The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1894-02-09
A~POLOGIZING FOR MOBS.
They Sometimes Play a Necessary Part
Evils of an Elective Judiciary.

To the Editor of the Indianapolis Journal:
She was a philosopher, that ancient lady
was, who said: II have studied the ques-
ton In all it's bearin's for more an fifty
years, and I am inclined to believe that in
the long run murder Is a sort o. ~unjusti-
fable thing, but IL seems il has to come
once in a while or there would be no liv-
in" Just so with mobs, as a late editorial
in the Journal seems to indicate, when read
between the lines. There is no good sense
in blinking this matter; it is upon Us, and
1t is sheer cowardice not 10 look it full in
the face. Mobs are not the best possible
thing at all times, but are there not oc-
casions when there is no living without
them? For instance, who now deplores the
mob violence which leaned out the gang
of Reno desperadoes at seymour some
twenty years ago? TIL machinery OF the
law was utterly inadequate. either because
the courts were in collision with the gang
or were terrorized by il. Bad laws no less
than corrupt or constrained administra-
ton engender mobs. Thus if it be law,
as our Supreme Court affirms, that the
declaration of a dying man who had been
shot fatally ten minutes before, when alone
with his murdererS, by which he identlfled
his murdeders, is not to be received in
evidence against men of known vicious
habits, and upon whom a train or circum-
Stantlal evidence concentrates, then the law
of life. When a legislature provides that
upon the mere affidavit of a murderer his
trial may be moved TO another county,, COM
pelling the attendance of witnesses without
any compensation, If, indeed, they can be
had at all; and imposes upon the proper
county nearly if not quite double the ordi-
nary expense of such a trial, then the law
proVokes a resort TO mob violence, If it
does not make it indispensable.
After all, what was the pretended trial
Of the negro assassin at Lebanon but the
work of the mob? There are many stories
afioat about the DEGREES of that court in
the past by which men have almost, If not
entirely, escaped adequate punishment for
grave ~offenses. 1t may be no more given TO
question the opinion obtains in that county
that society has no sufficient protection
against criminals in that court. There can
be little doubt that if there had been rea-
SOnable assurance from the past history of
the court that justice would have been
meeted out there would have been no mob.
One report of the mob's doings narrated
a significant incident One can but hope
it is not true, yet it has never been con-
tradicted. 1t Is said that when the mob
was at its greatest violence a grown son
of the judge, a stalwart young man, stood
upon the steps OF the courthouse and said:
"Desist, men, desist, and I'll see that the
old man gives him justice" or Eords to
that effect, and the mob at once quieted.
II there was the least possible foundation
dicial in that court are TO he deplored.
And then what a mockery the so7called
lied by a mob. pronouncing sentence with
the, least possible form of law to appease a
mob! If the published accounts are full,
even all the forms Of law were not COM
piled with. 1t was a triumph of the mob,
at last, for there is little doubt, had the
case, come to trial in the usual way, he
would have escaped entirely. So there is
some apology for mobs, after all. But for
that moo that culprit would probably nave
been turned loose.
Like honest men. let us look this whole
question square in the face. Has not the
experiment of fifty years been enough to
condemn our present system Of creating
Louisiana, in a spasm of Democracy run
mad, led n the scheme of electing Judges
by a popular vote. Has any good come of
IT? Has 1t not been the Pandora's box out
of which have trooped endless woes? Has
not crime found a friend in the court which
Is elected by the criminal classes? Why is
the FEDERAL court more respected by the
good and dreaded by the bad than our
local courts, except that it is removed from
the control of the populace? OF course,
lawmakers who make crime easy and its
punishment difficult are not guiltless. Until
we legislate against crime and make its
detection easy and its punishment more
sure, we must expect mobs as a necessity.
INDIANAPOLIS, Feb. & L l. SELF