Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-01-13
BAR TO TRAIN WyRECkING
Railway Man Advocates a Death
 Penalty For the Crime.


 Penalty For the Crime.
 POINTS TO PIRACY AS AN EXAMPLE ". J. Black Of the santa Fe Daciares
 That Congress Should MalSc Wreck
 tng of Trains Crime Against Fed
 eraI La vya--says Wreckers Are Dia-
 boIicsl and Deserve No Mercy.
 l.sW. J. Black, general passenger agent of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa F'e railway, believes the death penalty should be inflicted on a person who willfully wreclSs a railroad train or is in any way an accomplfce to the crime, says Topeka (Kan.) dispatch to the Kansas City Star. To make sure of the certain punishment of train wreck CTS MT Black believes congress ought to make train wreeking crime against the federal law. He believes the. cer- tainty of punishment would deter. many men from committing the crime and that certainty lies only in federal jurisdictIon.
 Piracy on the high seas,' Mir. Black said recently, .has ceased because. the nations of the earth have declared that the fate of a pirate is death. Burning merchant ships footed by infamous rob bers no longer dot the paths of com
 nerce. The passengers and crews of merchantmen no longer walk the plank, pushed to death by pirates. Ocean travel is safe e the ac- ridents no human laws can prevent. And yet at one time che pirate was more numerous than the train robber and train wrecker in this country The people Of certain barbarous countries whose seas were traversed by the ships of the world regarded piracy as their most gallant occupation, and desperate
 men with a grudge against civilization waged war on the innocent carriers of commerce and the travclers that ven- tttfred to sail from of1e ps''ftfaj :sfluthef:
 But finally piracy on the high seas beaame d crime against the civilized world The pirate knows that not only the warships of the country whose yes sels he robs will pursue him, but that the nayies of the whole world will join in the chase. International law mems everything to the traveller on the deep. He is protected not alone by the coun- try whose far tho ship flies. bat by limited power Of ciyiIiza ton. Not only fhe passengers o1l tho ship, but the ship pers of the goods and treasure it car ries and the owners Of thc vessel are protected from piracy by fnterna tional law.
 fWhat interna tional law means to the ocean commerce of the world fed eraI law means or ought to mean to. ss the vast traffic and travel on railways Z in this country. The lives of the mil lions of passengers ought not to Dc denied any means of protection that can be employed: Recently dFnamiters threatened to wreck trains unless the railway companies paid them black mail. The railway companies, in one case at least, kept the threat a secret, and thousands of passengers rode un- conscious of the terrible danger. 4 number of attempts to wreck trains have taken place.
 s.The train robber is bad enough, but the train wrecker is diabolical. He is als near the field incarnate as man can get He deserves no mercy. Death is too good for him. The train wrecler should be stamped out. It ought to be made as sure death to wreck or rob a train as to attack and loot ship. The way to do it is to make. attacks on the lives of railway passengers an of fense against the federal laws, with pursuit. by United States officers and the army, if necessary. and with trial in United States court and with death neted out by the heavy and in ex0rable hand or the national power. IF is well known that criminals fear the federal laws and authority more than the state laws. The element of locality does not exist in the United States court Moreover, the United States officers are not handicapped by 1ack Of means, The United States gov ernment can pursue an offender 10 the ends of the earth The United States is power. vast impersonal, inexorable, and the criminal fears it because he re spects it The United States has con stifutional power over interstate com merce and 1t is exercising that au- ffioTity over the railway tariffs at this tfsae Surely the lives of passengers are as important as the freight rates. Why not place those lives, so far as protection from the train wrecker and train robber is concerned. under the strong hand of the United States?7 ---------------------
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