The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-03-25
FORT SMITH HOLDS
 HANGING RECORD Ninety-Nine Men Legally Exe- cuted in Twenty Years ONE JUDGE SENTENCED ALL Became Known as "the Man Without Heart," But He Justifies His
 Course-career of Judge
 Parker.
ONE JUDGE SENTENCED ALL

From the New York Herald
 The longest record of legal executions ever known belongs to Fort Smith, Ark. Ir just twenty years ninety y-nine men were hanged in that little town, and they were the worst characters the west ever had. One judge sentenced all of them. Besides those he sentenced fifty-three others, who escaped the death penalty from various reasons. He sat in the trial of 354 men charged with murder. He was so stern in his handling of the black heart ed men who overran the Indian Territory from 1875 to 1896 that he grew to be known everywhere as "the man without heart"
 This man was Judge Isaac c. Parker of tho western district of Arkansas. He went to Fort Smith in 1875 to sit in the cases arising in the Indian Territory, at that time infested with the hardest. tough- est men and the worst women the west ever knew.
 Nothing but the sternest law, rigidly en- forced by the government of the United States, had the least effect upon them. Congress had provided that all cases from the Territory should be tried at Fort Smith This arrangement continued until September l. 1S96 when Congress gave jurisdiction of Indian Territory cases in various judicial districts created within the territory.
 Judge Parker was sensitive to the gen eral belief that he was so strict as to be
 inhuman in his lack of sympathy. and
 there was no doubt that he was misrep-
 resented. Te was a kindly hearted man, ~ifri1 ltna | ton of law that would ultimately conquer
 and subdue the lawless element that held l sway in that portion of the southwest | ST eakng of the more than 150 men he had l sentenced to the gallows during his judi cal life at Fort Smith, Judge Parker l said:
 Proud of His Record. | People have said to me: You are the judge who hung so many men But my | answer has been: It is not I who hung them. It Is the law I never hnng man. People who say I am cruel do not under
 stand how l am situated. I am. however,
 proud of the record have made. l believe 1 + has checked a flood of crime.
 'I think the courts of the country are 1 somewhat to blame for the thousands of
 murders yearly committed. In the past | five years Che was taking in 1S96), 439O0 persons have been murdered in this coun- l try. This fearful condition does not exist | because our laws are defective. We have l the most magnificent legal system in the world. The trouble is that the bench looks to the shadow, in the shape of techncali- ties, instead of to the substance, in the form of crime. There is too much tech nicality.
 "Yes, they say l am cruel but they Tor get that for years I have had to contend with the crimes of the worst body of ruff fans the United States ever had. They were brutes, or demons in human form. Their crimes were deliberately planned and fiendishly executed They were men of the most hardened character. oblivious to decency, honor and honesty.
 "In my jurisdiction alone 6o United States marshals have been murdered while attending to their duties. Wilson, who was connected with the Star gang. man who boasted that he had killed 29 people, was one of the men I sentenced to hang. r was not cruelty to do this, in view or his record. One of the early cases that came before me was that of young Chattanooga physician who moved west with his young wife and located In the Arbuckle mountains. Two negroes who haunted the neighborhood waylaid the doctor and tied him to a tree, leaving him there to starve. He could not free