Murphy quotes from His Girl Friday (1940)

A new lead on the hanging - This alienist from New York, Dr. Max J. Egelhoffer, Egelhoffer, yeah, he's gonna interview with him in about half an hour in the Sheriff's office...Here's the situation on the eve of the hanging...A double guard is being thrown around the jail, the Municipal Buildings, railroad terminals, and elevated stations to prepare for the expected general uprising of radicals at the hour of execution.

Murphy

The Sheriff has just put two hundred more relatives on the payroll to protect the city from the Red Army which is leaving Moscow in a couple of minutes.

Hildy

I have to do a yarn on Williams. Did he know what he was doing when he fired that gun?

Murphy

If you ask us, 'No.' If you ask the state alienist, the answer is 'Yes.'

Hildy

Who is he? What's he do?

Jake McCue

He was a bookkeeper. He starts out at twenty dollars a week and after fourteen years, he gradually works himself up to seventeen fifty...Plus the company goes out of business and Williams loses his job...

So he starts hangin' around the park, listenin' to a lot of soapbox spellbinders makin' phony speeches and begins to believe 'em.

Endicott

And makes some of his own.

Murphy

Why can't you hang this guy at five o'clock instead of seven?

Bensinger

Sure, it won't hurt you, and we'd make the city edition.

Oh well now, that's, that's kind of raw, Roy. After all, I can't hang a man in his sleep just to please the newspaper.

Newsman

No, but you can reprieve him twice so the hanging's three days before election, can't ya?

Endicott

You can run on a law and order ticket. You can do that all right.

Honest boys, I had absolutely nothing to do with those reprieves. He's just as sane as I am.