Fergus County argus. [volume] (Lewistown, Mont.) 1886-1946, 1904-12-07
A HOMIcIDAL NATION.

lnality that s. S. Mcclure markes in
mis- months issue OF McClure's mag
azine. In three years more people
have been killed by design than have
been killed by the railways in tina:
time, more, in fact. than the British
army lost in the BOer war. II also
appears that in proportion to popula-
ton there are about three times as
many homicides committed in this
country as there were a few years
ago. AS showing how much more
common Is the crime Of murder in
lie United States than in the bet.
ter governed parts Of Europe, II is
enough 10 compare Chicago with Par
is and London. Both these cities are
much larger than Chicago. Last year
Paris had only fifteen murders and
London only twenty-six, as compared
with 1923 in Chicago.
In London every murderer was run
down and convicted except two cases,
where self destruction defeated the
law. In Chicago only about a fourth
OF the murderers were convicted, and
III thirty-three cases there were no
arrests. This small proportion of con.
vlctions and large number of escapes
indicates n of the reasons why hon.
i.ide Is SO comparatively common la
America. In Chicago there are three
chances out of four that there will be
no conviction. and about nine chances
out OF ten that there will be no death
renalty. These are chances that arc
very tempting to the man with muir
der In his heart.
What we need in this country is law
enforcement-police that are reliable,
~t;reless and incorruptible, judges that
will do their duty. juries that set a
high value on human life and view
with horror its criminal destruction.
II 1t were as certain in the United
States as in England that the murder
er will die on the gallows, there would
be IN end of this carnival of homicide
in a very short time.
We shall never, perhaps, be able to
show 30 good a record as England,
for we are a different people and live
in an environment which is more ia
Norable to crimes of violence than that
in which the British people live in
their little islands.
Offhand. we should say that murder
is distinctively the American nation.
al crime. Border warfare, the race
troubles in the south, conflicts with
desperadoes on the frontier, have
caused us as a people to hold human
life in less esteem than that in which
it is held in such an old and settled
cuntry as England. So long as we
do not reprobate murder as it should
be, we shall have more than our share
of the crime. The cowardly, pitiful
murder at Columbia Heights the 9th.
er night is a direct sequence Of the
miserable miscarriage VI justice In
the %pardoning of the young scoun.
drels who so deliberately killed a man
at Owatonna a year Ago.. II the per.
%Detrators of such a sordid murder can
escape with their lives, why should
any william hesitate to take human life
even that OF a baby?
Let us think more OF the murdered
and less Of the murderer. let us think
more OF the community and less OF
the family of the criminal; let us have
more justice for assassins and less
leniency for crime.-Mineapolis Jour
nal.
In giving reasons for me large NUN
Der OF murders in this country, those
who believe that capital punishment
should be relegated TO the rear as
being barbarous Or too drastic for q
highly civilized people, will not find
much comfort in the views expressed
by the Journal in the above. II is a
question as to what extent fear of the
death penalty acts as a deterrent in
the committing of the crime of muir
der. The knowledge that punishment
TO fit the crime will follow must have
some restraining elfecl.
The Journal calls attention TO Other
weaknesses in our laws or among ouI
People that need correcting in order
TO check the carnival of crime that
exists in this country. The pardoninl
power Is abused through a maudliI
sympathy for the convicted after hi,
victim is dead and out of sight ant
almost out of thought. This is due il
a large to capital cases being