The Monitor-register., 1896-04-17
EX-MINISTER WHITE ON MUIR
DER,

The Hon. Andrew ID. White, ex- Minister
to Russia, delivered an interesting adj
dress on Thursday evening of last week
before the Unitarian Club of Boston on
1.-THE Problem of High Crime in the
United States" AS this is a subject OF
which Mr.. White has made a special
study and with the facts and statistics OF
which he is unusually familiar, his utter
ances will attract general attention. In
treating the subject he dealt mainly with
the startling increase in the number OF
murders, the safety with which the crime
can be committed, the rarity with which
it is punished, the evident reasons for
this state of things and the remedies to
be applied.
Mr.. White eontrasted the assertion of
the Declaration of Independence that
among the nalienable rights of man are
'life, liberty and the pursuit of happi-
ness" with the fact that ''under no other
civilized government, whether monarchy
or republic, is the right to life at the
present time SO trampled upon by a
privileged class of criminals" as under
this Government, and that ''the United
States is, among all the nations OF the
Christian world. that country in which
committed and least frequently pun
ished." Statistics fully bear out this
statement. Carefully kept records show
that there were 10, 500 murders in the
United States in 1895, an increase of 700
over the number committed in 1894 and
an increase of 6,270 since 1890. The
same records also show that there were
only 1879 legal executions last year, or an
average of one legal execution to about
70 murders. Such a great disparity be-
tween crime and its punishment may
we'll startle thinking men and lead them
to consider what are the causes and the
remedies for this abnormal condition of
things.
Among the causes mentioned by Mr..
White for the increase of murder were
the hero worship of which many murder
ers are made the object by a certain class
and the confidence among the criminal
classes that enough loopholes 10 the law
will be found to save them from the pen
atty their crime deserves. One of the
causes cited for the small number of
legal executions is the maudlin Sympathy
with criminals which leads so many
people to sign petitions for the pardon or
Communication of the sentence of convicted
murderers. Mr.. White gave some strik-
ing illustrations of this weakness OF
human nature among prominent men,
but there is one instance which be did
not mention. And that was the letter of
sympathy Grover Cleveland wrote, while
an ex.President of the United States and
a candidate for another term, in the case
of a brutal murder in Tennessee, and
which letter aided in gaining the comm u
tation of the death sentence of the muir
derer. There was not a criminal in the
United States who was not encouraged in
his career of crime by that letter.
Another reason for the small number
OF legal executions is the safety afforded
by the technjcalities of the law. The
theories coming down from medieval
times nave been so perverted that, as
Mr.. White said, the Safeguards to hones
men in the fourteenth century have be-
come safeguards to criminals in the nine
teenth." An illustration of this fact was
given in California. On March 90, 1894,
a man was shot dead in a bank by a
robber, and the murderer was arrested a
few minutes after the crime was com
mitted, He was tried, convicted and
sentenced to death in less than a month
after the murder, but then began the
DELAYS of the courts in hearing exceptions
and petitions for a new trial, which con-
sumed over a year, and the day as finally
fixed for the murderer's execution was
sixteen months after the crime. The
San Francisco Hammer well said that
athere is something wrong when this is
the best that can De done in the way OF
Furnishing a brutal MURDER and that
athe greatest part of the deterrent effect
of the punishment is lost when SO long a
time separates the punishment from the
crime.n
The remedies Mr.. White would apply
are many. He would have q better ole