The Commonwealth. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1911-1914, 1914-01-15
REVIVAL OF sPARTANIsM
panaer Ahead for lhe worEIna oIa.s.

| In 1907 an underground movement
came to the surface in Chicago, Wash.
nEtou and Boston which had for its
purpose the election to the presidency
OF Attorney General Charles J. Bona
parte on a platform whose plank was
Down with crime"
The campaign managers were ply
sicians. They selected Bonaparte as
their candidate because he is known
to favor the extinction of the Grim
inal classes"
Bonaparte, as he has made known in
his speeches, would hang them. The
physicians agreed with his theories.
They admitted that the habitual Grim
inals should be hanged, but they were
afraid that the country was not ready
for this.
As compromise the doctors pro
pose to confine them for life, either in
asylums or in penal institutions.
If the crime exterminators should
get in power it is suggested by GER
tain skeptics that their task might be
an endless one, since they do not aim
at the conditions that produce Grim
inals.
Dr. Hammond Says "slay the insane"
DR. Hammond the famous American
neurologist, long ago expressed his
opinion that many of the insane are
such monsters of depravity, that they
should be slain upon the same prin-
ciple that we STAY wild and ferocious
beasts"
In his article, Capital Punishment"
in the $4,000 supplementary edition of
the Encyclopedia Britannica, Mr. w. f.
Crates says: at certainly seems
strange that the community should feel
bound carefully to preserve and tend
a class of dangerous lunatics, and to
give them, as Charles Kingsley says,
the finest air in England and the right
to kill two gaolers a week."
Mr.. w. H. Mallock the noted Eng
fish publicist, in a letter to the present
writer, said in regard to killing insane
murderers: "a murderer who is half
insane, should, l suppose, not be
hanged; but if he were hanged by mis-
take, | should look upon the mistake
as a lucky one. The execution of the
hopelessly insane, merely because they
are unfit to live, is proceeding which,
taken of itself, l should regard as
highly desirable. I fear, however, that
it would cause a shock to the general
conscience, the evils of which would
more than counterbalance any benefit
which might arise from it."
Radical Elimination" to Suplant
Punishment.
1t may be seen that the tendency of
our times is not so much to punish
crime as to eradicate criminals, and
the defective in general, which is GER
tainly an advance" far beyond any |
reforms attempted by our forefathers. |
We are about to have done with mere
vindictiveness, and substitute, in the
place of revenge, radical elimination, !
according to the most scientific form |
ula The death penalty as a deterrent |
for others than those executed has |
been found out. But it is now pro- !
posed to execute the criminal before |
the greater mischief is done, and even
to do away with all of those degener-
ates who are likely to breed criminals. |
The unemployed problem is to be
solved by killing it off. Thee is
something so consistent about all this
that it becomes positively alluring to
the taxpayer and eXploiter in general.
If we are to hang people at all, let's
hang them before the crime is perpe-
trated! If the death penalty as pun
ishment is, and has always been,
failure as a remedy for crime, we
should either abandon it altogether, or
apply it as humane measure, in the
interest of all concerned, not capr1c-
iously, but according to well defined
and consistent policy. The made
Qudte' III general are W D6 pdlhlCSSiJ |
removed, not in vindictiveness, but
"for their own good" and public wels
fare"
The Real Problem Stated by Prof.
Tarde.
1t is, then, not at all question as
to whether or not the death penalty
shall remain in our penal codes, as it
now is, the supreme penalty for the
worst forms of criminality, to be APP
piled occasionally, according to the in
fluence brought to bear upon the gov
ernor OF the state in which the Grim
inal happens to be confined. The old
question Of the death penalty has now
to be answered from an entirely new
point Of view. We are to consider It's
utility not as punishment, but as a
method-as a humane measure for the
eradication merely for the sup
preston crime, but also for just