The San Francisco call., 1909-11-19
ALMA BELL AN EXAMPLE OF
ENVIRONMENT AND HEREDITY
Girl Slayer's Life Is Strange Blending of Hard
ship and Sorrow Since Infancy
By GENEv1EvE YoELL PARKHURsT

/ pacity to do what had been pre-
7 scribed. to train the vine in the way 1t
should go. Contrast the mother with
the daughter who had been born with
out the power to overcome the Primi-
tive and had grown up untutored in the
right way of living. but stin crea-
ture of possibilities. Would it not be
difficult to depict a bitterer scene?
When she had dried her tears Alma
Bell asked me if there was anything
else would like to know.
said. 'Yes." that 1 could not un-
derstand how she had ever been able
to handle a revolver.
This amused her. and she threw back
tears, as she replied, why. I've
packed a gun all of my life. I was
only years old when 1 shot my
first deer"
Then she began to cry again as she
burst forth. "Oh. loved him SO, and
they would not let me see him in his
coffin"
Her grief was more than 1 could
stand. and so after few words of en-
couragement and hope 1 left her.
And afterward 1 found that she had
told the truth. She had packed a gum
all of her life. Her father, a Tennessee
frontiersman. who had been in Placer
since the days of the gold discovery,
was a typical desperate, such as we
may read of in Bret Harte. In his day
he had made and spent many fortunes.
being one of the most successful pros
pectors of early days. He once took
from the ground 500, 600 in one pocket.
only to spend it in aequitting himself
from a charge OF murder. which he
committed while on one of his numer-
Gus carousals. As ready with his gun
as he was with his money he killed
for the pleasure of seeing things die
vice which made him man feared
by his neighbors. Several times he was
suspected of serious crime. but either
through the fear he inspired or by ths
power of his personality he always
escaped conviction.
He settled his family on desolats
ranch near Rock creek the only barren
spot in all of beautiful, fertile Placer
county. where his wife was kept so
busy bearing and burying children. for
she had u living at one time, that she
had no time to spend on their care. so
they grew up as wild and unkempt as
| the country around them. They knew
not the difference between right and
wrong. their baby lips were never
/ taught to lisp at parents knee the pc
/ TO he - IL
/ be delivered from evil And what was
/ the result? Not one of them was ca
pable of learning differently by the
/ time they were sent to the district
school. Their teacher claims that they
We're as blunt mentally as they were
/ ethical1y.
But this same teacher, not so many
days ago sat upon the veranda Of a
hotel where there were several men
within earshOt who had been sum
mOned as jurors, exclaimed Il am
ashamed to have any one know that
/ taught her. Hanging is too good for
/ her. 1t should have been the other
way around"
What a remark for a woman to make
/ about a fellow woman whose life is
\ hanging in the balance, This woman
! should be ashamed. but not of her pU-
\ pill Perhaps had she resOrted to less
/ of invective and more of cOmprehen-
! sive teaching Alma Bell would not be
| where she is today. Just as every town,
no matter how sordid. has it's mansion
I and every land. however barren, has its
\ fertile spot. so has every human soul
/ no matter how far it lies beneath the
mold of the primitive, the capacity to
sprout up into the color of life when
watered by little human kindness and
/ interest.
What an example of environment and
/ heredity is Alma Bell There are those
who scoff at these things, but never
/ theless they exist until consciousness
4 appears to crowd them out, and Alma
Bell has never until the last few weeks
/ perhaps awakened to that conscious
ness which is the birthright of every
/ human being. beautiful GIRL with no
training and a dreadful heredity.
turned out at the age of Is to work in
the restaurants of a mining town
where has she been given the chance to
live?
This is not a plea for the life Of
Alma Bell. 1t is her story as she told
/ it to me, and as I saw it few daSs
after she had committed the dire dee1.
/ before she had had her unevolved mind
| put into turmoil by the persistence
/ of reporters and lawyers, who sought TO
/ mold it to their liking. 1t is also D
plea to. the world of women What IL
/ to be the end of Alma Bell. should shs
be acquitted, as she probably will. fer
I those men of Forest Hill have minds
and hearts that reverence the whole of
4 womankind? Is she to be stunned as a
/ thing contaminated. or viii her fellow
women point her to the path where
/ gIows the light that shineth always in
| the darkness?