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Richard Cohen is a syndicated columnist for The Washington Post. (August 2003)
Goodbye, William!
The lie was that electrocution was both painless and swift. In too many cases, it was anything but. Those sentenced to execution often suffered hideously and for long periods. Nonetheless, such was the blind faith in technology that the public continued to disbelieve what many witnesses reported.
Executioner's Current: Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and the Invention of the Electric Chair
by Richard Moran
August 14, 2003 issue
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