The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-04-19
CASES OF INTEREST

JIM CROW ACT UPHELD.-A wo- man purchased a railway ticket in Mississippi for passage to New York. In addition to this sale she purchased a sleeping car check emitting her to a berth on the Pullman car attached to the train. When she boarded the train she discovered as her fellow passengers three men of the negro race, and protested to the employees on the train that she or the negroes be assigned to another coach This de- mand was refused or ignored, and she was forced, if she occupred a sleeper at all. to retire to her berth in the same car with the berths occupied by the negro passengers She claimed to have suffered much distress of mind and body, the result of being forced to occupy the same sleeping apartments used by men of a different race. The jury composed of men in entire sympathy with her returned a verdict in her favor for $15,OOO. The prime question in the case is, does the Jim Crow Act, requiring railroads carrying passengers to provide equal but separate accommodations for the white and co1ored passengers, apply to interstate commerce, and, if so, Is it constitutional? The Supreme Court of Mississippi in Ala abama & V. Ry., Go. vs. Morris, 50 Southern Re porter, II, holds that such act applies to interstate travellers on trains form ing a part of chain of carriers en- gagged in interstate transportation of passengers, and, as so construed, is not invalid as an interference with in terstate commerce and Is a reason able exercise of the police power of the state. It also applies to sleeping cars. As to the verdict, the court says: "The verdict of the jury is grossly excessive, but if appellee will remit all except @ will he affirmed
 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT-A liv- ing isue with which every state in the Union is being brought face to face Is the question of abo1ishing capital pun ishment It is generally conceded to be a question for the executive and legislative branches of each state gov ernm to cope with and with which the courts have little concern. It is therefore somewhat unusual to find a case in which a court comments on it. However, Fritz vs. State, 128 Pacific Reporter ITO, is in point. Fritz was convicted of murder and sentenced to be hanged. Under the power given the court to modify any judgment ap- pealed from in the furtherance of jus tice by reducing the sentence the Criminal Court of Appeals of Okla homa reduced the sentence to life i'm prosonment. Then follows: ''In reach ing this conclusion we do not wish to be understood as being in favor of abolishing capital punishment as a penalty for murder. We think that capital punishment, at the discretion of the jury, as the penalty of murder, is essential to the security of society, and we have no sympathy with that sentiment humanitarianism which in the exercise of 8 mawkish sympa- thy for a heart1ess, unfeeling, felon- ious assassin forgets and wholly ig- nores the innocent murdered victim and the necessary safeguards of so- ciety. If capital punishment should be abolished without some limitation of the pardoning power in convictions of murder and mans1aughter, and the indiscriminate exercise of the pardon ing power in this character of convic- ton should continue it cannot be