The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1914-02-08

ed tad | permitted tue hanging or
those eleven negroes, and commuted
the death sentence of the white man,
and followed that by releasing on pa
role from the penitentiary half of the
murderers there serving life terms,
there would have been little crit
now discover so much to find fault
with.
1t is not an uncommon thing to
find among those who cry out against
the committing of death sentences 20
life imprisonment many who are
ready to sign petitions importuning
the governor to grant paroles and par
dons to men serving life sentences
for murder
1t has been said by some of the ed
itors that ! should permit legal exc
cutions in order to prevent lynchingS
in other words, to appease the mob,
yet every man who assists as a nom
Ter of a mob in the hanging of an in
divdual. no matter what crime may
have been committed, is, under the
law guilty of murder and if the law
should be enforced against these in
dividuals, every one of them would
have TO be electrocuted or sent to
the peGitentiary for life. How many
OF these critics and editors would be
willing to see the members of the
mob that recently hanged the negro
IN Cleveland county, either electro
cuted or sent to the penitentiary for
life? And yet, this is what would re
suit were the law OF Oklahoma en-
forced
In this entire matter | am doing
what | think it is my duty to do.
am not trying to please the mob, and
shall never be swerved from the
path of duty nor hesitate in my eff
forts to bring about a better condition
os law observance in Oklahoma in or
Ger to satisfy the demands OF mob
or the ClamOr of that class OF on"
citizenship which yet derives its in
spiratiOn of what is right in govern
ment from the old doctrine of "an
eve for an eye and a tooth for &
tooth" FlaCarding the slain victim
with inscriptions to the governor may
tend to ease the conscience of those
who under our law have made them
selves murderers, but it will not in
the least disturb me, nor have effect
my future course in dealing with these
vital problems of government
One of the critics, while condemn
ing my polisy of committing death
sentences. makes this remarkable ad-
mission: The time will ultimately
come when all civilized nations will
abolish capital punishment, but the
time when this can safely be done has
not yet arrived in Oklahoma What
a terrible arraignment of the citizen
ship of this young state, not yet civ
ilized, Editorials like this do more
to diScredit the citizenship and civ
ilization Of this state in the eyes Of
the world than do all the Commuta-
lions that could be executed in a
hundred years. Oklahoma Is civiliz-
ed, as much so as any other people
in the world, and if we have not yet
advanced to that degree of civiliza-
ton where capital punishment can
be abolished with safety, we will new
or be civilized to that extent Muir
dering. either under the guise of the
| law or through mob violence, has
never vet tended to lift a people in.
dulgins in il to a higher plane of civ
hization. and the record as disclosed
( above. shows that in Oklahoma civil
i7atiou Quickly responds to every ef
! fort made in the interest of humani
|ty.
In passing let me say that seven
ty-tive per cent of the homicidas com
mitted in oklahoma. according tc