The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-05-29

Migrant and vicious p0SSlDlei Whether or
not this conduct merits that full penalty of
the law which is ten years in the peniten-
tlary or TO say whether or not there may
not be some mitigating, qualifying clrcum-
stances which a just and honorable and
merciful judge may take into consideration.
And let me say may it please the court,
that | believe i the court does see and can
lind mitigating circumstances here and Will
take them into consideration II VIII act IN
mitigating the agony and the suffering of
two innocent people who are INVOLVED IN
this matter his wife and his chlld.
MIR. WISHARD'S STATEMENT.
do you wish to say anything Mr.. Prose-
cutor?" asked the court.
Mr. Wishard replied: well. your Honor,
the indictment and the statement of Mr.
Caldwell diSclOses the magnitude of this
offense The plea of Mr.. Johnson's good
character and good reputation is no de-
Tense to the charges that are made against
him here. and While he has thought pos
sible to redeem the good name OF his own
family and to prevent the publicity of his
fathers Indebtedness, it works an awful
hardship on several hundred people at
Loganspo~t. The mans intelligence, his
ability to understand and know what he is
doing ought to be the criterion by which
he is to be judged. Your Honor sentenced
man few minutes ago TO year and
a day in the penitentiary for passing
50-cent piece and five 1O-cent counterfeit
pieces of money. If that is the proportion,
if the punishment is to fit the crime, your
Honor can do nothing less than to give
Mr.. Johnson a sentence of ten years"
commanded the court and Johnson quiet
ly walked from his seat and stood facing
the judge. Have you anything that you
wish to say to the court as to why the
court should not proceed to pronounce
Judgment on your plea of guilty."
has been said, replied the prisoner in an
almost inaudible voice without displaying
emotion.
COURT PASSES SENTENCE.
Judge Baker then proceeded quietly and
s
your attorney and from the sworn state
ments of your neighbors," said the court,
lit appears that you have in their estima-
ton always borne an upright and blame
less life. You have occupied a prominent
position. You have achieved in the com
munity where you lived a reputation for in
telligence, ability and integrity that in
duced those who owned the stock of the
State National Bank of Logansport to Sc
lect you as director, and your character,
your intelligence, your business ability in
duced those four directors to make you
president of the bank and to give you
charge OF 1t. You conducted it. 1t appears
that you knew at that time that by rea-
son of the unfortunate business situation
OF your fathers estate and the agreement
that you had entered into in
the family settlement that you
h ha6t ber mage aed with with your mother and
gering under 81 heavy burden of debt-a
burden OF debt apparently largely dispro-
IL.
1t is not at all likely that the directors of
the bank and the stockholders who owned
the stock in that bank would have con-
scented to place you in practical charge and
control of that institution, OF their money
and the money of the people that came into
it if you had frankly disclosed to them the
situation that you were in. And so far as
the court can see the first deviation from
the line of upright moral conduct was when
you concealed in your own breast the con-
dltlon IN which you were, a condition that
you knew disqualified you for the position
OF president of the bank Now an officer
or a bank and especially a president who
is trusted not only by his board of direc-
TORS ana the stockholders, but is trusted
by the people whose money he received
occupies position of trust and confidence
or the highest and most sacred character.
1t IS Impossible for the court to con-
celye that an honorable, right-minded man
coulq voluntarily accept a position that
would more strongly appeal to his con-
scientious conyiction of right doing than
the position of president of a bank. The
rich and the poor come to him and put
their hard-eaIned gains into his hand. They
do it on the faith that he is an honest man.
They do it on the faith that no earthly
consideration will sWerVe him by a hair IS
breadth from the line of his duty; and to
betray such trust as that is in a moral
sense one of the graVest derelictions from
moral duty that the court can conceive Of
10 take mans property who has not in
trusted it to him, to go out and take it by
force, by violence, by q wrong, is COMPARE
lively less shocking in its moral qualities
than 1t is to take advantage of the man
trusted to your honor and integrity; then
10 have betrayed that trust makes the
moral delinquency of the offense far greater
than where an equal amount of property
is taken by violence or by stealth. 1 cam
not conceive that the fact of a mans own
personal interests the fact that he is stag
gerlng under q debt, has any real justitica-
ton or excuse for obtaining money and
property which his friends and neighbors
trust and contide to his integrity and which
he then turns around and appropriateS to
his own use. Nor does the negligence of
the board of directors or the carelessneSs
of bank eXaminers-because it would seem
that both the board of directors as well as
bank examiners, have been dereliCt in their
duties here-afford any excuse for the moral
obhquity of the course that you have pur-
sued.
THE CULTURED CRIMINAL
'Now it is terrible thing for a man
who has achieved, and doubtless deservedly
achieved, a position in society as a man
of character, of intelligence and business
sagacity. to make a shipwreck of his life
by turning into the pathways of crime. l
have myself much more sympathy for the
ignorant man whose moral perceptions are
blunt, who is led into crime than have for
the man of culture or brains and business
ability who leads double life. concealing
the truth from his neighborS. and by virtue
of that concealment obtaining possession
Of their property; because 1t IS entirely
apparent to the court if you had let these
people who signed this affidavit as to your
previous good character know just the sit
uation in which you were, and had given
them even the remotest mixing of what
you were doing there would not have been
one of them who would have trusted a
dollar to your keeping.
Now the only serious question that the
court has in this character of cases is to
determine the measure of punishment.
Punishment as the court views 1t, and i'll
the assessment of sentences the court in
some measure is actuated by that VIEWS
not always determined by the length Of
time that a man stays in prison. Men
are sent to prison for periods of time where
the punishment is merely nominal for the
reason that they are so constituted mentally
and morally that they do not feel the sting
of incarceration in q state prison There
are other men who are sentenced even for
shorter periods of time to whom the incar-
ceraton is but a very small fraction of the
pain and suffering that comes from con-
fnement 1t is the ever-present thought to
the sensitive mind of blasted hopes, of a
ruined life. and above all undoubtedly the
thought that there are other hearts that
bleed with anguish as well as his own.
Now under this statute under which you
have been indicted every separate OIenSe
is made punishable by imprisonment OF not
less than five nor more than ten years. In
this indictment there are number or sep
arate offenses charged The court would
have fine mower thought proper, to in