The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-03-17
SHAME, NOT FEAR.

This country need fear nothing from Italy
growing out of the wholesale slaughter of
King HUMBERT's subjects in New Orleans
last week. The italian press may rage and
fume, and Italian officials may threaten,
but they can DO nothing. They are abso-
lutely powerless The nation is weak in
every respect, and financially is almost
bankrupt. 1t has a magnificent navy for
which it owes, and it has a large army for
which it has absolutely no use. The idea
of making war upon the United States, the
greatest power on earth, is so ridiculous as
to be laughable. 1t is possible and is quite
probable that this country will make some
sort Of monetary PREPARATION for the miser-
able lives that were taken in New Orleans.
IF it does this it will be from a sense of
decency of justice. Up here at Rock
Springs, in Wyoming, a few years
ago, lot Of Cinnamon were killed
by mob which performed the
murderous work before the constituted
authority could assert itself for the pro-
lection of the Mongolians. The govern
ment 'paidn for their lives, not because
it feared China, nation much more for
midable than Italy, but because justice
suggested such payment. The New Or
leans case is somewhat different, but not
enough so as TO preclude similar mode of
settlement.
The danger in this latter case lies not in
anything Italy may do or attempt, but in
the effect that the incident will have on
our own people. There is real danger N
this. The law was set aside and openly
defied by the entire community The stat
utes made for the government and protec-
ton OF society were ignored by society
itself, and the men who should have laid
down their lives, if necessary, for the main
tenance and enforcement of the laws resolved
themselves into barbarians snd were guilty
OF an act OF savagery quite as brutal as
could be perpetrated in the wilds of africa
where might controls and the largest num-
Der is supreme. The effect of such pro
ceeding viii necessarily be bad. 1t will
be much easier to raise mob in New
Orleans next week than it was last The
people have lost csrtain degree of respect
for the authority Of the law. They have
undertaken 10 mete out what they called
justice, without form or ceremony, and
having done this once they can more readily
repeat the proceeding. The act has also
inspired others with contempt for the law
and its methods and forms.
We entertain no sympathy for the miser
able assassins who we're shot down and
hanged. They courted and deserved the
fate which overlook them, and nobody
whose opinion counts, can regret that
their career of crime has been cut short.
Yet, we believe it would have been far bet
ter for the people of New Orleans. and for
those Of the country at large, if the scound-
RELY Italians had been permitted to live,
our own laws, az interpreted and applied BY
our own judges and jurymen, having said
the accused had done nothing which should
legally work the forfeiture of their lives
1t doesn't matter that the judges and Jurors
were corrupted. That was altogether
another affair, and involved the court and
its triers, and not the charge of assassina-
ton as applied to the Sicilians.
This whole business is bad, and the oc-
casion should be one of national shame and
national regret.