Iron County record. [volume] (Cedar City, Utah) 1893-1982, 1913-02-07


condemned criminal be given the opportunity tol
commit suicide, thus preventing the staining of
any ones hands with the blood of fellow being
though he be condemned murderer, has called
forth the usual wave of comment on the right to
inflict capital punishment.
One of the strongest discussions we have
read on the subject was by Rev. Bowerman of the
Emmanuel Baptist church of Salt Lake City, who,
while decrying the duty of taking life by law,
yet defended it as necessity for the protection
of society," and found justification for 80 doing in
the holy scriptures. He began with the passage
in Genesis which says that she who sheds mans
blood, by man shall his blood be also she'd and
says, in answer to some who oppose the infection
of the death penalty as being contrary to the
commandment thou shalt not KILL" and the
omission from the new testiment Of any refer
ence to the right to take human life, that the
first scriptural injunction was the law given by
the sovereignty to the people for their govern
ment, or as we would say in present day legal
phraseology, the granting of police powers to
the people," while the commandment referred to
the moral aspect, meaning that no individual
has right to take life but that the sovereignty
may, as protection to the individual members
OF organized society.
Persons who have studied the criminal prob
lem carefully and dispassionatey have found
ample justification for inlcton of the death
penalty. and results in states and nations where
the death Of murderer follows swift and sure
after the commission of the crime the number
of murders and "homicides'' have been reduced
to the minimum. AS a result Of the loose
methods of law enforcement in the United States,
particularly as it applies to the taking of life.
murder has reached point where it is a
disgrace to civilization. In comparison toxalmosr
any other civilized nation. we are nation of hu-
man butchers Murder runs rampant. and with
the delays Of court procedure and the indifference
of juries, conviction is possible in buta small
proportion of the prosecutions begun.
recent article in the New York Evening
Sun gives some startling facts respecting murder
and the prosecutions and convictions secured and
we quote from the Sun as follows:
Homicide, from deliberate murder
down to manslaughter. lis entirely too
common in the United Stssas- According ss4i
to the American Prison associations COM
mittee ON criminal procedure, homicid-
al crime in the United States has increas-
ed 45O per cent. since 1889, and the ratio
of convictions is less than 10 per cent.
In Germany the ratio of convictions Is IS
per cent. Homicida crime in the United
| according to the same authority, exceeds
! the UOCai Oh Lidt Vi any EH clNlhLeu Hdr Il
/ TORS outside of Russia. Nearly thirty
persons are murdered every day in the
United States. not including Alaska and
the island Independence Not one out
4 of four murderers is brought to trial, and
i out of twenty-five brought to trial only
one receives death sentence. Ten thous-
j and homicide crimes are committed in
the United States each year In Chicago
4 alone, in 1909, 118 homicide crimes were
i committed; for the same time in London
!. 20 of the same kind of crimes were COM
4 mitted. and London is four times the size
i of Chicago. New York city last year had
!, 119 cases of homicide. These figures are
appalling and call for Close search of
hearts by the American people. We are no
less civilized than European nations.
), What then underes this terrible discrep-
ancy in crimes involving human life?''
We believe the legislature of this state can b.
! depended upon to retain the infection of the
death penalty in capital cases., but as it's nfctor
!, is intended not means of revenge or cruelty
|. but as deterrent to Others, we would favor tn
substitution of the electrics chair for hanging
: giving the condemned the right to choose between
electrocution and shooting, both of which wou