Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1880-03-31
lancaster fntellige1lcer.
EvE'a. MARCH 81, 1890.

EvE'0. MARCH 81, 1890.
Without Palliation.
Kemble has many sympathizers in his
trouble because he is rich and influential
and has many friends among a class of
men who obtained their money by the
same dubious methods which he prac-
ticed. To these men it is strange that
Kemble should be sent to Jail for what
seems to them so venial an offence. They
know that they would have been eager
to do the same thing he did if they had
been offered the opportunity given
him of making money by it. 1t is un-
derstood that Mr.. Kemble had contract
from the party or parties interested in
securing from the state the amount OF
the riot losses, to obtain the assent OF the
Legislature to a bill appropriating four
millions of dollars for this purpose. 1t is
also known that liberal allowance was
made, in making this estimate of the
amount Of the losses, for the cost of get
ting the bill through the Legislature and
for the emolument of Mr.. Kemble and
his associates. Not only was the state
to pay the riot losses, which she was
under no legal obligations to pay, but
she was to pay literally for their work the
robbers who took the money from her.
Fortunately the scheme was defeated.
Mr.. Kemble's project failed and the law
laid its heavy hand upon him and opened
before him the doors of the Jail. His
friends think he is hardly used. They
acknowledge that he has violated the
law, as he himself acknowledged. That
fact cannot be gainsaid. But they say in
his behalf that it is new law which has
laid him by the heels that the thing
which he sought to do has been done
often before and nobody was ever pun
ished for it. They seem to think that
this makes Mr.. Kemble's crime less
whereas, properly regarded, it only shows
more clearly it's enormity. 1t is true
that his offence against the public has
often been committed with impunity
but it was for this reason, and because
furthermore it was very grievous OF
fence, that provision was introduced
into the constitution to put an end to It,
Mr.. Kemble was in no doubt that the
people regarded the offence of brlblns
the Legislature great crime; and he was
we'll advised that they had enacted that
it should be punished. When he then
undertook by corruption to secure from
the Legislature four millions OF dollars
he was neither ignorant of it's scriminallty
nor of it's punishment, nor of the pubic
opinion of the Nervousness of the offense
He perpetrated the crime with his eyes
wide open; he is a man of intelligence
and he did it for money. What addl'
tional elements could exist making him
deserving Of punishment And how car
it tighten his offense to admit that ne Is
the first to come under the lash of the
violated law? He is the first because he
was bold, reckless and lavless; does that
commend him to mercy?
We see nothing in the situation which
renders him worthy of clemency. AS we
have said, we are not surprised that hi:
friends think otherwise, seeing wha,
manner of men they are. 1t is safe tt
say that the majority of them would b'
in the penitentiary if they had thel
deserts, and that the atmosphere of TIN
state would be vastly purer if the mel
who think Kemble the victim of ill lncl
could be eliminated from its population
Men who think so lightly of the crim'
of tleecing the public and of inviting it
sworn servants to perjury to fill thei
Golfers, area great deal worse in moral
ity than the average of penitentiary oc
cupants.