Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-02-03
DIsFRANCHIsEMENT FOR CRIME.

The news columns of the daily papers
are burdened with recitals of crimes GOV.
ering almost the entire calendar every
day. And Notwithstanding the seem
ingly determined efforts of the police de.
partments of the government, state and
municipal, to arrest the flood tide OF
| crimes it is constantly on the increase,
Nor is the condition confined to any To-
cality or section of the country or class
of people; it is well nigh universal, and
this fact invests the subject with increas-
ed concern to the community at large
to the whole people.
A few days ago we asked the question,
''what is the natter" No answer has
been vouchsafed, nor are we prepared to
give one, unless it be in the moral sphere
what disease often is to the physical, i. e..
endemical. Whatever the cause, the
question of remedy is one of the first
importance.
1t would seem that we have laws
enough, and that they are rigid
enough, yet the desired end is not
accomplished. DR.. GLADDEN. takes
up the subject and discusses it in the
Century Magazine for February, and
suggests as a remedy for the evils, in
part at least, the Acknowledgement of the
criminal upon conviction. For the Of
lenses to which this penalty would be
applicable we have no doubt it would
have salutary effect, and if SO, upon the
endemic theory it could not fail to exert
a restraining influence upon other classes
of crimes. We quote in part what DR..
GLADDEN. says upon the subject:
"The complete disfranchisement of
men who have been guilty of the lesser
offenses would not be just or expedient.
Such men ought to have space for re-
formation. The first term of their dis
reimbursement might well be brief. Con-
viction for drunkenness or disorderly
conduct might exclude from the polls
for one year. More serious misdemean-
ors might entail longer disfranchise-
ment And it would be well to give
large discretion to the authorities who
grant pardons, and who regulate indie
terminate sentences, that they may re-
store the suffrage more speedily
to those whose conduct in prison
has been exceptionally good. But
we should make sure that every convic-
ton under the criminal law work some
temporary forfeiture of political privil-
ege. We should make it plain to the
dullest mind that good conduct is the in
condition of the possession
of the franchise; that those who wish TO
take part in making the laws must re-
frain from violating the laws.
Some offenses should be followed, as
now, by perpetual Acknowledgement
That all '.felonies' should incur this
penalty is not at all clear, many of those
committed to our prisons for crimes OF
passion may, under proper care, be re-
formed and rendered useful members of
the state. That door should by no
means be forever closed against them,
nor should the opening Of it be left to
executive clemency. The felon's record,
in prison, should determine whether he
may, after a space, be restored to full
political privileges. But there is one
class Of crimes for which the laws of
many of our states do not entail any
political disabilities, which ought to be
punished everywhereIby the final forfeit
ure of political power. These are crimes
against the suffrage itself-bribery, both
in the briber and the bribed, fraudulent
voting, the classifying of returns and the |
like. No man convicted of one of these |
crimes ought ever to be permitted to vote
again. Some of the states, with a moral |
on this point which. is posi- |
lively grotesque. provide that man
caught in attempting crime of this ma
ture shall lose his vote lin that election |
What a sense of the sacredness of the |
suffrage the men must have who could |
frame into statute such grinning jibe |
as that. The man who strikes with a |
poisoned dagger at the very heart of the |
shall not be allowed to vote |
''in that electionr' Could the force of /
Of priori theory-go |
farther? Such an offender deserves to /
be banished and forbidden ever again to |
set foot upon our soil under penalty of |
death; certainly the lightest punishment |
that can with justice be melted out to
him is perpetual exclusion from the
franchise.
Wen Now. Really.