Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-03-16
FoREsrALLING A VERDICT


Under a republican form of govern
ment, publicity is the only guarantee
against abuses. Whenever the public at
tention has been withdrawn from any of
the institutions conducted by the State,
abuses grow up. Underlying political So
ciety there is the constant influence of the
place-hunter, the professional politician,
tie efforts and the activities of those who
make politics trade. Withdraw the pub
lie attention from the prisons and the
asylums, and machine politics gradually
acquires control, until the institutions of
the State are subservient to the purposes
of the place-hunters. There is no State
institution capable of exerting an influence
for good for evil equal to that exerted
by State penitentiary. Withdrawn from
the attention of the public, and it is at
once withdrawn from the governing infiu-
enoe of public sentiment. A Republic is
simply a government of public opinion,
and the prison management hiding in
shadows, avoiding investigation and rele
gated to obscurity by public indifference,
will generate abuses. If charges against a
prison management are proven false it is
better that the charges should have been
made than that the great corrective of
public opinion should not have been
brought to bear in the case Assembly
man Storke has, therefore, performed a
public service by challenging in most
signal, if not sensational, way public sen-
timent to the penal institutions of the
State. He deserves we'll in public
estimation for his manly courage A
just public sentiment will await
the verdict of inquiry. 1t does
not follow before hearing, that deter
mination OF fault must necessarily be the
result. Therefore, when parties accused
abuse those who have precipitated the
necessity for investigation, they do not
produce public opinion favorable to con-
illusions of innocence on their part. We
are, therefore, extremely sorry to find
Warden McComb, IN his report to the
State Board of Prison Directors which met
on the 18th instant at San Quentin, meas
urably forestalling the verdict of the in.
yestigatlon to be conducted under the aus
pices of the Governor in the following,
which is extracted from the report az
shall only briefly allude to the sensation
created in the Assembly by the reading Of
the forged and stolen letters, as the whole
matter will be thoroughly investigated by
the Governor, when the wicked and crimi-
nal conspirators will find themselves before
regularly constituted Court, and the pub
lie will have an opportunity to hear the
other side"
This Characterization of those who have
brought on the investigation of prison
matters as wicked and criminal conspira-
tors, Is in measure denial of the right
of any one to bring on an investigation
INTO an institution which is amenable to
public control Moreover the statement
that these wicked and criminal conspira-
tors viii fad themselves before a resu-
larly constituted Court, is menacing in
tone and calculated to lead The
wicked and criminal conspirators" to
the belief that they are to he before
an unfriendiy Court What is said by tie
Warden is of less consequence than the
spirit in which it is said 1t has the tone
Of prediction that in some measure the
Copr; 10 be held is to be so held for the
purpose of Furnishing those who have
sought an investigation of prison matters.
Il IS also amenable to the charge of in
dulging in confidence that the Court to
be held is friendly to the existing prison
management, and, above all, has in it
tone Of intimidation, not calculated to in
spire confidence in those who alege, as
they have right to do, if they believe the
allegations to be true, that abuses have
grown up in the administration of prison
affairs. II hearing is to be held for the
lNh ROSc VI tiic tiutu, Will
the sole object of arriving at the truth, what
ever il may be, the Wanting prediction of
triumph on the part of either party is
without warrant. We prefer to rest in the
belief that the investigation to be held is
10 be held with the sole object of
elieiting the truth. Every public in
terest demands that this should be
so; nor will any other object or
purpose be of the slightest avail. The
spirit the object and purpose of Court
are not things concealed from the observa-
ton of men. The public instinct in these
matters is completely unerring. We are,
therefore, extremely sorry that the War
den should have promulgated, in the spirit
and tone which he has seen fit to adopt,
this denunciation of those who have sought
to have the State Prisons investigated.
and this forecast of the discontinue which
inevitably awaits them