The San Francisco call., 1898-07-23

| OCHNER was under fire of
 cross examination all day yes
 terday, but he stuck to his orig
 A inal story of the tragedy. Last
 night he was taken to the Re-
 ceiving Hospital, and given a narcotic to settle his nerves"
 This is not passage from one of Gaborieaus famous detective novels, nor Is 1t even a quotation from one of Zola's eloquent denunciations of French judicial methods. It Is simply a piece of plain, everyday journalese taken from the columns of The Call Similar statements have appeared in other newspapers in this city. For sev- eral days this informal and illegal ex- animation has been going on, and even the police themselves can hardly deny the fact.
 Let me state at the outset that have nothing whatever to do with the guilt or innocence of Lochner. wheth- CT he did or did not strangle Mrs. Car penter, whether his character be clean or unclean, is not the question to be considered here. In the light of true justice, every man Is innocent until he is lawfully found guilty.
 What l want to know is-Who ap- pointed thief of Police Lees Judge Construction? It is significant that there is no English word to express the office, the institution being peculiarly French. By what right. moral or con- stitutional, does mere Captain of Police assume the authority to intro- duce, into this free land, one of the most pernicious of the many bad feat ures which so markedly distinguish I the Latin from the Anglo-Saxon sys- tenn of judicial administration?
 | More than seven centuries ago the barons of England met at Runnymede and wrested from an ignU~4e and un- willing King, the Magma Charta, which through all these centuries has been the mainstay of Anglo-Saxon liberty. True, it was but victory of the nobles over the Monarch, the great mass of the people still remained in the same wretched and enserfed condition. But the lesson was not lost upon the na- tion, and from that day forward every modification of the unwritten English constitution meant the imposition of further limitations upon the kingly power. And so, three hundred years ago, the great habeas corpus principle, which was but rudely outlined in the Magma Charta, was crystallized into an Act of Parliament, to which the faith full Commons, using their power over the royal purse as a lever, wrung the reluctant consent of the weak Charles IT.
 TThnS fhrOyIph the A n crIn- Saxon race has ever been in the fore front of freedom, has ever been first, and often alone, in the task of ennob- ling and raising the enslaved of the world to sense of their o,!n manhood. To-day Europe notes with astonish- ment, not unmingled with awe, the fact that this treat nation has entered actively upon the same noble crusade. We are risking the lives of our noblest and best, we are pouring forth our treasure like water, in a cause which seems to the Latin races Quixotic, be- cause, forsooth, they have never learnt the true near lg of the word liberty. These nations, crushed under their weight of military despotism, look on in sullen protest, yet none dare inter- fere, for they know that 1t Is not only the United States which they will have to fight when the cause of humanity is at stake.
 By the side of the great struggle which is now going on, the case of a miserable wretch like Lochner may seem about as important as a worm on Mount Shasta. Yet his treatment by the police, and the treatment of many others like him, indicates growing danger which the people of the United States cannot afford to neglect. Hav- ing never known the burdens of tyr amy, having never been oppressed by cruel and interruptions despots, the cit izens of the Union are apt to be lax in the watchfulness which alone can purchase true freedom. When the thir- teen States of the new world wrested their independence from England, 1t was with the view of increasing rather than restricting the liberty of their citizens All the best features of the English constitution, and among them the great habeas corpus principle, were embodied in the American law, there to remain for all time, as a significant tribute to the nation from which we inherit our laws and our language. And since the creation of the American con- stitution nearly all It's best features have become part of the law of Eng land, so that to-day there is practically no distinction between the freedom which each State grants its citizens. The difference is one in name only.
 How is it, then, that the people of this State sit quietly quiescent, while an irresponsible police official violates at his own sweet will the first princi- pie upon which the individual freedom of each citizen is based? It is not the first time that Chief Lees has done 1t. We read of the same thing whenever the Police Department, in it's bungling way, is striving vainly to unravel some great criminal mystery. We hear of this method which is commonly known as the sweating process" being tried every time miserable being. who may or may not have had anything to do -lkf r. 1I~~ ..-~l. C. I