The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1882-06-30
GUITYAU


the law ailixes to the crime whereof it adj
judged him guilty. Save two days, one
year has elapsed since murder made its
final knocking at his heart demanding the
execution of fiendish purpose long con-
ceived and firmly rooted. Its motive, as
| stated by himself, was the consolidation
and publication Of the republican party, Of
which he was member, and the inspira-
ton was Gop's visitation. What indeed
it actually was we have no means of know
ing. At any rate, ambition clothed his
thoughts, and a resoute will put the cap
on. But whether he hoped for everlasting
fame or merely temporary notoriety, he
has attained to both, such as they are,
although his days have been but few to
| bask in the sunshine or the shadow, as no
| may regard it. For him at best the
flowers swan only on the top of the bowl,
aud to-day they wither and die. The trial,
with its peculiar incidents and anomalous
scenes, is still fresh in the country's men,
DRY, yet the question of the righteousness
vi tuc VcluiCl DtCuusc VI his puS-
sible insanity, has been and
is yet matter OF conflicting opinion.
Crime often needs the physician rather'than
the prosecutor, the asylum rather than the
jail. And there are those who insist that
this execution is judicial murder and that
the act will be as foul stigma upon the gov
eminent as that which stained its record
when Mrs. Surratt fell through the halter
u victim to prejudice and passion. And
they charge that the president in refusing to
grant reprieve ora respite is dominated
by fear ,ather than influenced by the pro-
per and the just. Whether indeed the wretch
ed man.be insane. or not, all medical eY-
pert skill.eaves us in darkness.equal to
that which encysted "the spent bullet, -
because of its contradictory dicta and data.
The errors and the nescience of that science
which in its experimental explorations
tunnelci and frutlessly panied in its ter
riblc guesses the body of GARFIELD to dis
cover that bullet which il afterwards found
in a wash-bowl, is equally at a loss in its
diagnosis of tho brain Of GUITEAU. Its
metaphysical as well as its physical theo-
ries, under all this load of learned dust of
inglorious products may well feel abashed
and Inundated, whether hiding behind
that malignant malaria extenuation or
that marvellous mental mystery expla-
nation. But be all this as it may, while
the martyr has paid the forfeit of
his prominence and his murderer
pays the penalty of his crime
the world apprehends lesson. The luck
less man was possessed Of persistent, ire
pressible desire, craze, to do something
to achieve something, no matter what it
actually was of motive, provided it was
something, whether grand, grotesque or
dastardly. He did it, and in so far he was
but illustrative of thousands of others in.
spired after the same fashion, who, i'm
pressed with the belief that glory waits
attendance on the event, rush on, lurcd on
by some passion, by hate or revenge, or bit.
ter disappointment or even perhaps some
nobler thing Tho nickcl-novcl reading
boy becomes miniature BUFFALO Bill or
SAM BASS in conception, and only awaits
the opportunity for lifes brightest
illusions. The politician, in his dream,
slips by degrees from the honorable effort
to the dirty pools of bad iath fraud and
corruption, The business man doscends
from his slow work of fair marginal profits
to base adulterations and gross receptions
of every hue In order to crafty his ambi.
ton to outstrip rivalry. The same is true
OF the man in soldier clothes or in citizens
apparel who has an ambition to satisfy, a
grudge to adjust or defeat to get even on.
Whether such kind of qualification with its
attaching consequences was worth the
effort, the individual who will bangle
in the air to-day, can alone determine for
his case. And so il must be with every
other individual, man, woman or child who
iniringes the divine and the social law to
pursue his own sweet will. Every person
has his rights under those laws, and no one
has any right to infringe upon them. he
30 seek he may triumph for while, but
there will come time when the great adj.
ustiug balance must find the compensating
weights. In the insane ardor ofunroineu
ambition, the heat Of a choking vengeance
or tho sting OF bitter disappoint-
ment, one sometimes becomes reck.
less for the moment, and only when
the object of desire has been attained does
he stop TO deliberate upon the frightful
cost and to consider whether il was better
to revel second in hell or serve there In
sobs forever alter. The sword of error is
never sharpened on ons side only; 1t ever
has two edges, There is positively always
the seen and the unseen, the prairies of
promise and the desert of despair. In the
sum Of human effort the Quotient is immu.
tably dependent upon the dividend and the
divisor, the only difference being In the
length Of time II takes to work out
the result. A plunge over precipice does
not necessarily land us into q garden Of
roses. Where II will land Guir.Au to-day,
what is the quotient that he has worked
out whether he will lilo on bed Of roses
tonight, depends upon the judgment of a
Legislator pro'ounder than the cabinet, the
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