The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1900-06-15
Mount and STEPHENS.

/ The country is to be congratulated that
the terms of two State Governors who
have disgraced the American name will
end in January. We refer to Mount OF
Indiana and Stephens of Missouri. One is
a Republican in politics; the other was
elected TO Office as Democrat
The statement given ont by Mount on
Wednesday explaining his reasons for re-
fusing 10 surrender Taylor, the Kentucky
derer, establishes the Indiana Governor in
the position of the most offensive ass that
fate and popular foolishness ever pushed
into an important Office. Mount has the
impudence to declare what the law of Ken
lucky is, and what, in his opinion, it
should be, and to refuse to execute di-
rect mandate of the Constitution of the
United States unless neighboring SOW
ereign State shall arrange its statutes and
procedure TO his liking. The concluding
paragraphs of Mounts reply to Governor
Beckham are interesting They are as fol-
lows:
''In the fearless exercise Of an established right
and in the performance of a conscientious duty,
mast refuse to honor your roquistion demand
upon this Office, under the circumstances TO which
] have briefly referred, Is monstrous. 1t finds no
parallel in the history of executive practice in the
United States.
THE honoring of this demand and the return
of Governor TAYLOR into the custody of men VINO,
blind TO reason, have ignored civil rights and into
environments where rapacious hate dominates,
would be assuming responsibility from ihe'grav-
-iiy of which shrink
Mounts ideas regarding Constitutional
right" are peculiar and are evidently
based upon Mr.. McKinley's plain duty
views on the subject. The Constitution,
Article ", section 2, paragraph 2, de-
clares:
"A person charged in any State with treason,
felony, or other crime, who shall flee from JUS
'ice. and he found in another State, shall, on de-
nand OF the executive authority of the State from
which he fed, be delivered up, 10 be removed to
the State having jurisdiction Of the crime
What the Indiana Governors duty is in
the premises is clearly stated in the above
provision of the Constitution, the trainers
of which never supposed that any State Of
the Union would elect man as Governor
who would dare to defy the common
fundamental law and the comfy of the
Union. Mounts excuse, based on alleged
newspaper clippings. that Taylor could
not get fair trial In Kentucky is the
poorest kind of nonsense. Even the old
friends and followers of the fugitive have
begged him to come back and face his ac-
cusers, assuring him of the most impartial
treatment. But the EXILE as he calls
himself, is so uncertain of his innocence
that he dare not return, even under the
promise that If he did so he could be
nominated for the gorernorship again. and
lead the campaign to gain the highest Of
fee in the Commonwealth, and one OF
which he claims to have been robbed. The
deduction is inevitable and necessary that
1t is not from the danger of an unfair
trial that Mount would shield Taylor but
from the risk of Just conviction and exc
cution. Has the generation Of bright and
able men in Indiana petered out, that such
a scarabaeus as Mount should be made
Governor in succession TO orators and
statesmen like Willard and Morton?
Similarly, what is the matter with Mis-
souri,? A State which could produce a
to fall as low as a Stephens in less than
half century. Yet here is full
Hedged Governor of a great State, who
stands calmly by while women and girls
are stripped and beaten in broad daylight
and refuses TO hear their agonized cries
for protection. What has become of the
civic virtues of Missouri Democrats? Less
than twenty years ago a creature acting in
Stephens place as he has acted would
have been tarred and feathered and ridden
on rail, as he ought to be now