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

| tnat doctrine Is too narSn ana cruel, let
us erase it, and say that no life sem
tence shall ever again be imposed. If
it Is necessary and wise and even just,
let us hold to our purpose, however
high the sentimental seas may roll.
| Here is one of the joints III the
armor of those who speak for the re-
sentenced by Minnesota court.
They say that the degree and du-
ration of punishment is subordinated
| in all modern administration Of crimi-
nal penalties to the main purpose of
| reforming the prisoner and sending
him back into the world a good and
useful citizen" What earthly applica-
| bility have the words sending him
| back into the world" to the life sem
tence? He who receives that is not
! to be sent back into the world" For
his own good, for the benefit of prison
| discipline and the elevation of prison
| life, most of all for creating within him
ideas and hopes that shall lead him to
believe it worth wnile, even though
| shut in forever by high walls, to Gull
tivate a manhood and lliudle a vital
spark not to be extinguished in this
world or in any other, it is we'll worth
while, it is worth sacrifice and every
labor of love to work his reformation
But the idea of return to the world
and the idea of a life sentence are
mutually destructive and absolutely
| contradictory.
| We think if our friends on the other
side were to go out and talk with the
people just as they are, and we can
| not make them any different, they
would realize what a horrible thing it
is they have in contemplation. Men
of intelligence, men Of high education,
| men who revere nee the law and obey
it, men deservedly high in the public
estimation have been heard to say, not
! by ones or twos, but by scores, that if
| this thing shall be done in the state of
Minnesota they will never raise voice
| or finger hereafter against the execution
of lynch law. They say that if, for in
stance, the Younger Brothers are re-
community a tragedy like that at
Wyoming last year, they would help
| to pull the rope that should swing
those murderers into eternity, rather
| than to commit them to a law that has
| been shorn of it's terr0"s and a SEN
tence that would mean nothing but
with a political pull should present a
volupairous petition - the board of
pardon3. This is human nature IS it
is today, and you canno1 get away
from it. The release of these men
means the destruction of the semblance
of law, the spreading ubroa1 of d con-
victiOn that the law is impotent to
protect the community, and will and
must be followed by disSraceful dis
| orders and the substitution of private
vengeance for the Just penalty that
q
back toward the primitive chaos of a
savage time, and We protest against
| it, as the people protest, not only n the
! interest of justice, but in the interest
of the maintenance of law and order in
the future.
We heard an immense amount q year
ago from the same parties that are
agitating this pardon about the dan
gers of anarchy. The whole country
was stirred to it's foundation by meY e
hints in a platform that the will of
the populace should be set above the
mandates of the courts. There was
! then no sacrifice too great to he made
| for law and order. No assault uIon
them, however covert and indil ect,
could be passed over. 1t were better
to sacrifice everything else, so these men
said, than to elect a candidate or SUD-
port a party that was not as far as
Caesars wife above suspicion of con-
niv1ng at non-enforcement of the law.
And here, because these men. who
would have died at the hangman's
hands but for the imperfections of our
laws at that time, who Would Rave
died hundred times, were it possible
at the hands of a justly enrlged popu-
lace had it been thought possible that
pardon could ever have been granted
to them, have been imprisoned TWEEN
| ty-one years, forsooth: because they
have so conducted themselves as
| TO gain the approval of thei: jailers:
| because sentimentalism has looked upon
their affiictions and shed tears over
them, while homes that they made des
olate and the widows and orphans of
whose bereavement they were the
cause are forgotten now, these petit
| TONERS dare say that thasa impulses
of the emotional nature are more to
be regarded than the execution Of the
law and the maintenance of a belief
in the protection of public order.
There has never been a proposition
made to the people Of minnesota so
based upon the anarchistic idea as
this. To subvert the law, to practical
| ly destroy life sentences, making them
conditional upon good behavior for a.
term of years, to release malefactors
because they have undergone a punish
ment wholly incommensurate with
their crime, is to attack the foundations