The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-07-18
TWELVE PAGES.
The Sunday Journal has the largest and
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THE CRIMES OF BANK DEFAULTERs.

the individual offender may De punlsneu, anu,
second, that warning may be thus served
upon possible malefactors. In practice the
latter thought often weighs the heavier in de-
termining the measure of chastisement that
shall be imposed upon the guilty. It happens
In many case that judge and jury are in
clined to clemency, and were the criminal be-
fore them alone to be considered, his punish
ishment would be light; when it is considered,
however, that something is due to society, and
that the effect of too great lenience would be
to encourage others of Unbalanced morals to
follow in his footsteps, a penalty is inflicted
that shall deter him from so doing. The cul-
prit, then, serves his sentence reallyas warn
ing to the community, rather than as pen
ance for himself. When man is hanged for
murder it is not supposed thatsociety is benefit
I'd so much by his removal itself as by
khe lesson that his fate is one that all muir
derers must risk. Certainly he is not hanged
upon the theory that he thus atones for, or is
adequately punished fer, his crime. Ii mere
punishment of murderers, thieves, and other
transgressors of divine and human laws, was
alone to be thought of by magistrates, the
criminal code might well be revised, and the
next world when the mill, which grinds
slowly but with exactness, reaches them in
its own good time. When President Cleve-
land pardoned the Buffalo bank president he
did SO, apparently, without taking into con-
sideration that the unfortunate and dishonest
official was spending a series of years in the
p0nitentiary quite as much for society's good
as his own. The President is convinced that
whatever good has been wrought upon him
has already been accomplished, and probably
the President is correct Indeed, it is
more than likely that the defaulter
in question was ''penitent" before his convic-
tiOn, and would never have embezzled anoth-
or dollar had he been allowed to go scot free
from the day of his trial. AS to the theory
that he has been sufficiently punished for the
wrongs inflicted upon his victims, the depos-
itors of the bank, Mr.. Cleveland, being ''thor-
uughly acquainted with the circumstances" is
perhaps competent to say; but it will be the
testimony Of those who have suffered from
fascality similar to that of the Buffalo man
that life term of imprisonment would be in
adequate. AS pointed illustration of this
belief come, right on the heels of the Presi-
Dental pardon, accounts Of the flight Of an
egnbezzling cashier from a st. Louis savings
bank, and of tie president of Nebraska
bank, each carrying the bulk Of the funds of
his respective institution and leaving innocent
people to mourn. AS in all such cases the
chief sufferers are depositors whose small
savings are the result of years of toll,
and the loss of which means, perhaps, the
further loss of homes, and certainly misery
and distress. There are, in fact, few crimes
on the calendar that cause such widespread
disaster and affect so many persons as bank
defalcations.
The many loop-holes through which the
robbers may escape trial, the technicalities
which hedge them round when in court, are
difficult to overcome and it is the exception
when one is brought to justice. Instead of
comforting a pardon upon one of the number,
President Cleveland should have served the
interests of the community by refusin. to
interfere An Endorsement to the effect that
bank officers, however agreeable and accom-
plshed they might be personally, were
needed in the penitentiaries as examples to
their kind would have been far more pro-
ductive of good than his flabbily
due to the defendants noble and self-sacrifc-
ing wife. 1t is always the case that the
wives and families of criminals are the chief
sufferers for their crimes. Thousands of mo-
BILE and self-sacrifcing women exist whose
husbands are in durance vile. These have tho
sympathy of the public, but it would hardly
do to make their misfortunes the argument
for turning loose the men who have caused
them to suffer. If the President really de-
eires to be a reformer in all that the name
implies, he viii set free no more bank presi
dents or cashiers, but rather do what he can
to bring more delinquents of the class to
justice.
THE PENALTY SHOULD BE DEATH.