Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1908-07-06

IN MI prisingly large NUMBER OF peo-
III X%il pie who should know better
lksA4A4D have been lying in ambush to
accomplish his discontinue.
So altogether incompetent and unequal
to the grave task they assume to dis
patch with so much self-confidence and
unctious rectitude are the apologists
and supporters of justice a la mode
that they see no alternative to hang-
Ing or at all events Furnishing man,
and setting him at large to the danger
Of society and himself.
Still addressing his jury, the author
proceeds: when I ask you for a YER
dict in the prisoners favor, you as
sumo that / would set him free, assur-
ing him that he is an injured man. AS
If l would release a tiger in crowded
circusl or allow a homicidal maniac
at large on the public street, OF course
not. 1t would be folly to set at liberty
a besotted savage. But he Is victim
of heredity and environment, and to
punish him Is unjust"
"a woman's voice: The monsterl Kill
himl)
Madam, there is not a woman here
can be sure that any child of hers may
not be driven by society to stand some
day in the dock" but you hate the
prisoner and you cannot forgive me
for not hating him." and our author
goes on to analyze and to demonstrate
the unreason of 1t all, as thus: I'VE
hate shark; yet the shark is not so
cruel as a cat, or a shrike, or society
lady. The shark does not deliberately
torture its prey, as the cat does the
mouse; as the shrike does the fly or
beetle which it impales on a thorn ana
leaves to die; while the society lady
eats lobster which has, to her knowl.
edge, been broiled alive"
AS Mr.. Blatchford admits, the shark
is horrible; so is the murderer. But
why confound horror with hate? The
criminal makes one shudder. "My
whole nature recoils from him; but
do not HATE and do not BLAME"
The following passage should suffice
to rescue the authors position from
the misapprehension which with the
loose-thinking reader is apt to attach
to 1t at first glance: Imagine an in
nocent, graceful and charming girl,
more delightful than garden of
sweet flowers. Then imagine her ten
years hence, drunken harlot, wal
lowing in the gutter-hideous, filthy,
obscene. How should we feel toward
herr Some would blame, some would
pity, some would try to befriend her:
but hardly one could endure her touch,
her speech, her gaze. She has become
a horror in the light of day. My cler-
ical friend and l would be alike touched
and repealed; but he would not under
stand"
A comparison of the degraded woman
and the murderer, pleading that pity
not hate should be their portion: that
we should seek to destroy-not these
victims, but the conditions that made
them, Mr.. Blatchford caps with this
illuminating passage: 1.-THE bitterest
wrong of all is that these fellow Great
ures of ours have be. u degraded below
the reach of our help and our affec-
tion." He tells us how, when he reads
of or sees some such repulsive wreck,
he brushes the anger out Of his heart
and remembers what he might have
been as a victim of certain phases of
social state which most of us believe
In and uphold. IT cannot hate these
miserables, though cannot love
them, but to drive them to crime and
disgrace beyond redemption and then
to hate and hang them; Il that Just?".
81 ask for verdict in the prisoners
favor, but cannot ask that he De set
at liberty. We could not uberate a
smallpox patient or lunatic. Though
we should not punish, we MUST re-
strain"
Coming now to the failure of punish
ment, Mr.. Blatchford asks; What Is
the use of punishment? Is the man
are we-better for itY Is any human
being in the wide world edited or bet
tered when q man is hanged? That 1t
is unjust we have seen. But is 1t any
USE?" Here follows discussion on
the school of moralists who protest that
virtue would die out and morality be-
come a mockery IL we ceased to scold
and whip and execute each other, as II
Injustice and ferocity were the best
exemplars of justice and human kind
ness.
After quoting DIR. Aked (then of
Pembroke chapel. Liverpool, England,
now Of the Rockefeller church) who,
declaiming against what he called this
''preposterous notion of moral ire
scon visibility" declared that 1t Is the
doctrine OF every coward, every cur. or
every thief who ever pilfered from his
employers till, of every seducer and
traitor the world has ever SEEM" and
further that mo juggling with words.
no nonsense about knowing better :.
will serve to conceal from myself the
hideous view of my guilt" Mr.. Blatch-
ford says: And yet DR.. Aked Is min
lister of the Christian religion, pro-
fessed follower of Christ, who said OF
his murderers: Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they DO l
the idea of virtue and docility
through punishment as the idea Of
every tyrant, OF every religious perse-
cutor, of every wifebeater, Of every
martinez, of every bully and brute the
world has ever seen. But ] prefer to
look calmly and sensibIyN at the evil
dence."
And he proceeds to show how that
''highIy moral ruler, King Henry VIII
of England, according % the author OF
'Elizabethan England, hung up 12,OOO
rogues and vagabonds." and he goes on
to point out that Sir Thomas More.
who was one of the finest men Eng
land ever bred, and was lord high
chancellor under Henry VIII. has put
i on record in his noble work ,o iI,t Utopia"
NOT onlv unjust but ineffectuak 1t is
fact that Sir Thomas himself re-
counts that one day when ne was din
ing with Cardinal Archbishop. Morton,
an English lawyer, also at the table,
took occasion to commend the severe
.,4,o, ,aaa chat man fs capable of dis