The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-07-09
sENTIMENTALISM AND ANARCHY.

we nave examined with caretul
scrutiny, with an endeavor to weigh
the matter fairly and imp 1rtially and
with the desire 70 he merciful that
every man must feel who understands
human weaknesses. the pleas that are
made in behalf of the Younger broth
ers. We find in them nothing to JUS
tify the application about to be made
to the board of pardons Of Minnesota.
They are weak in the essential point.
They rest in the last event upon a
sentimentalism less odious and foolish,
II is true, but none the less opposed to
social order, than The gushing Of
Hght-headed girls over condemned Grim
inals, and the sending of bouquets to
wife murderers. The entire argument
is that twenty-one years in the peni-
tertiary is sufficient punishment fer
the crimes of the Younger brothers.
We doubt the truth of that statement
on abstract ground, but it need not be
argued, because it is not applicable to
the case. With an extraordinary. and
what, but for the reflection upon the
Sex we should call Z feminine sys-
tenn of logic, those who advance this
plea ignore utterly the existence or a
law providing, as a penalty for certain
oHenses, Imprisonment for lie. Shall
that law be enforced or Shall it be
nullified by the pardoning power? That
IS practically the whole question. IF
1t is bad law, if men ought not tn ba
imprisoned for life, providing they con-
duct themselves well during their in
generation, if twenty-one years of
prison life is all that any human he
ing ought to suffer, then, by all means,
let us change our laws, do away with
life sentences and provide a maximum
penalty of twenty-one years in the pen
itentiary for highway robbery and
murder, Until that shall have been
done, the plea for the pardon of the
1oungers, on any other ground than
that of sentimentalism, falls of its own
weight.
Those who take the opposite rosit:on.
while endeavoring to be fair drop cut
OF sight one side of the purpose of laws
and penalties as positively as they ac-
cuse those who differ from them Of fg-
norlng the other. 1t is true that the
modern idea contemplates the rcforn,a
ton of the offender, as we'll as the oh
Ject lesson to the evilly disposed con-
Veyed by severe and unwelcome pun
ishments But, after all, the reforma-
ton of the offender is not the only oh
ject Of the sentences imposed bv o,,r
court 1t is legitimate and a proper
work, and every prison organization
and every system of prison discipline
ought to have it first in view. Yet So
ctety is to be considered. Because the
Old idea that the wrong doer must be
made to suffer as severely as possible
as sort Of personal expiration and a
discharge of a blood feud, and wbeth-
Ell he went straight to the devil or NOT
was nobody's concern, IS wrong, and
while more enlightened policy has
taken into view the possibil-
ity Of restoring to him some por-
tion Of his lost manhood and max
ing MIN once more a useful or at
least an inoffensive member of So
ciety, it does not follow that the latter
purpose should, in it's i'm, become the
sole object Of system of law and its
enforcement. We must still have the
community and its safety in mind. If
therefore, such a thing as a life SEN
tence remains on our statute books
the reformation of him upon whom it is
imposed becomes noble personal work
as helping him to build up anew that
individual character which is the onlv
really precious possession that any hui
man being can have; but 1t does not
and cannot contemplate restoring him
TO the world. A life sentence does not
mean that. 1t means that, unless tie
Innocence of the man Is established or