Northern Ohio journal. [volume] (Painesville, Ohio) 1872-1896, 1880-05-22
Justice Cheated, Spurned and InsuIted.

It seems impossible forP Pennsylvania,
under its present political management,
to even SO much as assume political
virtue very long at a time. Recently
the country, as well as the five culprits
themselves, was very much surprised at
the sentence pronounced by Judge
Pearson against w. II. Kemble, Charles
B. Salter, Emil j. Petroff, Jesse r.
Crawford and w. F. Rumberger, ar
raigned and convicted upon charge of
bribery, a crime too common and too
open in Pennsylvania politics. But the
general astonishment felt was tempered
with the liveliest pleasure and approval.
There was a promise in this rigorous
decision of an upright magistrate that
the demands of Justice would be salts
fed and that the solid front of corrup-
ton would be broken. Fines and impris-
Eand a heaithful allowance of hard labor
for the benefit of the State against
whose interests the public careers of
tthese men had been uninterruptedly
hostile. was the prescription made out
I for this spreading moral disease. The
prisoners opened their eyes very wide
at that. Why, everybody did just what
they had been doing. All their party
associates were in the habit of spending
money to accomplish their ends. That
was the easiest and perhaps the cheap
est method of dealing with legislators
and subordinate politicians. In other
words, about their only defense was,
| that their moral sense had been so
deadened by habitual crime that they
could not see any justice in holding
them accountable for their misdeeds
The plea was not made in that form,
but that was its significance.
The tender-hearted Board of Pardons,
in less than a week after the sentence
was passed, appeared to regard this
question from the standpoint of the
/ prisoners rather than from that of the
Judge. It could have waited for de-
cision by the Supreme Court; but that
| might not. have been attainable before
the gentlemanly bribers had blistered
their palms at stone breaking or shoe
making, and so the Judgment was inn
mediately passed upon Judge Pearson S
sentence, that it was extra -Constitu-
tional and all that. As a consequence,
these convicted criminals walk the
earth free men once more, with only
their fines and political disabilities
standing against them. The State will
be made to pay the former, sooner OF
later, in one way or another, and the
latter will be removed as soon as an
other Republican Legislature comes to-
gether. Thus, instead of Furnishing the
men convicted of the heinous crime of
bribery, the Judge who gave it its due
weight in the catalogue of public evils
has been promptly and, by implication,
peremptorily rebuked for daring to obey
the laws rather than observe the lax and
fatally demoralizing custom SO long in
vogue, and still to be observed, accord
ing to the ruling of the Board of Par
| dons. Justice has been cheated in he1
own name, and she will be spurned and
insulted as long as a soulless and con
scienceless Republican ring rules Penn.
sylvania, and needs the services of bold
and unscrupulous men to keep its mem
bers in power The conviction and
sentence of these men was a surprise
Their pardon was expected and pre-
! lictod. Boston Post