The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-06-27
THE PASSION FOR PARDONING CON-
VICTS.


nal, burglar. embezzler, thief, murderous
ruffian, highwayman, or pickpocket, be-
cause his sympathies were reused by the
extraordinary devotion of the convict's
wife, daughter, mother or sister, he con-
fesses that he has construed his preroga-
tive of pardon in the mitigation of private
sorrow rather than in the vindication Of
public justice, and the utter wrong of
such clemency as a matter of pernicious
public policy is clear when we remember
that there is not prison in the land that
is not full of convicts who have wives and
sisters and old fathers and mothers whose
bruised hearts are bleeding because their
loved ones have lost their liberty by crimes
against the life or property of society.
The only difference between the woman
who pleads eloquently and successfully
for the pardon of her guilty convict and
other sorrowful women, whose hearts beat
vainly against the outside walls of the
penitentiary, which is the coffin Of the
civil corpse of their loved one, is that they
are not as intelligent, as gifted, as in fluen-
tial, as charming and magnetic pleaders
Aoi pdAuOl do Iho WOI1du WIZ pcISQducS
an executive like Governor Pennoyer, of
Oregon, to set her particular prisoner free.
The signatures for the pardon of con-
Wet do not deserve any consideration, I'M
less they are given on the plea that some
wrong in law or public equity was wrought
by the prisoners conviction and contine-
ment, for without such plea they are
simply an expression of deep private SYM
pathy for a woman who suffers because her
husband or father or brother or lover
is expiating a great public wrong.
OF course she suffers, and no man today
eats the bitter bread of a convict who has
not without prison walls somebody whose
loving hands are vainIy clawing away at
the door of his cell and the bars of his
grated window. but their appeal cannot
be granted, although nobody doubts their
keen suffering. If the appeals of per-
sonal sympathy for women distressed by
the imprisonment of criminals were
needed there would be a general Jail de-
livery throughout the land. Benedict Ar
mold loved Margaret Shipper. his beauti-
full, accomplished, hgh-souled wife, but
had he been taken in his treason he would
have been promptly hung, and his wife's
appeals to Washington for clemency would
have been as vain as the appeal of the
friends of jor Andre for mercy. Andre
had a noble mother, sweet sister and
beautiful betrothed in England. but while
Washington was most humane man, he
would not interfere with the judgment Of
a court So with a soldier who deserts in
time of war; he is shot without regard to
the fearful appeals of his family for par
| don, because to spare the deserter would
| be to disband the army.
The appeal for clemency must begin and
| end before the court, save where by some
error in law or equity the court and jury
have wrought injustice. and on no other
! principle can the machinery of criminal
| justice be BEAUTIFULLY administered and
| executed. A convict is civic corpse for
the time being, and the state has no more
! concern with the tears and sorrow and
! suffering of his wife and family than the
| general of an army has with the tears and
! sorrow and shame of the mans family
| when he shoots deserter. On any other
| principle the safety of life and property in
! the state would suffer, the morale OF an
/ army would be DESTROYED.
| One of the admirable qualities of Presi-
/ dent Harrison is his firmness, tempered by
! discretion in the matter of the exercise of
| the pardoning power. When young Emo,
/ son of Amos L. Emo, very wealthy clti-
/ zen of New York city, embezzled a very
| large sum of money a few years ago and
escaped 10 Canada, he was indicted in the
! United States courts for his crime of rob-
! hing several national banks he dealt with.
/ Emo went 10 Quebec and used his stolen
money in q vulgar display of ill-gotten
| wealth. His honorable old father paid
/ ont some 100000 to make good to the
| banks what the son had stolen. After q
| time the son grew tired of his
exile in Quebec and he en-
! tered into correspondence with his
| friends 10 see whether he could not OBJ
tain pardon. President Harrison
! promptly said that no application for
| pardon would he considered from
| fugitive from Justice; tina, if Emo returned
| he would be tried under the indictments
in the United States court. The pressure
brought to bear upon President Harrison
was very strong; the signature. TO the
+ application for pardon included the late
General w. r. Sherman and a number of
/ other very eminent men both in the world
! 81 politics and business. but the president
was firm: he refused to consider any an.
plication for pardon TO Emo; the fugitive
rotber must come back. stand his trial and
accept what the courts gave just like any
other fugitive from criminal justice.
When the governor of Oregon pardoned
the enhezzler Dixon few years ago there
was protest fled against hi. pardon bv
the American Surety Company Of New
York. no had made good the amoun,
embe1zIed by Dixon, being on his bond
- the railroad company. This was the
only doe Imept in the case that deserved
consideration, and yet lis appeal for the
yindlcation OF public justice by : refusa,