The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1909-04-22
Richmond Times-Dispatch.


A very strong sentiment and emo
tionalinteresta attaches to the enforce
ment of the death penalty upon u
woman. All our ideas of woman
hood. all our mental and ethical as
sociations with the weaker sex, all
our conceptions of the place OF n wo-
man in the social body and i'm the
home, are in conflict with the grim
demand of the law that one OF them
must meet a violent death for her
sins. This psychological fact ex-
plains the columns ofnewspaper space
that have been recently devoted to
the execution of a murderess in the
New York State prison. II the crim-
inal had been a man, a few lines an
nouncing execution of the final pen
atty would have fully met all the
news value" of the occasion. The
crime was without unusual interest;
both the crime and the criminal were
quite forgotten in this part of the
world at least. But because the I'M
happy creature was a woman, the
press is suddenly aflare with the
longest and most circumstantial dis
patches; the eye of a whole country
is fixed upon the grisly ceremony;
and hysterical protests against the
laws course fly thick and fast in the
public prints and elsewhere.
All this is natural enough. if it is
not rational. We saw it in the case
of Mr.. Rogers. whose life was taken
by the State of Vermont. We saw it
in the case of Mrs. Martha Place, the
only other woman ever electrocuted
in New York, who was put to death
ten years ago almost to day. The
excitement was rather less in this
latest case, but it is unchanged in
kind. The arguments used against
the execution of Mrs. Farmer by the
excited correspondents OF newspapers
where they are not directed against
the death penalty itself, naturally
bore upon the woman's position as
a mother. Thus: "On account OF
her child alone Mrs. Farmers life
should be spared. The fact
that Mrs. Farmer is a mother should
save lltT. IL IIle IuOlutI-
heart that she must go to the death
chair leaving behind her an infant.
1t is clear that her last con-
Germ is for the child" Analysed and
generalized, these arguments mean
that the law of motherhood trans
cends all other laws, and that the
separation OF mother and child is the
ultimate crime against society:
The law very properly declines to
draw any distinction between a male
and a female offender. Because oil
her greater natural geutleness OF dis
position, milder passions and strong
or antipathy to bloodshed and deeds
OF horror, a woman who kills is likely
to be a more perverted and immoral
human being than a man who kills,
and is SO actually more unfit to live.
This woman's crime was without a
CLEAN to relieve it's utter baseness
and brutality and with no shading
to suggest the desirability OF temper
ing justice with mercy. She took an
axe and butchered a woman friend
and guest in her house, in order to
steal this friends land. The act was
one of unmitigated badness. Indeed,
it is a singular fact about women
slayers that they SO often show q
total absence of all pity, horror OF
remorse; and there was no peg hers
upon which the sentimentaiist could
hang an argument. II this woman''
life should have been spared, so should
the life OF every murderer. That i
the necessary conclusion; and it il
proper to add there is growing
number of persons who accept thai
conclusion unreservedly. It's a plair
fact that the trend of modern though
il turning more and more against TIN
enforcement of the death penalty IL
any case. Uncertainty as to the NOR
al right of society to take life is gain
ing Roadway, and the natural gym
pathy aroused by the legal killing O
u woman never fails to augment AM
strengthen it.