Arizona republican., 1910-04-15
The Pardon of Col. Cooper.


 to an admiring Athenian who tolt
 him that if he possessed the impar.
 tiality of the lately exiled Aristides
 the Just he would make good
 archon eponymus.
 Governor Patterson of Tennessee is
 less frank than the Athenian general
 impartial. He fulfilled public ex- pectation in his pardon with indecent haste of Col. Cooper. the murderer of the late United States Senator Car mack But in giving his old friend and political adherent his freedom he probably sacrificed his own political fortune. Leaving out of calculation the followers and friends of Carmack. it is almost certain that the mem minded citizens of the anti Carmack faction will conclude at the first op- portunity that one who so grossly abuses his power is not fit to exer- else power.
 If with the honesty of Themistocles. Governor Patterson had declared that he was moved by his friendship for Col. Cooper to pardon him. he would stand in a more favorable light be- fore Tennesseeans and the world. But the reason he assigned-that the evil dence on which Cooper was convicted was .insufficient--that he had not had a fair trial-was false to the degree of absurdity.
 The Tennessee supreme court had within a few hours affirmed the judg- ment of the trial court under which Cooper was sentenced to twenty years in the penitentiary.
 While the court may not have re- viewed the evidence Cthough so far as we know it may have done sol, it is the business of supreme courts to determine whether fair trials have been had in courts below. The su- preme court of Tennessee had just decided that Col Cooper had had a fair trial.
 As to the sufficiency of the evil dence against Cooper. published ac- counts at the time of Carmack's death l and published reports of the trial left | no doubt in the public mind that a l murder had been committed.
 Cooper had long been irritated by | attacks upon him by Carmack's news | paper, the Nashville Tennessean | These attacks were not of a virulent | character; they reflected less upon Coopers character than upon his po- litical judgment. for he and the mur dered man had once been warm per sonsl friends. The article which pre- cipitated the tragedy vas hardly seri- ous
 Cooper at once uttered a conditional threat against the life of Carmack. and the latter was warned. An inn pending meeting between Cooper and Carmack became tn. subject of con CTS family and between them and friends of the family. It was expect ed by all of them that blood would be shed.
 Cooper and his son set out in search of Carmack. and met him on the street. There was but one disinter- ested eyewitness of the meeting and of the death of Carmack. lady whom Carmack had just addressed as the Coopers approached. She heard the opening remark and Carmack's reply He made no gesture which could have been regarded as hostile-or upon which the flimsiest plea of self-dc- fense could have been reasonably based. Il
 The contention of the Coopers wa, for his attacks upon Col, Cooper. warned that they must not be re- peated and a retraction of the previ- ,us utterances demanded. he at once irew gun and began to fire. Governor Patterson could not have regarded. under the common rules of evidence. the testimony of these men ,n trial for liberty and life as off setting that of the lady who had no interest in the outcome of the trial. h There was. too. the patent fact that .wo men had sought. unlawfully ,rmed. hostile meeting with a man whose life they had threatened. There to Carmack precisely what Cooper had said would happen to lim.
 In the face of this testimony and hese circumstances, Governor Patter- ion would stand higher in his own ,stimation and that of his fellow .itizens if he had boldly declared that ,