The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-04-01
PRESS AND OTHER COMMENT.
A General Feeling that Law Must BE More
Rigidly Enforced.

STRICT JUSTICE MUST BE RE ESTABLISHED.
Louisville Courier-Journal
The warning must be needed everywhere
Justice strict, impartial, swift and sure, speed
ing inevitably to the mark, must be reestab-
lished. The shdms and teehnicalitles of law, the
false hair-splitting of the judges, the decisions
which one by one have hedged about murderers
until they have become privileged class must
be swept away. Society must protect life and
property or it will disintegrate A man must
feel that the law is potent and that he is under
no necessity to take it into his own hands and
arm himself for his own protection Murder is
a crime, grave, objectionable. Nature will have
blood for blood. Let us have done with false
sentiment, with sham morality. and that pre-
tense of humanitarianisln which pleads always
for the unfortunate murderer, forgetful of his
victim. 1t is this rosewater sentimentality
which has weakened the men intrusted with the
execution of law. 1t has palsied the arm of jus
tice and made mockery Of religion itself. We
want now sternness and not sympathy. 1t is
time for the reign of the genial gentleman to
close.
Yet back of this must go on greater ref
ormation. a more widespread awakening. All
the moral forces of society must be brought into
action. Crime of every kind must each in its
way carry with il its own punishment Faith
in the integrity of the people. in the execution Of
law in the omnipotence of Justice, cannot be eS-
tablished by change of parties, BY change of
law, by newspaper clamor, if the best citizens, "
as they are called become co partners with the
worst 10y neglecting their political duties. A
man too sensitive, too highly cultured. too de-
voted to his business, too much occupied with
church affairs, to perform ordinary duties of Cit
izenship to attend the primaries and serve on
the jury is too much mpregnated with selfish
ness, sweetness and light to live comfortably in
an American city; he is bad citizen, bad be
cause of his own neglect, bad because Of the
evil force of his own example, and he should
emigrate.
TWO PHASES OF THE SAME FEELING.
Philadelphia Chronicle telegraph.
The peculiar mental condition which induces a
considerable number of the citizens of any com
munity to organize themselves into mob for
the purpose of executing summary vengeance on
such a criminal as Berner, is only another form
of the same kind of sentimentality that GRIMM
ais of the Berner class rely upon to enable them
to escape the proper consequences Of
their crimes, and that criminal lawyers
rely upon in the extraordinary efforts
they make after trial 10 nullify such
verdcts as may be found against their clients
Law is nothing more nor less than expires
sion of the better sense of a community with
regard to what regulations arc needed for its
well-being; and unless the better sense of Il
community has sufficient moral stamina to it
to demand that the laws which are made for
the protection Of life and property shall be en-,
forced impartially, inhexibly and inevitably
then there is very little use in having codes Of
law and all the paraphernalia of jurisprudence
In how many American communities, however
are the laws, which it is presnmable that the
best intelligence and the highest virtue of the