The copper era and Morenci leader., 1917-06-22
BOOTLEGGERS WILL RECEIVE NJ MORE
 PAROLES

The recommendation of Governor
 Campbell that the board of pardons
 and paroles issue no more recommen-
 dations for the relief of persons con- victed of bootlegging will be given gen eral approval in the opinion of The Arizona Republican. Comparatively few of the bootleggers who have had
 influential friends have served out the | terms for which they have been sen fenced and in many cases the fines assess ed against them have gone by the boa d. It is remarkable how
 many of the bootleggers have become victims during their incarceration of disease which would certainly end in death in their cells unless they were released. From which we conclude that the bootleggers are persons of extremely low vitality, muhc more so than thieves, forgers and other class es who place themselves behind the bars.
 The wholesale turning out of ia1l of these offenders against the consti- tuition of the state tends to make a joke of the constitution and to over ride the will of the people so decidedly exp, essed last November. 1t is an encouragement to repeated violations of the prohibition law. It conveys an 1 impression that it is officially believ- ] ed that bootlegging is a rather re- Gi ectable breach of the law, notwith-
 standing it is engaged in only by men l who have occupied the lowest levels 1 of society.
 l Bootlegging is profitable business ! if it is not interrupted. It is so pro-
 fitable that one can afford to take a chance of interruption and if it is fn hot into mt nT
 will cause him slight or only moder-
 ate cost or inconvenience, the kind of
 man who would engage in that sort of business is encouraged to take the
 chance.
 l A very large number of the boot | leggers who have been convicted are
 second, third and even fourth offend
 CTS. They took the chance because
 it involved only a minimum of ulti-
 mate risk.
 l If now our courts and officials will give to the law the force the voters
 intended it to have, botlegging in Ari-
 zona will be broken up. If such sen tences were imposed, with the certain ] ty that they would be executed in full,
 as to make the offenders shrink with
 horror from a repetition of the dose, there would need be no repetition. No i UOOLleSSeT WOulu IdhS Juo ScCOAt
 chance and many persons inclined to bootlegging would not take the first
 one
 The governor points out that this crime is committed with peculiar,
 studied deliberation and that there is
 nothing, therefore, to be said in the
 bootlegger's behalf after the convic- tion.
 All applications for pardon or parole
 are accompanied by petitions by many
 respectable, law-abiding citizens who,
 we think, would thank the governor
 and the board of pardons and paroles
 for relieving them of signing petitions
 in the future As rule, these signers
 either know or care nothing about the bootlegger They sign, with inward reluctance, because somebody has ask
 ed them to do so. There is no man so | low in the scale of humanity that he i is without indirect connection with : the best people in his community. He
 has a friend slightly, but only slightly { higher than himself That friend has
 a still higher friend and so the line ex- i tends to the uppermoSt level. The ! line frequently and generally runs an ] upward, tOrtuOus course along DO, | litical line, or maybe lodge line, but anyway it runs upward through the i whole structure of society.
 ] It is now made clear that no peti- ] considered, respectable citizens will
 be spared the embarrassment of at
 taching their names to such petitions.