Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1903-11-28
sN,fr,se peRsoNAL RESPONSIBILITY: :

Last Wednesday the state OF MIS-
souri, hanged Frank Clark at kahoka
for rape. The crime was terrible
one and the rapist suffered justly and
legally under his own confession. He
had been gambler a drunkard and
debauchery and disrepute. He was a
human cancer and ripe for exurpa-
ton. His taking off ieft the world
hurdened with one less vicious para
site. With a sort of physical courage
or callousness he died game and adj
dressed the crowd of men and women
who had broken thru the stockade to
see man die. In his speech he is re-
ported to have said:
"Gen,leanen. Just want to say l am
saved TO God. I 90 to meet my God.
But s.n sorry for what ! have done
I wish I hadn't done II. But tell
you, gentlemen. wouldn't be standing
here today II it wasn't for the whisky
that these saloonkeepers have been
selling out to you. That's what brought
me to this. Take my advice. Quit
your gambling and drinking and ram
bling and running around. Think OF
your mothers and your sisters. l am
going to God. arm ready to 60.
There are many good people who
win dissent from two Of his state
n,ents. 1t is hard to believe that he
was. as he insisted, saved to God" but
that is essentially question between
himself and the God he had forgotten.
The trite statement that whisky
brought him to the scaffold is, how
ever, the same old attempt at evasion
OF personal responsibility and Is not
true in fact. 1t is simply an attempt
90 shift the responsibility OF crime
From the person to the thing. Clark
aook his own way to the cord. Drunk
anness was only one of the paths and
Che saloon only stopping place along
4he descent to Avernus. His own VI
csous and uncontrolled tendencies made
him criminal. Whisky simply slim
There Is too much excused to the
willing drunkard and libertine. Wills
ky did it, is no. an excuse. but an un-
truth. Drink Is not the originator OF
criminal imuulse, but an agent,
coad1utor and assistant. Back Of every
rrime is the lurking desire and ten
Aency to commit the act. II whisky,
~ Is indubitably true, is a promoter OF
c-ime, the man who drinks 1t is NOR
ally more culpable than the other who
snakes or sells 1t and should not be
allowed to shift the moral or legal re-
anon sibilfty OF crime committed under
Its influence. We are too prone to pity
Ahe Individual who has knowingly and
deliberately chosen a dissolute Life and
to condemn liquor and saloons as prin-
eipal offenders when they are only ac-
eessorles. It Is time for the principle
of personal responsibility to receive
recognition and the blame and burden
OF vicious career placed where II
primarily helongs--on the shoulders OF
the free moral agent who chose evil
rather than good. Vicious and opposed
60 the best interests of society as Is
Che liquor traffic It is not cause but
IN effect. and until this truth is rec
ognised by temperance workers and
the primary responsibility for the
business forced upon the individual
whose demands and patronage make 1t
profitable, temperance will fail in real
effectiveness.
Clark blamed the whisky. Had he
been thoroughly honest he would have
blamed himself. Having all his life
sought evil companionship and preyed
upon society like wolf, what other
j. Il.