The National tribune., 1882-04-15
A Premium on Lawlessness.

Premium on Lawlessness.
The tragic death of Jesse James, the West
ern outlaw, has given rise to many differences
of opinion touching the propriety of the
means employed to rid the country of the
monster The cold-blooded, cowardly way
! in which he was shot down is naturally re-
voting to the public sense ofjustfte and fair
! play, and even the knowledge thHt the vic
| tim well deserved the fate that overlook him
| is not calculated to reconcile one to the muir
| derous character of the act. We know, to be
sure, that the outlaw himself would not have
felt any qualms of conscience about killing
his companions had he suspected their pur-
pose, but nevertheless one cannot help feeling
that the law is freshly outraged rather than
vindicated by such a procedure. Had
James been slain in an encounter with
sheriff's posse the public would have re-
ceived the news with unqualified satisfaction,
but there is something humiliating in the
! idea that Justice should be dependent upon
a hired assassin for the execution of her
decrees The manner of this desperado's
death is suggestive of personal vengeance
rather than the stern impersonal punishment
of the law, and the very sympathy which it
evokes for the dead outlaw is evidence of its
unwisdom. 1t bodies no good for the future,
and we should not be surprised at any time
to hear of an attempt at vengeance on the
part of the survivors Of the robber band. 1t
is Just such occurrences as this that have
weakened popular respect for the law in the
West and South, and invested the atrocities
of border rufians with just enough of TO-
| depraved and ignorant.
1t is not alone in dime novels that false
idea of honor and courage is taught. The
stress which is laid upon the kindness and
affection which Jesse James lavished upon
his family, as an Offset to the cruelty and
heartles.ness which he displayed in his rob
berries, is calculated to destroy the moral
sense Of the community and foster danger
Gus tolerance of crime. One cannot help
asking what sort of a wife she must be who
would consent to wear the jewels that she
knew her husband had obtained by the
murder of innocent people, and what manner
ofmother she. must be who would glory in
the bloodthirstiness of her son! 1t is i'm
possible for any well-balanccd mind not to
regard such an assumption of domestic virtue
with feelings other than those of intense
lo1thing and disgust. We can understand
how a man, whose hand had been stepped in
blood from his very boyhood, should become
utterly insensiblc 10 the value Of human
life, but it is horrible to find that indi1or
ence shared by women.
The manner of the outlaws death is
greatly to be regretted, as we have said, but
simply because it tends to create feeling of
sympathy for him which he in no respect
deserved. The Governor of Missouri seems
10 have thought any means iustifable that
promised to rid the State of such monster,
but he committed grievous error when he
delegated the duty of enforcing the law to
a brace Of cut-throats. BY that act he not
only published to the world the inability of
the duly-constituted authorities to cope with
the outlaw, but degraded Justice to the
level of the hired assassin. Instead of
making crime odious and the law respected,
he has excited feeling of Indulgence for the
one, and contempt for the other For the
moment, perhaps, the killing of Jesse James
may prove blessing to the country, but it
must be confessed that the manner of his
death is calculated to encourage rather than
suppress lawle~nes5 hereafter.