emptiness, comparable in degree with what seems to lie at the core of schizophrenia. He lacks, however, all the characteristics by which a diagnosis of schizophrenia is made. Not only are the gross and demonstrable symptoms, such as delusions and hallucinations, absent, but there is no oddness, no peculiar inwardness and constraint, no abstruse stiffness of manner, or any of the other subtle, sometimes inexpressible, qualities and shadings that one can feel in the case of simple schizophrenia or in those called schizoid personality. He is, on the contrary, glibly sociable, utterly at his ease. He mixes readily and tends to lead in his group. There is nothing guarded and shy on the surface of his personality and probably nowhere within the range of his consciousness.
Whether or not the formal diagnosis of psychopath is established in this case is a question I am willing to leave open. There is much in his conduct that would indicate such a disorder. It is not what he has done that points so strongly in this direction but how he feels and inwardly responds. When one deals with him directly he offers, more than the previous patients, an opportunity to sense at close range some of the attitudes one can often only surmise at a greater depth beneath the unaccountable conduct and the verbally and logically perfect front of the psychopath.
CHAPTER 11. FRANK
The following letter was received by an influential senator in Washington and referred by him to the hospital.
Dear Sir:
It is with regret that I find it necessary to seek consideration from higher authority but I have been confined in the Veterans Administration Hospital at ———, ———for two years.
During my period of incarceration here I have tried in every available way to co-operate with the officials, but it seems an impossibility to get any consideration from them towards gaining my freedom.
I was placed here on the recommendation of my sister because she thought I was a drug addict, and she has written some pretty nasty things against me to the officials here.
I can prove to the satisfaction of all concerned that I am not a confirmed drug addict or habitual user of any form of drug sufficiently to warrant continuous confinement. I am not a criminal, nor had I the slightest minor charge of any description against me at the time I came here. The Staff here has rated me less than 10 per cent disabled and discontinued all government compensation; therefore, I believe you will agree with me that any man with a less than 10 per cent disability could not possess a physical or mental disorder sufficient to prevent his having his freedom and making his own livelihood.
I am not even allowed parole privileges of the grounds as a great many of the patients here are. Some are continually violating institutional rules and still retain their parole privileges undisciplined.
I have two children, who need my support and as long as I am kept incarcerated I can’t assist them in any way for I have no means other than my labor to support them,
I hereby humbly request you to intercede in my behalf and demand these officials here to grant my release in order that I may be able to support my children to the best of my ability as is every man’s duty.
There are quite a few men in these institutions that are nothing short of impositions on the government and taxpayers of the United States. They, the same as myself, are perfectly capable mentally and physically to support themselves and should be forced to do so.
I have begged for parole, trial visit, or any other means to prove myself self-sustaining, but the authorities here seem to take my plea as a joke and make a lot of promises that they have no intention of putting into action.
I will gladly submit to any physical or mental examination you may deem necessary to assist you in obtaining my release from this place.
I pray that you will give my earnest request your immediate consideration.
Please be assured that I hold no malice toward any of the officials here or elsewhere but my only objective in writing you is to gain my freedom and support my children.
Please let me hear from you personally,
Yours very respectfully,
Frank ———.
The writer of this letter has behind him a formidable record of misadventure.
Detailed knowledge of Frank’s early life is not available beyond the following facts: The son of a rustic blacksmith, he was raised in a small hamlet near the mountains of north Georgia. No members of his family, so far as can be learned, suffered from nervous or mental disease or made themselves objectionable in the community. He completed the fifth grade in school, where he was considered by no means a dull boy, though often truant. Many of the hours when he was supposed to be in school or working at some necessary chore for his family, he is reported to have spent loitering about a local millpond drowning goats and doing other senseless or uninviting deeds of mischief.
Before the United States entered World War I Frank had forged his father’s name to a false statement about his age and enlisted in the National Guard. After his discharge from the army he was given vocational training by the government. He was tried at several courses but made no serious effort to complete any of them. In his community he soon made himself a problem, sometimes drinking to excess, often behaving in a rowdy and threatening manner, contracting to buy filling stations, farms, etc., but never living up to his agreements.
Local ex-service men, believing that he took morphine and that treatment might help his maladjustment, commonly referred to as “nervousness” had him sent to a psychiatric hospital. He remained for a month, then returned to continue in his old ways.
Now began a series of hospitalizations which extends to the present time. He would be sent first to one place, then to another. He has been treated in state hospitals, in federal hospitals, and in private institutions at the expense of the government. All told, he has been admitted no less than nineteen times to strictly mental hospitals maintained for the purpose of treating psychotic people. Sometimes he remained only three or four weeks, sometimes six months or even eighteen months. Over the years his periods of hospitalization have grown slightly longer and his intervals outside shorter. He has never, during the past fifteen years, been free longer than a few months. While not under the care of psychiatrists he has received considerable attention from the police. His jail sentences number seven at the present reading, including a term of nine months in the Leavenworth Penitentiary (where he was sent for forging a prescription for morphine) but not counting a score or more of overnight or week-end stops in police barracks.
Despite these preoccupations Frank has found time to marry and have four children and to become ordained as a minister in a small religious sect noted for vigorous evangelical fervor. His martial relations have been most unsatisfactory during the interludes when he was free to be with his family. His wife reports that he curses her and fights with her and it is well established that he seizes any money that is available, hires automobiles, and drives aimlessly about the countryside, often drinking to excess and, according to some reports, occasionally taking morphine.
At times he has seemed proud of his ecclesiastical title, referring to himself as a pastor and assuming unctuous and haughty airs. He has not, however, occupied himself with whatever ministerial duties he was supposed to fulfill any more consistently than with other work.
His friends, especially those interested in the American Legion and other service organizations, have obtained many positions for him. He is shrewd, neat in appearance, and an excellent talker. He makes a good impression at first but always shirks his responsibility to such an extent
