The White Pine news. [volume] (Treasure City, Nev.) 1868-1906, 1902-03-20

"The United States IS" The plural
form. Which WIS universal once. has
given place TO the singular form. anG
grammatical revolutions no more go
backward than do other revolutions. III
the constitution Is to be the guide then
the plural form should he used with
Congress, and Mr.. jefferson was quite
right when he said Congress witness
ed at their last session. But fresl-
dent Roosevelt unmindful OF the coll
stitution and the precedents. begins his
message The Congress assemblies THIS
year" This must shock Justice Brew
err. In speaking officially of the United
States in state papers, statutes, and
treaties it is better that the old form
should be preserved and the United
States be spoken Of as these ana
them" But popular speech is some
thing which neither laws nor supreme
Court dicta can change. and the mass
of the people will stick to 1t that the
United States is a nation.
The pleas of sentimentalists for Will
lam McKinley's assassin as In some
way irresponsible" are concluslyely
refuted in the elaborate report on his
physical and mental status recently
published by Drs. Carlos Macdonald
and Edward A. Spitzka. These men
are among the foremost in their
branches of the medical profession, Dr.
Spitzka as an anatomist and Or. Mac
Donald as an alienist. They agree that
the assassin was physically normal ana
mentally sane and responsible FOR MS
crime. The only thing that ailed hlll'
they say. was the social disease, an
archy:" that is. he was moral per
vert who had deliberately abandoned
himself to wickedness. when he as
sassinated President Mckinley re
marks DR.. Macdonald. ''he was in all
respects a sane man, both legally aud
medically, and fully responsible.
Taking all in ALL" adds DIR. Spitzka,
"the verdict must be socially diseased
and perverted, but not mentally dis
eased.' The most horrible violations
of human law cannot always be con I
doned by the plea of insanity. The wild
beast slumbers in us all. 1t Is not
always necessary to Invoke insanity
to explain its awakening" 1t is re-
lated of a celebrated English divine of
The eighteenth century that whenever !
he saw criminal led to execution he
used to say, in all sincerity: But for
the grace of God there goes myself"
He did not refer to any particular per-
sonal escape from guilt. but merely
stated in the language of his own time
he general principle stated by Dr.
spitzka in the speech of modern sci
,nce. 1t Is a solemn fact, says the
chicago Inter Ocean, that every human
leing has within himself the capacity !
o be a Guiteau or a Czolgosz. While
environment may impel him one way
n the other, the ultimate decision is
lot made by his environment, but with
n his own soul. Those who would teach
Is otherwise virtually deny the exist /
nee of human will, with its freedom /
o choose between good and evil, and
-educe man TO the level of machine. |
they are not even logical in their de- |
lial. III they were they would not talk |
# restraint" and mental treatment"
# criminals. They would do as we do
With a machine which breaks down or
becomes the instrument of mischief. |
We do not attempt to change the |
mind" Of an errlng engine, for it has !
lone. We merely repair it physically |
md start 1t up again. But the ''all- |
fanatics, while af- |
irming that man is merely machine, |
SIX us not only to repair his physical |
INJURIES, as we do with criminal |
Wounded in resisting the police, but |
lso ask us to medicine the soul. which
hey declare he has not. Illogical alb
urdty could go no further. The an
rchist is victim Of social disease"
nut it Is wholly of his own creation.
lie has willfully abandoned himself to
ebelion against the established order
# the universe. That shows us every
where the reign of law, but the anarch-
st will have no law. He denies the
Existence of any law save his own de-
Tres, and against all government as the
of law he wages war. BY
lis denial of the established order of
he universe he peryerts his own soul
nd plunges 1t into wickedness. He
becomes Il lawless wild beast doomed
o destruction. Such Czolgosz was,
uch he had made himself. and as such
lie was rightly destroyed.
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