The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1907-03-12
DILATORY JUSTICE
The Powerful and Influential Snap
Their Fingers and Mock the Law.

Their Fingers and Mock the Law.
The Picayune says editorially: One of
the curious instances of the laws delay
in making. offenders answerable for their
misdoings is seen in the case of the man
ager of the Iroquois Theater in Chicago.
which was burned with nearly 600 of the
people assembled in it on December
80, 1903.
More than three years have passed
away since one Of the most frightful
calamities that ever fell on great gath
ering of pleasureseekers visited Chicago
in a crowded theater The weather was
cold, and all the doors which should have
given egresS when the building was found
to be OH fire were closed and fastened 50
that the large assemblage within was,
as it were, imprisoned and held as vic
Tins OF the flames. 1t was a matinee
performance that was being presented,
and the house was crowded chiefly with
women and children. The result was
that 500 persons persisted i'll the flames,
while hundreds of others were more or
less burned and mutilated.
Criminal action was at once COM
menced against the manager OF the play
house, who was charged with not having
complied with the law in furnishing 'ade
quate protection against fire and i'll shut
60 oil @Ia l.,
the people could not escape, whereby,
through his criminal neglect and miscon
duct, more than a thousand persons were
killed and wounded
If the trial had been held soon after
the calamity there is no doubt that the
manager would have been convicted and
given term in the penitentiary. But
this manager was person of influence
for whose benefit the criminal laws are
made He therefore found means to have
the trial put off three years and three
months, and he secured a change OF
venue from Chicago, where the crime
was committed, to Danville, town III
cago
1t is not supposed that at this distance
lot time and place from the day and
scene of the frightful event any convic-
ton can be had, but if that were possible
any actual punishment in the case is
scarcely thought of. 1t is this sort of
hot &c hr,r ,1a II, tIa
machinery of justice into disrepute and
contempt. The people who have suf
fered through some frightful criminality
by others are coming to understand that
it is almost hopeless to expect any re-
lcogntion, redress, vindication or protec
ton from the instrumentalities of the
law.
This is not the case in one locality or
State or section of the country only, but
| it is the situation everywhere. In ancient
times murderous crimes were avenged
on the perpetrators by the surviving
friends of the victims, and where, as i'll
the frontier and backwoods settlements
of the New World, the victim had no
| friends, the community took up his
wrongs, and wrought summary justice
upon the criminal.
10 put a stop to popular violence IN
such cases system of judicial tribunals
and police machinery was instituted, and
| it is still remarkably efficient i'll Euro
pean countries, and particularly in Eng
land, whence our courts were borrowed.
But in our own country the original Sys-
lem has been so modified and added to
that it operates more i'll favor of the
criminal than for justice, and it may be
safely said that it is extremely difficult
to bring an offender to justice unless
thefe be a strong and influential public
opinion against him. This sort of thing
may be carried beyond human endur-
ance when the people will again resort
to personal vengeance and lynch law.
If so, it will be the fault of the machin-
ely of the law in failing to give redress
to the people who will not be baked of
the justice which has been officially de-
MED to them.