The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-07-13
ACCESSORY AND PRINCIPAL.

1t is wonderful how surely the mo-
ment that judgment yields TO senti-
ment the entire constitution of the uni
verse, as it has been fixed by the evo
luton of thousands of years, dissCives
and the emotionalist has to set UP en-
tirely new standards of his own and
discard, as he usually does with cheer
full alacrity, all that experience human
ity has taught to be necessary md
wise That is what the POpuliSt does
whenever he touches upon any public
question. The sentimental side of it
appeals to him, and if it should happen
that his view is contradictory either to
the law or to experience, so much the
worse for experience and the law. His
idea must be carried out, though the
heavens fall, and all that has been
learned through the ages is of no con-
sequence if it happens to run in the
opposite direction.
Although the controversy over the
pardoning of the Youngers has now
closed one of the final words of it
brought out this principle so clearly
that it is deserving of notice. The
Pioneer Press, which has espOused the
side of sentiment throughout, made it's
final appeal upon the proposition that
the Younger brothers should be par
doned because neither of them had
been proved to be actually and per-
sonally guilty of murder in the ARRAY
for which they were sentenced to life
imprisonment. 1t dilates and diva
gates and eXpatiates upon the enor-
nous difference, morally, that there is
between the Younger brothers and the
men who actually shot Haywood, and
makes this the basis of an appeal for
mercy. By the same argument the
state was guilty of willful murder when
it executed Harry Hayward, because it
was not by his hands but by that of
Blixt that she was done to death
Now the equality Of guilt be-
tween the principal and the Access
sorry before the fact is a principle of
common law and of substantial jus
tice so old that We can hardly trace
it to it's beginning. 1t is one of the
very essentials of any administra ton
of law or any system of proper re-
wards and punishments. 1t is acted
upon universally in all criminal cases,
and the courts must hold it just as
sacred as they do the principle that any
kind of crime merits punishment. When
a lot Of men plan a daring robbery, in
which it is likely that life will he taken,
if it is necessary either to accomplish
their purpose or to secure an escape,
and when life afterwards is taken, there
is not the slightest conceivable differ
ence in law or in morals between that
man who fires the fatal shot and his
companions. That all rests upon the
casting Of die. That one of them
who gets into the tightest hole, or
whose passions run away with him.
every man of them shares the guilt in
equal proportion.
1t would be ridiculous for us to state
this old principle or IL enlarge upon
it were it not that we lind It SET aside
and denied by a plea which, if it is
worth anything a. all, demands the
abrogation of the rule that an Access
! sorry before the fact is equally guilty
with his principal, and "equires the
legal system of the whole world to he
reVolutionized on a scale OF punish
| ments in proportion to the actual share
| which each criminal took in a per-
Torrance where all of them were band
ed together for the accomplishment of
common purpose We might men
ton that these men have already had
the benefit of such distinction, and