Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1882-01-05
Presidential Protection.

There has always been prejudice in
the popular mind of this country
against investing high officials with
any special privileges or distinctions.
We like to think of our rulers as SIM
ply our servants; and the common
tendency is rather to depreciate than
to exalt them. Above all things are
we jealous of changes or encroach-
ments that SAVIOR of aristOcracy in gov
ernment, though In social way we are
probably the readiest people on earth
to worship rank and play the toady to
titled foreigners. 1t seems to be our
notion that there is always danger of
some ruthless Cesar trampling our lib
critics under foot, and that the best
way to ensure safety is to quickly re-
sent any idea of granting to an officer,
because he is an officer, the least i'm
munity or the slightest suggestion of
personal supremacy that is not enjoyed
by the humblest citizen.
This tendency, particularly as re-
CARDS presidents, found its first strik-
ing mapifestatiOn-if, indeed, it did
not there originate as a national char
notwithstanding the administration
of the elder Adams, when the alien
and sedition laws stirred up such a
commotion. One of the principal feat
ures of those laws, it will be recol-
lected, and the one which caused a
large share of the popular anger and
alarm of the period, was provision
making it an Offense to traduce the
chief magistrate. There was touch
of wisdom and prOpriety, it must be
confessed in this idea of exacting hon.
or and respect for the president, but
the law was so severe and so remind
full of royalty, and so many editors
were fined and imprisoned, that the
people compelled the obnoxious meas
ure to be repealed, in the interest of
"free discussion" and the right of the
citizen to ''speak his mind" on public
matters.
Since then, no attempt has been
made to protect the head of the gov
ernment in any special way, either
against violence or calumny, and we
have been gradually drifting into the
condition which regards a president as
fair game for all sorts of criticism,
however malicious or malevolent, and
puts out of sight the fact that his life
is of any more value than that of the
man who grooms his horses or blacks
his boots. The fruits of this order of
thinking have been the murder of two
of our best presidents and attempts
upon the lives of two others, to say
nothing of the wholesale abuse which
has been heaped upon every occupant
of the white house since the time of
Jackson. And now we are beginning
to think that something ought to be
done to check the peril of assassina-
tion, and insure a president some rea-
sOnable security of life. 1t is becom-
ing apparent, at last, that men like
Lincoln and Garfield are too scarce,
and of too much national value to be
exposed to destruction at the hand of
any crank who comes along, seeking
notOriety or contemplating revenge for
some imaginary slight.
The presSntlaw 81 tic subject does
not afford the protection needed. That
much must be conceded. The public
will therefore regard the bill intro
duced in the house on the 10Th inst,
by Mr.. Hawk, of Illinois, with much
interest and anxiety. 1t provides
first that any assault upon the presi-
dent with deadly weapon, or any in
fiction of wound upon his body shall
be deemed high treason against the
United States, and shall be punishable
with death. The second section pro-
vides that any attack made upon the
president with intention of committing
an injury shall be a misdemeanor. The
punishment for this has not been
specified in the bill, but it should be
Imprisonment for life, if not death, for
the punishment in such crimes will be
inadequate if not made of the greatest
severity. Itshould also be an ignomin-
Gus punishment; and we are inclined
to think the British law in this respect
might be prOfitably copied. They have
an act of parliament in that country,
passed at the instance of Palmerston
fifteen years ago, which provides for
flogging as part of the punishment
for attempts on the Queens life; and
the result has been that since then no
such attempts have been made though
previous to that time there had been
several.
Mr.. Hawks bill is certainly a step
in the right direction, though by ne
means complete or sufficient. 1t
should be amended in such way as not
only to make punishment in these cases
certain and stringent, but humiliating
and disgraceful, as well. That would
take the romance and glamour away
from crimes of this character, and thus
check the morbid viciousness of the
Booths and Guiteaus as nothing else
could. If the wretch who is now on
trlal had known that in shooting the
president he was taking the risk of a
monthly tlOgging in addition to the
chance of being hung afterwards, he
would hardly have heard the divine
call to remove" the great man for
whom the country is yet in mourning /;
and surely if we had such law, and
applied it to him, few of his kind
would care to initiate his dastardly Of
fense. 1t is to be hoped that the pres
ent congress will give this matter
serious consideration, and provide a
law that will cover the whole ground.
We owe that much not to our presi-
dents merely, but to ourselves.
Guiteau and His Divorced Wife.