Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1915-08-27
TREATMENT OF PRISONERS
Former Governor BleaSe Discusses
Subject In Boston
HUMANITY BETTER Than INHUMANITY
The Mob is a Development Of Outraged
Justiee-South More Highly Civil
lied than tho North-Duty and Re.
sponsibiIity Of Chief Executives.

/
lied than tho North-Duty and Re
sponsibiIity Of Chief Executives.
One Of the principal set speeche
before the conference Of governors II
Boston this week, was that Delivers
by former Governor Blease Of Soutl
Carolina, yesterday, on "The Dut.
and Responsibility Of Chief Elk
ecutives in Dealing With Prisoners.
The full text Of the speech was a
follows:
Gentlemen of the Governors Confer
| ence:
/ Three-quarters Of a century ago, iI
clearest thinkers which Massachusetts,
or even the nation, has yet produced
in an address upon Man the Reform
err" emphasized the thought that "ev-
cry great and commanding moment ir
the annals Of the world is the triumph
Of some enthusiasm" He cited as an
example "the victories Of the Arabs
after Mahomet, who, in a few years
from a small and mean beginning, es-
tablished larger empire than that OF
Rome" But" he predicted, there
will dawn ere long on our politics, on
our modes Of living, a nobler morning
than that Arabian faith, in the senti-
ment Of love. This is the one remedy
for all ills, the panacea of Nature. We
must be lovers, and at once the i'm
possible becomes possible. Our age
and history, for these thousand years
has not been the history Of kindness
but Of selfishness. Our distrust Is very
expensive. The money We spend for
courts and prisons Is very i'll laid out.
We make, by distrust, the thief, and
burglar and incendiary, and by our
court and Jail we keep him so. An ac-
ceptance of the sentiment Of love
throughout Christendom for a season
would bring the felon and the outcast
to our side in tears, with the devotion
of his faculties to our services"
There is no crystal ball in which
man may see portrayed the future, and
little did Emerson think that two dec
ades after he was so eloquently
preaching this doctrine Of peace and
love that this nation would be plung-
ed into four years Of civil strife. When
he said that this great, overgrown
dead Christendom Of ours still keeps
alive at least the name of lover OF
mankind" and prophesied that lone
day all men will be lovers, and every
calamity will be dissolved in the uni
versal sunshine" little did he reck that
| seventy-four years later the far-fiung
battle lines Of Europe would stretch
from hundreds to thousands Of miles
and that nearly the whole world would
be in a death grapple, attended by
cruelty and sacrifice and misery which
passes human understanding. Millions
Of men are seeking each others blood,
and
Few shall part where many meet;
The smoke shall be their winding
sheet;
And every sod beneath their feet
Shall be soldiers sepulchre."
But it has been the history Of the
world. in accordance with the slow but
steady progress Of the human race
that the darkest night is ever followed
by the brightest dawn. and from the
gloom which now enshrouds the land
and the sea, will emerge a nobler civ
ilization, which will continue to gain
strength in an atmosphere purified by
the shock of battle, and human nature
must be softened by the blood that
has been spilled and by the prayers Of
widows and orphans that have as
cended to the throne Of plying God.
You will pardon me for this digres-
sion; but the thought was suggested
by the fact that the spirit which
plunges nations into wars, except the
nations which wage war against op-
preston, is the same spirit which has
in centuries past led men to seek the
it which is vastly too much in evil
dence even in this twentieth century.
Within the past few weeks we read
in the newspapers of a man who had
made an attempt upon the life Of an
other being piled with questions until
he was too weak to talk, then being
walked up and down the corridor of
his prison to revive him, then piled
ct1hianfa1 N
God alone knows what else, in the ad-
ministration of the third degree"
Later this prisoner was found on the
floor Of his cell with his skull crushed
to the top of his cell door and jumped
to the floor, killing himself. Whether
he was murdered or whether ne really
committed suicide I do not know, but
this do know, that the suicide Of any
man would hardly be unnatural under
such circumstances, and that the
treatment accorded him, before con-
viction, would have been a disgrace to
our civilization even had it occurred
after he had been tried and sentenced.
AS remarks a very distinguishe ed
southern minister Of the Gospel. "the
so-called third degree is revival Of
the horrible method of the Spanish In
QUESTION, a species of torture to COM
pei an accused person to incriminate
himself, fiat contradiction Of the hu-
name principle of law that regards ev-
cry person innocent until proved
guilty" This third degree" method
that is practio ed in the north and east
and west-less frequently, l am glad
to say, in the south-whether a man
killed during it's administration, or
whether he be driven to commit sui
eide, or whether he be tortured some
times into confessing crimes Of which
he may be innocent, is barbarity in a
sneaking form. under the sanction Of
law, and those guilty of practicing it
evidence a spirit as mean and con-
| temptible as the malice which ami
mates the midnight assassin.
Three years ago 1 had the pleasure
of addressing this conference in Rich
rap, RI u-ara nj a6