The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1905-12-02
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.

\ recent article in the Christian Herald on
Capital Punishment was termed by the editor
killing by Statute" A writer III the same journal
makes vigorous reply 10 the Herald's ethical view
of the law. He says:
In your editorial today, entitled "killing by
Statute" you state that the opponents OF capital
punishment in large majority" in the sympo-
stun which you have published. Will You allow me
to remind you that such is not the in tests of
public opinion made elsewhere, as for example. in
the last legislature of Vermont and of Massachu-
setts whore on roll call the opponents of capital
punishment were in a large minority.
Your characterization of the capital punishment
law an attempt ito abolish crime by brutalizng
or blotting out the criminal" shows msconcepton
OF the purpose of the law. And when you say that
defenders of the extreme penalty claim that the
killer must be killed in order that killing may cease
you put the in q false light. Law is not brutal
1t does not seek to abolish crime by blottng out
criminals. And nobody is so foolish as to claim,
as you say they do, that the capital punishment
law is enacted sin order that killing may cease"
Only Christ can bring in a millennium of peace
wherein killing may cease. Law never can. What
then is the end sought by the capital punishment
minimum And this end is gained not as you say
claim by killing but it is gained by the pro-
mitigation of law. The announcement of the pen
atty of death for murder by the law-giver is warn
ing to every vicious person of certain death if he
dlsobeys and takes human life. And this warning
proclaimed by the law before the commission of
crime is effective in lettering many from staining
their hands with blood Thus it is not by killing"
that murder is discouraged and the crime essened;
but by the proclamation of the law threatening to
visit the extreme penalty upon the guilty. The
execution is the carrying 9ut the threat of the law
1t supports the law. And when the capital pun
ishmept law is supported by the prompt execution
of all murderers, then the awful crime is rarely
committed.
For the Christian Herald to give currency to
epithets as relic of barbarism "uncivilized," etc,
is accusing somewhat dangerously statute which
God has himself made and honored in holy Scrip
ture, which Moses promulgated and enforced, which
the righteous kings Of Israel inflicted which Christ
in his own body bscams subject to in his execution
on the cross, and which He had before taught was
not abolished, (AIatt. V: II, 1S) and which He hon
ored by extending its scope over those who
angry with brethren without cause Matt V: u,
22).
You say that .the modern tendency in all laws
dealing with crime is refomative rather than punt
tive" Such is not the principle of American law.
The principle of American law is preventive.
You say that mot until the world has advanced
good deal farther on the road toward an enlight-
ened Christian civilization will legal killing disap
pear" If the Christian Herald will make candid
study of the progress of enlightened Christian civil
ization as related to the law of capital punishment
for the crime of murder, it will appear that where
the law has never or rarely been enforced where
it has been abolished there is found less enlightened
Christian civilization as in South American states,
in Russia and our own Maine, in which places also
life is woefuly cheap; whereas on the other hand,
wherever the law is honored as notably in Great
Britain and other European nations, there is found
the most enlightened Christian civilization and the
greatest protection to human life
EBEN BUMSTEAD.