Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1901-01-24

ment, and bear the responsibility that
the future may have in store for the
act. A notable example of this is seen
in Kansas today. The law provides
capital punishment. but requires the
governor TO sign the death warrant.
There are 40 condemned murderers IN
Kansas awaiting the death warrant.
Governor after governor has refused
to assume the part in carrying out the
law which is prescribed for him.
There is not remote possibility that
one of these murderers will hang.
They will continue in prison. Here
is the Bosschieter case fresh in mind
a most revolving murder and worse !;
clear case against the perpetrators
two of them confessed verdict, guilty
in the second degree, which means 80
years in prison. The jury weakened
in the presence of death. Here is the
Mildred Brewster Casa premeditated
killing of poor girl defense, insanity /;
Jury gave the accused the benefit Of
what appeared to most people very
slim doubt; verdict, not guilty on
account OF insanity; Miss Brewster
confined in the Waterbury asylum for
three years and now about to be
discharged as cured. The truth is,
juries seek every possible means of
escape, short of absolute violation of
their oath, from pronouncing the
awful words of doom.
1t is noticeable that judges and
lawyers, who are not commonly
supposed to be impressionable, are
brought by close contact with capital
punishment to abhor 1t. Attorney
General Knowlton, the leading crimi-
nal lawyer in Massachusetts, opposes
it. In our own legislature, when the
bin came up, the lawyers who have
most to do with such crimes were
eager in their opposition to the death
penalty. There must be some reason
for this strange softening OF human
nature, which usually grows callons
with what it feeds upon. Are there
not silent and unseen influences at
work These are Gods ways.
There are many who deny the right,
under any provocation or any form of
law, Of men to take the life of fellow
being. To such, capital punishment
is but form of legal murder and all
who take part are culpable. Because
some miserable creature violates the
most sacred of Gods laws is not to
them sufficient reason why the state
should also commit the same crime.
Life is beyond the power of man to
give he should not take it away.
Some other punishment should be
devised for those who disobey this law
of nature. Others view it from a
different standpoint, somewhat, basing
their opposition to capital punishment
on the ground that it fails to accom-
plish the only purpose by which so
severe a penalty can possibly be
justified. They claim that it does not
deter people from the commission of
murder more than does life imprison-
ment, Both forms of punishment
forever remove the guilty one from
endangering the community again.
Neither one can bring back the dead
to life. Vengeance has or should have
no part in modern penalties. If,
therefore, it is true that murders are
no more frequent under the threat of
life imprisonment than of hanging,
that alone is sufficient to condemn
capital punishment. And the facts
seem to point that way. Several of
our states, among them Maine, Rhode
Island and Colorado, have done away
with the death penalty and will not
restore it, being satisfied that innocent
life is as well protected as under the
gibbet. There are murders in these
states, it is true, but no more than in
others. Life imprisonment is no small
and many believe it is
sufficient penalty to deter any from
the commission of murder, who are
not so demoniacal that they would
be deferred by the more inhuman
1t is not the penalty
that keeps men from committing
murder, in most cases. If they have
murder in them, not the penalty.
whatever it may be, will stop them.
One of the strongest objections to
capital punishment is that it is
absolutely irrevocable. 1t matters
not what evidence may be brought to
light after execution, tending to. show
the innocence of the condemned. he
cannot be brought back. God knows