Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1907-12-05
WHY NOT THE LAW?


officers and enraged citizens are en-
gagged in an exciting man hunt.
tough character armed With Il gun ant
supplied with 100 cartridges Is skulk-
ing among the river bluffs and in the
tangled bottoms while the countryside
lswarms with searchers anxious t.
shoot him down or hang him to TN
nearest tree The man hunt follows
the discovery of young householder
and his girl wife dead in their beds
their skulls crushed in by bludseon
They had been killed while they SLEPT
presumably by the fugitive WhC
drunken, poverty stricken, morose and
savage, found an occasional night {
lodging with these kindly people when
others refused to keep him.
This is peculiar murder. Why
should this man rise in the night to
slay the only persons who pitled nm
and were kind? The news dispatch
! thus explains it:
Jones was 45 years old, tramp
a hard citizen. There was nothing In
common between them. The accepted
explanation tonight is found in Jones
demonical temper and murderous dis
position when drunk. His carouses
We're always attended by fights, and he
usually threatened to kill some one,
and several times made the attempt. II
| is presumed that he became possessed
of a murderous passion and arose
while the Van Wrinkles slept to salts
| fly it, Late last night Jones, who is a
worthless fisherman, told Brewer and
one or two others that he was going
to the Van Wrinkle home. He came
| into Fairport late in the day from
| Muscatne, drunk, and in the vicious
mood in which drink usually puts
him. He applied at several places for
nights lodging, but was refused be-
cause of his condition and his nasty
| temper. He remarked that he would
go to the Van Wrinkles because they
always took him. This was the last
went to the Van Wrinkle home and
| that he was taken in by them, for
second bed in the sleeping room had
been occupied during the night,
| There is accusation as well as ex-
PLANTATION in the above paragraph.
vicious man, murderous when in Id
| uor, who had severa' times made at
| tempts to do murder when his evil
| instincts were reused by drink, was
| permitted to go unrestrained until the
attempt had become an accomplished
| fact and the lust for murder satiated.
| 1t is the old story over again. A drunk
| en-, vicious scalawag staggering thru
community bullying, threatening and
| terrorizing until the logical result OF
official Indifference has been attained
and murder has beer done. Then wild
activity on the part of the officers and
citizens whose Indifference is part of
the guilt attaching to murder, man
hunt, and perhaps mob murder at the
close. This was bad man who had
attempted seevral times to kill. Why
| isn't he in the peaitentiary and the
Wrinkles alive?
| For several reasons: One Of these
| is that no man is SO low, vicious or
|murderously inclined that he can not
| buy the whisky to stimulate him to
reckless crime; the Indifference Of the
public TO the acknowledged fact that
whisky is behind nine murders out of
ten; the attitude of peace officers to-
| ward men of the stamp of this Mus
catine tough Doubtless he had paid
fines for assault following previous at
tempts to murder, possibly as much as
1885, Perhaps he had been often dis
likely that anyone asked where he got
drunk enough to want to kill some
body. He knew he ought to be in the
penitentiary. Long immunity made
him bold. He had done all but murder
without very serious trouble Murder
was all that was left him to do and
he got drunk and did it.
There is not city in Iowa where
one or more of this type is not sWag-
gering at large, posing as a bad man.
The officers know them, the public
| knows some of them. If there is on
earth a process of incubation of muir
der and crime, il is our method of
dealing with this class and the dives
that welcome toughs to their bars as
headquarters. Murder is a conse-
quential part of this policy.
We may turn out in droves and
hunt down and slay the murderer,
Is send him to prison or hang him by
law. thus getting him out of the way
and the incident out of mind, but the
responsibility can not be entirely
shifted How much are the citizens OF
neighborhood and Of state re-
sponsible for such murders as that at
Fairport?