Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-01-09
C4PITAL PUNISHMENT.

CAPIT-4L PUNISHMENT.
There is urgent need that, after the Re-
publioans of the present state legislature
shall have selected man to succeed Mr..
Window in the United States senate, at
tention be directed to amendments to our
criminal code. Events are of almost every
day occurrence that not only jeopardize
the peace of communities, but endanger
the lives of peaceable citizens.
As is we'll known, the laws of Minnesota
provide no adequate punishment for the
crime of murder. The death penalty can
only be inflicted in the event of conviction
Of murder in the first degree; it cannot be
imposed if the criminal pleads guilty
to the most atrocioas murders ever
committed or imagined. A man
may deliberately cut the
throats Of a score of men, women and
children, walk into court and acknowledge
his guilt, and the judge is powsrless to
give him heavier sentence than life i'm
prisonment in the penitentiary. Few ever
serve out their terms. There are always
to be found scores of so-called humanit-
ar1ans who busy themselves in circulating
petitions for the pardon of the vilest
malefactors. The more revolving their Of
Tense the more sympathy do they enlist
on their behalf. Governors are beset with
applications for pardons signed by judges,
juries, prosecuting attorneys and citizens
generally, and every influence that can be
brought to bear upon them is employed
to obtain favorable consideration of the
applications. 1t is to the credit of our
governors of late years that they have
turned deaf ear to such applications,
yet we have no guarantee that a governor
will not be elected who will open the doors
of our prisons and turn the miscreants who
now occupy them loose to prey upon society.
Imprisonment for life is not an ade-
quate punishment for certain classes of
crimes. In the penitentiary prisoners are
generally fed and clothed better than they
are outside its walls, and have as little
work and better care than the majority of
honest mechanics. They have no anxiety
to prey upon their minds as to how they
shall obtain food and clothing for their
families or themselves, nor do they need
to care whether it rains or shines. If they
are sick the best of physicians attend
them; If they are hungry, plenty of good
wholesome food is at their command
if they have friends to visit them they are
allowed to receive them one day of each
week. Does any one suppose the Younger
brothers are being punished for their
crimes at Saltwater? They are as sleek,
in the land, and have the choicest of work
only to perform. On each reception day
they are the center of a large crowd of
visitors who throng the shops we're they
are at work. Delicately reared ladies
grasp them warmly by the hands those
hands red with the blood of their innocent
victims-and engage in conversation with
them as long as possible. They are social
lions at the prison rather than wild
beasts, whose lives should have paid the
forfeit of their crimes. AID so it is with
all criminals of the most depraved charac
ter. The extra care taken to prevent
their escape mitigates the rigors of their
condition, and many working man has
good reason to envy them the ease and
freedom from care which they enjoy.
The danger of mob law, so long as our
courts are powerless to infiict the death
penalty, menaces the peace of every COM
mnnity whore an atrocious crime may be
committed. 1t is not to be expected that
q community will manifest that respect
for law which is presumed in the presence
of an atrocious murder or a beastly rape
when the perpetrator is in their presence
with every evidence of his guilt at hand.
The history of our state, of late years, fur
nishes moro than one striking example of
the restivoness of the people under laws
which protect instead of punish murderers,
and there is every reason to expect that re-
sorts to lynch law will continue, if they do
not increase, as long as our laws remain as
they are. The opponents of capital pun
ishmeRt insult the intelligence of every
reasonable human being by their argu-
ments in favor of tenderness towards the
human wolves who infsst the community.
The legislature will not have performed
its duty to the people until it shall have
passed law which shall meet out death to
all who shall have been guilty of deliber-
ate murder or the rape of child, and shall
have taken from the governor and all othsr
officials the power to pardon or commute
tho sentence of such miscreants.
Oh5tuorr