Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-03-22
THE CASE OF SERGEANT MASON.

III we may JuusS lrotA tAe couimehts VI
the press, and particularly the Western
press, there is a strong public sentiment
cordemnatory of the severe sentence passed
upon Sergeant Mason for shooting at Gui-
teau. The action of the Court-martial IS
in fact denounced by such journals as the
| Chicago Tribune as sferocious and
brutal, and as being out of all proper
ton to the Nervousness of the ofense. 1t
is no doubt extremely difficult to form
perfectly dispassionate judgment in this
case. Mason tried to kill wretch for
whose blood millions of American citizens
may be said to have thirsted. and IN regard
to whom the whole nation had conceived
the most implacable hatred and detesta
tion. Had the shot which missed Guiteau
been true to its aim it cannot be doubted
that though there would have been an os-
tensible and perfunctory censure OF the
deed, it would have been approved by the
great majority of the people. This feeling
has been still further complicated and in
tensifed by the exasperating contrast be-
tween the treatment of the assassin him
self, and that extended to Mason. While
Guiteau was permitted license which
scandalizad the whole world, and brought
our criminal administration into contempt
and disrepute; while he has been allowed
to feed his passion for notoriety in every
imaginable way, both at and since his trial :
while he has been permitted to hold levees
and receptions, and to sell his photograph
and autograph, and to fare well and live
pleasantly the soldier criminal who tried
to kill him has been used in the harshest
way from the first. Before he had been
tried he was confined in a damp and un:
healthy cell, such as no condemned muir
derer would be put in under the civil law,
and after he had been sentenced to de-
grading and most severe punishment he
was hurried off to the penitentiary with
indecorous haste, evidently for the purpose
of preventing his rescue by habeas corpus.
This contrast, however irrelevant, could
not but produce marked effect upon
public opinion, and the reflection that
after all the assassin of Garfield may es-
cape hanging has tended TO intensity the
feeling The consideration that it is nee
essary to preserve discipline in the army
by severity, does not strike the average
citizen as being at all conclusive. 1t is
found impossible to separate the facts of
the Mason case from the facts of the
Guiteau case, and the Anglo.Saxon mind,
accustomed to straightforward and incisive
reasoning, refuses to see in this argument
sufficient justification OF the apparent
circumstance that it is less dangerous to
assassinate the President of the United
States than to try to kill such an assassin.
When, too, Guiteau is heard of as COM
placently approving the sentence on Ma.
son, and taking it to himself as an evidence
of his Importance, the popular rendering
of the whole matter becomes more discor-
dant with the military view. Nor must
it be forgotten that the too frequent resort
to lynch law has had the effect of weak
ening mems respect for the slow and not
always sure processes of the law. On the |
frontier band of masked citizens will
take horse thief out of the hands of the
Sheriff. and hang him to the nearest tree.
Sometimes, as in Oregon. the other day,
an innocent man is in the same summary
way sacrificed to mistaken mob. senti-
ment. To those who have been familiar
lied with this form of action the crime OF
Mason must naturally appear venial of
tense, or no offense at ALL
It is, of course, alleged in defense of the
action of the Court-martial that it could
not take any. question of sentiment into
consideration. SO far as it was concerned
Guiteau was simply prisoner whose safe.
keeping had been extended to a military
guard, and Sergeant Mason, being men,
Der of that military guard. had attempted
to kill the prisoner he was detailed to pro-
tect. From military standpoint it should
be transparently clear that few offenses
could be more grave than this. 1t was
unquestionably an act of military treason
of the most pronounced character. 1t
would never DO to allow soldiers to decide
for themselves what orders they should
obey, or in what manner they should
discharge the duties imposed upon them
/ but when soldier undertakes to do the
very opposite of what he has been ordered
to do; when he undertakes to destroy
life which he has been set to preserve, it
is difficult to perceive how Court martial
can avoid visiting severe punishment
upon him. Under the circumstances,
therefore, the sentence of the Court mar
tial, however repugnant to popular senti-
ment, must be regarded as just. To have
acquitted the prisoner would have been
fatal to discipline. To have given him a
light punishment would have been almost
equally mischievous. The Court-martial
had plain duty before it, and in fairness
it must be credited with having discharged
that duty honorably.
But it does not follow that Mason must
undergo the sentence Army discipline
has been indicated, and now it is possible
for public opinion to make itself felt.
Above the army rises the people, and if
they hold that Mason did not in truth
commit a serious crime, they have the
right to demand that he he pardoned.
Victor Hugo, in Ninety Eight" &c.
scribes a scene in which a stern disciplin-
arian bestowed the cross of st. Louis upon
man for signal bravery, and next mo-
ment had him shot for characterization.
The American people can so far follow that
precedent as to punish Mason as
soldier, and pardon him as man. 1t is
perhaps neither sensible nor useful to pre-
| b,c,bar Jooroo of Al. -.