Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-12-29
A National Whipping Post.

In another column will be found an ex-
tract from an editorial printed in the
Springfield Republican, discussing the
proposition to establish the whipping post
in the District of Columbia as a punish
ment for wife-beaters. 1t emphasizes those
phases of the situation the conclusions
from which cast an unmistakable SUR upon
Washington. II is inevitable that reaoers
of newspapers outside of the capital should
conclude that this must be. fagrantly and
shamelessly. a community of wife-beaters
to justify so extraordinary an expedient as
that suggested by the President and en-
dorsed by certain citizens and officials. The
Republican points out clearly that the
adoption of the lash would be a reversal
of all the civilized doctrines as to punish
ments and that with beginning on Wife
heaters the logical course is to extend the
applicat ton of the lash to otherS-juvenile
cases petty offenders husbands who Will
not support or who desert their wives, and
the like. Washington is thus pictured, as
a direct result of the whipping post prop
osition as barbarous in its brutality to
women as barbarous in its sentiments con-
corning cruel and unusual punishments.
and as being therefore peculiarly appro-
pirate location for the re-establishment OF
the barbayous whipping post. notwithstand-
ing the Constitutions prohibition against
such punishments.
This. however being the national CAPT
tai. the establishment of the whipping post
here. especially the result of a direct
presidential suggestion, would set an eX-
ample that would naturally be followed by
other communities until the misguided ex-
pertinent conducted in this city would be
the cause of a national establishment OF
the lash. The cowhide whip or the CATO
nine-tails would thus become identified with
Ito big stick which the President has
recommended to the nation and it's people
to carry.
Is the United States to stand before the
world as retroactive and barbarous in its
pathological methods, in the face of the
universal tendency toward more humane
and rational punitive processes? Is this
the civilization for which the western re-
public seeks to stand?
The Republican aptly suggests that mas
much as the trend of opinion, SO far as it
has been expressed in favor of the whip
ping post inclines toward a gentle. nom
decorating. humiliating application Of the
lash, the only purpose being to shame the
offender, the more public the whipping, the
more certain this result, and it proposes
that If adopted as a local method of pun
ishment the whipping post be set up on
the Capitol plaza or perhaps even in front
of the White House. While this suggestion
is logical il grinds in upon the national
capital more severely than ever the humil
, iation which must come to it, if the whip
ping post and lash are to be in combina-
tion a conspicuous and typical national in
stitution.
Nobody has been heard to allege the ade-
quacy of our present system of Police Court
penalties whether applied to wife-beaters
or any other offenders. The contention has
been that to remedy this inadequacy there
was better method than reverson to bar
barism by recourse to the whipping post.
and that the brutalizing lash-cure was con-
sequently unnecessary. 1t was proposed
that the wife-beater be put at hard labor
his earnings to go in full TO the support
of his family. And in contrast with the in
effective brutality of the lash this remedy
was commended as logical, civilized. Christ
ian and curative. If this method of treat
ing the wife beaten is viewed by whipping
post advocates as in the nature of an ac-
ceptable compromise with the lash, there
should be by all means a general and i'm
mediate agreement upon it, in order that
the whipping-post proposition, so discredit-
able and humiliating to the national capital
and its people, may be buried and forgotten
as quickly as possible.