--Excerpt from Walt Mervin's "Certain Essays in History."
THE ENEMY OF ALL THE WORLD
It was Silas Bannerman who finally ran down that scientific wizard
and arch-enemy of mankind, Emil Gluck. Gluck's confession, before
he went to the electric chair, threw much light upon the series of
mysterious events, many apparently unrelated, that so perturbed the
world between the years 1933 and 1941. It was not until that
remarkable document was made public that the world dreamed of there
being any connection between the assassination of the King and
Queen of Portugal and the murders of the New York City police
officers. While the deeds of Emil Gluck were all that was
abominable, we cannot but feel, to a certain extent, pity for the
unfortunate, malformed, and maltreated genius. This side of his
story has never been told before, and from his confession and from
the great mass of evidence and the documents and records of the
time we are able to construct a fairly accurate portrait of him,
and to discern the factors and pressures that moulded him into the
human monster he became and that drove him onward and downward
along the fearful path he trod.
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