Newark post., 1913-01-08

worse, and as a demagogue which is to
be a kind of monster, / will venture to
say that Mr.. Conner S statement, that the
defect in the law, and not the mode of
punishment, is the thing to attack, that
the law is defective to such an extent
that in can not be enforced upon the rich,
and that is one reason why it should be
abolished. Of course it is unthinkable
that wealthy men should be whipped. If
in over two hundred years or so of oper-
alton the law has never been made to
apply to any but the poor how can it be
expected to apply to the rich now9 Mr..
he practically admits that none but the
poor are whipped. Now to the rich who |
are quite immune from the whipping post,
this, if they have no sense of justice but,
like Mr.. Conner, substitutes the wish of
$3.50 per cent of the people of Delaware y
for the abstract idea Of equality before
the law and a just regard for all, set
ties the matter. The rich live by the
! =
not to be whipped, no matter what they
! do. The poor are different class and
may be whipped. Here we have an Illus
trated the great plan by which the Roman
Empire arranged things. The wealthy,
being Roman citizens, could not be law
fully whipped, the friends of Jesus, and
He himself, being poor and not Roman
citizens, also being among that class OF
so.caled sentimental idealist, muck
akers, crank reformers and demagogues -
could be lawfully whipped and, of course,
were. In this great world struggle for
freedom for uplift for the common peo-
pie, Mr.. Conner arrays himself quite with
the fefvor characteristic of his class, on
the side of the wealthy who are not
whipped and Of the "defective law
which has always been defective but has
been quite to the taste of the haters of
democracy, from the days of PLATE and
Herod to the days, shall we say, of the
staunch defender of the whipping post
in Delaware.
a
ciful to whip a man than to kill him by
tuberculosis, it seems a little argument
for so great Il cause as the defense OF
the privilege of the rich to have the poor
+ whipped but not to be whipped them,
selves. For the man whipped in Della
ware does not always turn from the whip
ping post to his home but instead gets his
e Imprisonment, and his tuberculosis also
. receives it while weakened by his whip
ping and dies the quicker. Yet even were
it true that the whipping post discharged
= the prisoner, the argument that it is bet
= ter to whip than to kill him, an argu
- ment, which is not always true, does no
seem very adequate. In the same way i
might be urged that it is better to xii
: him by tuberculosis than by boiling in oil
e In a postscript Mr.. Conner says tha
1 the whipping post has been ''eXposed
SO many times that really we hav
grown callous and Indifferent. 0
J. course,-otherwis you couldn t defend il
IL The natural love of justice in you mus
be covered WITH an ulhatufdl grown u
= you would not defend system which il
5. variahly gives to the poor one punishment
and to the equally guilty rich another
But it is better to defend ancient wrong
= and time -honored infamies, to abuse th
II men who seek to follow the Carpenter q
Nazareth in stirring up the people
than to be merely sleepy, defendin
neither laws that favor the rich, nor ii
forces which seek a square deal for even
poor man now Disseminated against.
is better to have sense of right whic
depends upon 900 per cent of the POI
ulation, instead of upon God or the sem
of Justice than TO have no ideals.
Iron Hill Md. o. Il. Wdshbarn.