University Missourian. [volume] (Columbia, Mo.) 1908-1916, 1908-11-18
SPIRIT OF THE NEWS

The record made in the arrest and sub
sequent trial and conviction of Peter
Van Vlissingen, real estate dealer and
distant relative of President Roosevelt,
in Chicago, for forgery is new along
the line of speedy trials and convictions.
The records show that in exactly two
and One-fOurth hours from the time
that Vlissingen was arrested he was
lodged in Jail ready to be taken to the
state penitentiary for a sentence of
from one to fourteen years. This rec
ord is significant. Judge Windes, of the
criminal court of Chicago, should receive
the thanks of every fair-minded man
for setting a new pace in trials where
there is no doubt as to the guilt of the
accused. In most cases of this kind,
the guilty person is tried, and found
guilty, then some technicality is found
i'm the indictment, and a new trial is
is convicted, his lawyers appeal the
case, and it goes to a higher court, and
so on for perhaps period of five or
six years, until finally all of his funds
are exhausted, when he is either duly
convicted or set free, because the peo-
pie have forgotten the case or have
lost all interest in it. From the con-
structiOn of our present penal code,
many guilty men are permitted to 60
free simply because they have sufficient
money to hire skillful lawyers to find
or make technicalities in some of the
legal documents concerning their arrest
and trial This should not be true, and
the example of Judge Windes in Chi
cago should be followed by every other
criminal Judge in the United States.
The report of the election returns
concerning the candidacy of William R.
Painter, candidate for lieutenant gov
ernor on the democratic ticket, and ia
cob F. Gmelich, candidate for the same
Office on the republican ticket, show
Painter to have a lead of 81 votes over
his rival. This long drawn out contest
shows that some method should be de-
vised by which election results could be
determined sooner. 1t must be hard on
a candidate and his friends to have their
feelings moved from the zero point one
day to the sunny degrees of hope on
the next, and then probably dashed
back to the zero point again, the follow
ing day.
At last Senator Stephen B. Elkins
has made another statement in regard
to the rumored engagement of his
daughter, Miss Katherine Elkins, to the
Duke of Abruzzi of Italy. He says it
is not true, and that no engagement
exists, but he compromises his state
ment by refusing to say that no under
standing" exists between his daughter
and the Duke. This is certainly good
news, and something that the public
has been waiting for for several months.
If the statement had been made two
months ago, perhaps the Dukes ''feel-
ings" would not have been hurt by the
rude stories that the American news
papers have been printing about the ru-
mored engagement. There are few true
Americans who would not like to see
one of our American girls in direct line
for the throne of one of the leading
European countries, but what they
would like to know is the facts in the
case. If an engagement exists, let's
have the truth about it. There certain
ly has been enough advertising done for
all parties concerned.
The Chicago Board of Education is
planning to build an educational insti-
tuition for the education of delinquent
children, and also for those suffering
from tuberculosis. The school is to be
built on a farm near the city limits
of Chicago, and is to consist of separate
buildings for male and female children.
as well as separate buildings for chill
dren suffering from either tuberculosis
or subnOrmal development. This is
good idea, and something that every
school board should pay attention to.
The care of delinquent children is
problem that confronts every school
board to some extent, but is more true
in a large city than anywhere else.
The practice of holding children arrested
in the cities in the same cells or same
with hardened criminals should
have been discontinued long ago. The
practice of permitting diseased pupils
to sit in the same rooms. with other
children is even worse. A school of this |
kind will enable the authorities to treat
these cases scientifically, and it will
prevent the spread of crime, as we'll as
disease among the children in the public
,obooI.