position of the shadow that it has on the photograph taken years before, and how the other two show its progress during the minute before and after, can now be verified at any time by any person.

This triumph of science and this glory of Creighton University deserved and received the universal admiration and praise that has ever been poured upon it. Passing over the accounts given of it in the Daily News the day after and in the other local papers soon thereafter, and in the newspapers and popular periodicals all over the country and in many parts of the world, I will mention only the more prominent and semi-technical journals that have given space to it.

According to the sound principle which experience teaches one very soon, "If you want a printed account about yourself or your work to be correct, write it yourself," I published in the Scientific American on July 20, 1912 the article, "A Shadow in Court-the Sequel"' with the four pictures, the first taken in 1910 and the other three in 1912. This article, like those in the same journal on February 4, 1911 and September 24, 1904 were translated into French and reprinted verbatim with their illustrations in Photo-Revue and Photo-Magazine of Paris. France, under dates of March 5, 1903, March 26, 1911, and November 17, 1912.

Father Hagen, director of the Vatican Observatory, wrote an able article about the occurrence in the Stimmen aus Maria-Laach, in 1913 Part I, under the title "Ein Gerichtsurteil im Widerspruch mit der Ast ronomie," (A Court Decision in Opposition to Astronomy.) In the last paragraph he makes an apt allusion to C. G. Abbot, who in his book on "The Sun" 1911, gives the usual false account of Galileo and his condemnation, and remarks on page 1 "How fortunate we are to live in the present age." Fr. Hagen says: "I wonder if Erdman realized this good fortune, when in spite of four mathematical proofs of his innocence he was condemned to fifteen years in the penitentiary. Galileo had no proofs whatever for his opinion, least of all mathematical proofs: and in this particular the wrong decision of his judges is more intelligible than that of the twelve jurymen in Omaha."

From December 26, 1912 to January 5 the following, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as also the Astronomical and Astrophysical Society of America (which later on abridged its name to the American Astronomical Society), and many other scientific societies held meetings in Cleveland, Ohio.

In else [something wrong here!] Astronomical Society I read my first paper, which was of course on the photographic shadow, under the title "Astronomy in the Civil Courts," E. C. Pickering, the director, of the Harvard College Observatory and president of the society, introduced me and my subject with the remark that astronomy was quite commonly regarded by the public as a theoretical and impractical science, but in this instance had once more proved itself to be of great practical utility even in such an unexpected place as a criminal court. I then proceeded to explain briefly how I had been able by four different methods, to compute the time the original photograph had been taken, and then projected the four pictures on the screen. The paper was so well received that C. A. Chant, secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, engaged me to write up the subject for the journal of his society. It appeared therein in the March-April number of 1913, under the title "Saved by a Shadow." In this article I gave all the data and descended into more scientific details. Amongst others I answered the difficulty that a few astronomers had mentioned, that as the year, which is measured by the sun's motion north and south, and the day, which is measured by its westward motion, are incommensurable (that is, as there is no whole number of days and no definite fractions of a day in a year), the sun can never again simultaneously have the very same annual and daily positions, so that as a consequence it can never again occupy the same point in the sky and cast shadows in the identical spots. While I granted that in theory the objection was well taken, I proved that in practice it was of no consequence. With the probable error of one minute that I had seen, with the fact that a shadow is always bordered by a penumbra which makes it difficult to locate with precision, and lastly with the fact that the original photograph is on a scale less than one-fiftieth of the reality, I was sure that not even en expert astronomer would hesitate to pronounce the two photographs of the shadow of 1910 and 1912 as perfectly identical as would be necessary to convince any jury, and that the same identity would be shown on any anniversary whatever.

PROFESSOR PICKERING in particular was so enthusiastic about this shadow problem, that when he went to Europe in 1913 and attended astronomical meetings in Bonn from July 30 to August 5, in Hamburg from August 6 to 9, and in Birmingham on September 10, as is usual under these conditions, he and his listeners got some of the details wrong. The Observatory, an English astronomical journal, mentioned the matter at least four times.

Arthur B. Reeve in his story about "The Campaign Grafter" incorporated the shadow bodily. He did the most prudent thing that one not conversant with such computations could do, he used the identical data and did not even dare to change my feet into yards or inches. Whole expressions were copied verbatim.

The photographic shadow has always been a most alluring subject to the members of the press. Periodically when they run out of matter and something or other happens to bring me again into public notice, they insist rewrite the story of the shadow. When the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain held its sixtieth annual exhibition of photographs in London, lasting from August 23 to October 2, 1915, invitations to send in remarkable photographs were published in all scientific journals. In response I forwarded photographs of the shadow and of the Panoramic Pictures taken from the Observatory on August 22, 1913 together with explanations. Harold J. Shepstone, author and journalist, was so much interested in the shadow pictures that he wrote to me for further details and asked leave to publish the article "The Saving Shadow" which appeared in The Wide World London, in March 1916, In usual English fashion he prided himself on this as the first publication of the matter in a popular journal.

The last write-up with pictures to my knowledge that has appeared was in the University magazine "Shadows" In May 1923. I must commend the author Lawrence H. Brown, for doing what is never done by writers who "know it all," and that is submitting his manuscript to me before publishing it. The same good testimony I give freely to Gerard C. Griswold, of the World-Herald who wrote up in Golden Jubilee on July 14, 1925.

To conclude this rather long account of the shadow, it will be of interest, or perhaps rather a disappointment, to add that verification of the position of the shadow at subsequent anniversaries were rendered impossible by the tornado of Easter Sunday, March 23, 1913, which demolished the entire building. The original negative, however, is safe in the Observatory.