Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-04-16
TEE ROOT OF THE CIECINNArr RIOT

The New York Post finds this much Of
good in the Cincinnati riot: that Il has
stimulated the work of reforming the Grim
mai procedure, and already the twenty
three peremptory challenges allowed the
prisoner have been cut down to six. 1t
hopes that the possibility of technical OBJ
lection will also be narrowed. To the San
Francisco Ners Letter it emphasizes the de-
fects Of the jury system. 1t says the or
binary jury Of the day seems to think its
function Is to strain its conscience for the
purpose OF acquitting. The less respecta-
Die and intelligent elements are not sufii-
ciently represented in the jury box, and
for this these clements are responsible.
To TIE Hour the riot breaches of the
vicious clement in politics projecting itself
into Courts, protecting criminals useful to
the political machine Official corruption
. has been for years sapping the foundations
Of society in Cincinnati, and precisely the
same process is going on in New York,
Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, St Louis
and San Francisco The remedy, it finds,
is in awakening the better class to the ne
oessity of taking an interest in the admin
istration of public affairs
The Chicago Current believes the mob
vas the product of the lawlessness of the
law itself, and that the remedy Is in the
organization of citizens who have anything
at stake, against crime bribable .iuries and
The combinations of certain brood of
ia8yers, whose lives are spent in quibbling
Tor delay, and carrying murdOrers over
from term 10 term until they escape, only
80 repeat their bloody crimes
The New York Times believes that the
riot was due to the poisoning of justice at
It's source; that the peace of society was
betrayed because the jury was corrupted
chat the present jury system is vicious
that the safeguards for innocence have
Been made aids to crime; that the demand
IS made upon the legal profession to render
1t less easy for the guilty to escape, and at
the same time TO render the innocent no
more liable to conviction.
The Chicago Times declares that it was
2 sudden riot, without much prcmonitory
muttcring, and was not mob of toughs
and roughs. To it ii appears that all over
The country public sentiment favors the
mob. 1t adds; :" 1t was an explosion of a
force long gathering, and under the fact of
an inefficient, feeble, uncertain and proba-
bly, corrupt and vicious administration of
Justice" 1t proceeds with the thought
chat the majesty of the law must not be- !
come the majesty Of injustice; the majesty
Of imbecile or corrupt juries; Of vicious
Practice Act; Of lawyers that disgrace an
honorable profession the majesty of judi
cial demagogism; or the majesty of a Grim
inal iudicature that is mockery of all |
that the word justice implies.
The New York Herald attributes the
mob to fragrant miscarriage of justice,
both the cause and effect of which are |
growing common throughout the country
10 an extent that may well cause alarm
and arrest attention. The escape of muir
derers Is the rule and conviction the cx-
ception. Ont of every fourteen murderers
statistics show that but one suffers on the
gallows. OF all the abuse, of our Grim
Inal administration, the most common and /
fragrant are manifest in the jury system. |
At every stage of criminal trials the pris-
oners have advantages from which the
State is shut of.
We have cited these expressions a. fair
Is representative of the voice of the |
whole country. 1t is a noteworthy fact |
that in no leading journal or by other
avenues of public expression has there vet
been made unqualified demonstration and
of the Cincinnati mob.
Every criticism has satisfied conscience by
declaring that lawleSsneSS and mob violence
cannot be tolerated or condoned, but has
been supplemented by expressions that
amount 10 conformation. That is to say,
excuses have been found for the mob in the
search for It's genesis, as the representative
excerpts we have made fully illustrate
We must assume, therefore, that the mob
mas the quasi approval of the country
certainly it has it's forgiveness.
The chief causes probably have been
stated in our quotations; but back of all
these, and underlying all, Is one other cause,
The most serious cause.-the neglect of his
Iuty to the State by the average citizen