The Washington times., 1911-06-04
Shall a Woman Be Hanged 10
Washington?
Reprinted from 7hursday's Times.

For the first time since June, 1865,
when Mrs. Surratt was sentenced to
death for completely IN the assassina-
ton Of President Lincoln, a woman
awaits execution in the District of Co.
lumbia.
Matte Z. Lomax has been convicted
of the murder of her husband last De-
cember, and the extreme sentence of
hanging has been pronounced by Judge
Wright for execution on July 81.
II the order of the court is carried
out, and if, eight weeks from next
Monday, the lifeless body of a woman
hangs from a gallows erected in the
Capital of the United States, it will
constitute the most impressive and
most influentially far reaching execu-
ton of the law in fifty years of his
tory.
In widely separated States women
have within that time paid the death
penalty for their wrong doing, but in
those cases the State was held re-
sponsihle, and the world at large did
not take It as representing the modern
idea as held by the entire nation.
There are. in fact, States in which the
execution of either man or woman is
now abolished. In Maine. Michigan,
Rhode Island, Kansas and Wisconsin
capital punishment no longer exists,
while in New York, New Jersey, North
Carolina, Massachusetts,, Ohio and Vir-
ginia a method less brutal than the
rope has been adopted.
But whatever be the attitude of the
public toward the just and righteous
punishment of the murderer. The Times
does not judge that the people of the
city of Washington, or the people OF
the country at large, believe that JUS
tice will be best satisfied ana the pub
lie welfare best served by the hanging
of a woman in the Capital of the coun-
Nor should the fact that this unfor-
tunate is a woman of the colored race
serve to excuse or mitigate spectacle
abhOrrent to the senslbuities and hu-
mainly of enlightened public opinion In
every part of the world.
If the color of her skin in any degree
prevented or hindered the development
of her moral education, or served 10
surround her with influences uninspir-
the unhappy result, and legal justice
may for that reason be more properly
tempered with executive mercy.
The plea for the prevention of this
execution is made, not In behalf of the
adjustment of capital punishment,
CHASTITY dehumanizing as that punish
ment may be; it is not made because OF
any claim of eXtenuating circumstances
in the commission of the crime, for in
the case of murder, which, on fair
rarely If ever are extenuating ctrcum-
stances.
But the plea is made because it DIES
not seem right, It does not seem hu-
man, it does not seem a thing of which
we as a people, as a country, or as a
Government may be proud.
If President Taft should commute the
sentence in this case and spare the dis
grace and the shock of the legal eXecu-
ton of a woman in Washington, he
will have taken away nothing from
eminent and effective justice. and made
impossible an incident of which no
American citizen could be in any way
or in any measure proud.
Will not the President commute this
woman's sentence to life imprisonment
and establish a precedent that in all
probability will end forever the posi-
hility of a womans execution in the
city of Washington?