The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1907-09-26
THE DEATH PENALTY IS
STRONGLY CONDEMNED
Maryland Friends Are Against Capital
Punishment.
NO PREPARATION AFTER DEATH.
NonresiStant Sect Claims That The
Legal Taking of Life Is Powerful
Incentive to Crime, and Endorses
Strong Paper.


question of capital punishment at
the meeting held recently at Sandy
Springs, Md. The meeting in
dorsed paper written by Mr..
Abram Adelman, which in part
is as follows.
If it can be supposed that CAPT
tai crime has eyer been committed
with full generalization of conse-
quences, the very fact of its CON-
mission is proof that the threaten
ed death penalty is not deterrent.
How foolish, then, to suppose that
even the extreme penalty can les
sen or prevent such ofenses. In
stead of lettering crime, it &C
tually inCites to crime. Nothing
will ever make life and woman
hood secure but strong popular
sense of their sacredness. This is
the reason there are so few crimes
among the Quakers, the Mora
VANS and other nonresistant sects.
But does the state cultivate among
the people the idea of the sacred
ness of life when it kills the
criminal? Would it foster respect
for womanhood by reverting to
the same barbarism? Manifestiy
not. Wars, by fostering contempt
for human life, are invariably fol-
lowed IN countries emerging from
them by long series of murders.
When executions were public
children who had witnessed them
often known to torture aud kill
their pet animals thereafter, and
even to torture one another. Such
executions were sometimes follow
co by a carnival of crime in which
there was usually at least one that
resembled the ofense that had
just been capitally punished
There are many cases proving this
fact in criminal annals. Nothing
is stronger to the criminal mind
than the power of suggestion.
The brutalizing effects of public
executions on the community
came at length to be noticed. For
this reason they have been abolish
ed in civilized countries, and now
the execution of the criminal is in
most places strictly private. By
this concession the advocates OF
capital punishment have implicitly
abandoned the ground that the
spectacle Of the criminals punish
ment is a deterrent, and have ad-
mitted it to be rather an incite-
ment to crime. But the modern
news facilities give to private ex-
ecutions all the demoralizing eff
fects of public executions.
Many arguments against capital
punishment are absolutely un-
answerable. One of the chief OF
these is the fallibility of human
judgment. The innocence of guilt
less men charged with crime is
sometimes discovered and due
reparation may be made him when
he lives. But what reparation can
be made if we have killed him
One case is on record of the hang
ing of an innocent man who was
actually embraced and consoled by
the real murderers Just before be.
ing launched into eternity-he all
the while vainly protesting his
innocence. Is it not better that
nlnety-nine guilty men escape than
that one innocent man be put tc
death?
Again, capital punishment is to.
day very reluctantly imposed. II
is, therefore, slow and uncertain
But nothing is better settled thar
that it is the certainty rather thar
the severity of punishment that
deters men from crime. If we be
lieved that we should positively
die at fixed, though distant day
all Of us would worry about oui
approaching doom. Some of II.
would die long before our time
from this very worry. All of u.
might reason that in the. course o
nature we should hardly live unit
that day, but, as it is, because thu