Palestine daily herald. [volume] (Palestine, Tex.) 1902-1949, 1909-11-11

of prison management, are disposed to
: lay the fault at the door of the pres
ent administration. Any one with the
intelligence of a hookworm or the
fairness of a snake knows that the
present administration is no more to
blame than any administration for the
past several years. The conditions ex-
posed have been of steady growth and
are the result of a defective and obso-
lete system. No state official can be
held to blame in any special way, but
the people are as much to blame as
any man in office, because no one be-
fore has thought to look into these
conditions. The main thing now is
that since the nasty truth is known,
to get busy and wipe out these bru-
talities and put the prisons on a sys-
TEN where such things cannot be re
peated"
Governor Campbell appointed the
penitentiary commissioners and the,
wardens, deputy wardens, agents, in
spectors and guards are his friends
and supporters. Is the governor re-
sponsible for his administration? He
claims credit for all the good or near
good accomplished How can he
shirk responsibility for the evil? Pen
itentiary commissioners, penitentiary
wardens, penitentiary agents and pen
itentiary employees are state officials,
and yet we are told that no state of
fetal can be held to blame in any
special way. If the publishers of the
Palestine Herald employ an editor and
he makes mistakes, or blunders, or
permits his subordinates to make
them, the editor can be held to blame
in a special way and off goes his
head. Since the nawsty truth is
known" the Palestine contemporary
demands that the powers that be
shall wipe out these brutalities "and
put the prisons on a system where
such things cannot be repeated" For
this the Palestine Daily Herald should
be commended. But, mark you, the
law is all right The law does not
sanction brutalities or inhumanities.
It is the men who make "the sys-
tenn the men who sanction the sys-
EN-, the men who enforce the system
and the men who champion the sys-
.em who are at fault-Dallas Times
Herald.
The Times Herald is the boosted
custodian of the record and its con-
essed mission in life is to keep that
ecord straight. And the good Dallas
PAPER usually plays fair, but in the
lbove it states only half the truth of
he record. Will the Times Herald,
With the knowledge before it, under
axe to convince us that conditions
re worse under the present admins
ration than they have been under
'revious administrations? Is it not
fact, record keeper, that the condi-
ions in the prisons and in prison
are the outgrowth of a
ystem long neglected by the eye of
ublic investigation? If the Times
ierald is prepared to prove that the
ms belong to this administration
olely, then the Herald will join with {
in crying aloud the shame of Texas.
Let us, in truth, keep the record
traight, and let us with the record
lace the blame where it belongs. If
ne people-the great masses of the d
eople-were more alive to public 5
latters, were more watchful of pub
C men and public measures, no such
hame as that of the prison scandal
ould ever blacken the name of the
tate. And we say again that the U
eople may blame themselves in #
rye measure for whatever of wrong u
as long as they have the O
over to correct. Public opinion is
.arless weapon, and is a sword of
rength that oyercomes all wrong.
nd the people yield this sword. 81