Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-02-05
The Argument Against the Lash.

When Congress adjourned last March
without having paid serious attention to the
bill proposing the establishment OF the
whipping post in this District as means
of Furnishing wife-beaters, it was the hope
of the community that no attempt would De
made to revive the suggestion That hope
was strengthened when the Presidents
message sent to Congress last December
was found to contain no reference to the
subject 1t was destroyed when Represen-
tative Adams the author of the whipping
post bill of last session, reintroduced the
measure in December and announced that
be proposed TO push it to consideration. He
p. was aided In. this purpose when the House
District committee the other day voted to
send the bill to a place on the calendar,
though without formal recommendation.
Thus the bill is scheduled to be discussed
next Monday when the District calendar is
laid before the House
There was no installing the attitude of a
majority of the people of the District upon
this subject a year ago. With so few ex-
Ceptions that the general trend of opinion
was the more clearly evident, the citizens
OF the capital rejected the proposition to
select the seat of government as the scene
of barbarous revival of middle-age pun
the lash as a means of correcting wife
heaters were finally expressed in the form
of an article which The Star published al
most precisely year ago. They fit the
case today as they did then. and they are
therefore reproduced in another part of this
edition.
1T is altogether beside the vital point OF
this matter to urge that wife-beaters are
themselves cruel and deserving of cruel
treatment; that they are brutes who must
be brutality handled TO make them see the
error of their ways. The paramount ques-
tion is, VIII the lash cure, not merely pun
fish, the brutal conduct of these degraded
men? VIII it check the evil? Those who.
with The Star reject the whipping post as
relic of barbarism, put the case upon the
true ground that the lash will stimulate the
brutal instincts of cruel husbands instead
OF subduing them; that it will lead to the
far more serious crimes of wife-desertion
and even wife-murder; that it will check
the complaints of suffering wives and sub
Ject them to a reign of terror infinitely
worse than the occasional blows of their
drunken or ill-tempered husbands: that 1t
will degrade the entire community by ex-
posing to view the vindictive side of the
law. instead of its correctional side; that
in short the lash will serve as a democrat
izing rather than as a regeneratiye agency.
Those who reject the lash are ready with
n substitute. They urge that brutal hus-
bands should be imprisoned as occasion
ally they are today but not merely con-
fined in Jail TO fatten in idleness OF sent to
the worl1house TO labor with the chain gang
without profit to any one Such brutes
should be taught their duty to their fam
lilies by being imprisoned at labor which
will yield return. to be used for the sup
port of the wives and children thus tempo
rarily deprived of their providers. This
remedy is urged by many socologists and
is Endorsed by labor leaders. 1t is in ac-
Cordance with the corrective spirit of today
and not with the retaliatory spirit of the
middle ages
However viewed. when nationally an
alyzed the whipping post shocks the best
sense of man. 1t is a confession of de-
plorable weakness and Incompetence. 1t is
unchristian and brutalzing 1t is dam
gerous. 1t is reversionary and against the
spirit of civilization The District strongly
protests against being by this proposition
held forth TO the world as degraded COM
munity, unable to cope with it's social evils
in harmony with the progressive tendency
of the age. For itself and for the country
at large 1t cries out against the assumption
that the husbands of this locality are In
need of punishment sayoring of medieval
barbarity and that the only remedy which
Congress In its wisdom can offer for such
a condition is one which the hearts and
minds Of rational citizens instantly reject
as unwise and shocking