The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1909-09-17
~PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE"

one bearing the above title by Charles
Reade.
1t makes all the difference in the
world when you put yourself in the
other fellows place.
Tradition has it that when Florida
was q territory a great many feuds
existed at the capital, and they led to
duels, and in one instance to a MUIR
der.
The young man charged with the
crime belonged to one of the most
prominent families of Tallahassee,
but Notwithstanding which he was
tried and convicted.
The governor was appealed to for
clemency, but all to no purpose. FL
nally the mother of the condemned
man, accompanied by the president of
the senate, who was a lawyer of great
prominence, and who was recognized
as the leader of one of the warning
| factions, filed into the executive Of
fee. He made strong appeal to the
governor in behalf of the young man,
and carried public sentiment with him
almost overwhelmingly.
The governors answer was antici-
pated the next morning, but that night
he quietly left the state, and the law
yer who made such an eloquent plea
in the condemned mans behalf be-
came governor by virtue of his Office
as president of the senate, and the
young man and his friends, of course,
expected clemency, but the acting gov
ernor suddenly became as unyielding
to their prayers as adamant.
He said that when he made the plea
for the young mans life he did so as
private citizen, but as governor Of
the state his position had been revers-
ed That he was now governor and
was sworn to execute the laws; that
the young man had had fair and i'm
partial tria' by a jury of his peers;
the court of last resort had sustained
the finding of the lower court; that
no substantial reason had been given
why the verdict of the jury should be
set aside, except the one of mercy
proceeding from the fact that the I'M
fortunate young man was a member
of a prominent, gentle and refined
family, which was not sufficient to
overcome the demands of justice, and
his execution quickly followed.
Governor Brown of Georgia was re-
Gently placed almost in a similar po-
sition in the case of w. H. Mitchell,
of Thomasville, who was convicted of
abduction, and a strong plea was
made for executive clemency by his
neighbors, friends and the press of
the state, but without avail.
In writing of Governor Browns re-
fusal to invoke the power of his Office
in behalf of Mitchell, Editor PendIe-
ton of the Macon Telegraph,
member of the faction to which he be-
longs, comments upon the action of
Georgia's governor and the delicate
position in which he was placed as
follows:
Should the clemency asked for in
the present case be extended, there is
grave danger that it would bear fruits
of sorrow in every section of our
state. 1t would set an example per-
nicious beyond campare, an example
embodying a daily menace to Geor-
| gas womanhood. 1t would say that
we have one law for the rich, another
| for the poor; one law for the highly
education, another for the poor, to en-
| joy the privileges and immunities con-
sistent upon education; one law for
the classes, another for the masses.
81 would that the ordeal of deciding
this case were not upon me. My heart
bleeds for the gentle and refined fam
| lily of this one whom the jury of his
peers has declared guilty of the mad
act which has plunged them into the
slough of sorrow"
These are a part of the words en-
ployed by Governor Brown in his writ
ten decision in the noted Mitchell
case.
The editor of the Telegraph has
been closely related by the ties of
friendship of many years to "the gen
tie and refined family who were
brought down in sorrow by this re-
markable, and to us, unfathomable
case; and he, as earnestly as he knew
how, asked the pardon board to com.
mute the sentence to a fine THE
springs of sympathy as the govern.
or said, were well-night exhausted
But the chief executive occupied a
different position, and we realize that
the responsibility brought to him a
keener sense in holding the balances
1t cannot be denied that the evidence
the verdict and the judgment of the
} court made a case that could not be
assailed; and yet there are those OF
us who cannot grasp it, except on the
theory of insanity. Nevertheless the
governor takes the highest ground
with the greatest courage. We believe
that he would have tempered justice
with mercy if he could have seen his