New-York tribune., 1918-06-10
Death and Paul Chapman

yrar-old boy gpne wrurg-eunc SO TER
wrursg that he viii be ejsctrvcutrd for
murder unless Governor Whitman inter
verles.
That is a small item these days. Far
more precious lives are passing daily by
the thousand in France. We voice the
instructive protest which all normally
humane citizens are coming to feel at
this judicial killing Of q boy chiefly be-
cause of the example and the precedent
which it holds. Paul Chapman Is not
simply one more boy gune to the bad,
from this point of view. BE Is youth,
precious youth, flung to the lions by an
outworn judicial system and genera
on-behind- the times law. He stands
for all that redeemable boyhood and girl
hood which, through the moral malnu-
tritions Of family failure, turn down.
ward and unless helping hand inter
venes become not only waste product
as Paul Chapman will he if he is electro
cuted-but worse, vicious, ccrrupting
product, the fostering source of crime
and disease into generations without
number.
We have no sympathy with easy SEN
timentalism toward Paul Chapman. In
that absorbing record Of his case by Mr..
Rohde which we printed yesterday the
line was sharply drawn between fact and
emotion. He had no proper home life
his mother, through poverty, was con-
fessedly but "half a mother" But count
less boys thrive under the rigor Of this
deprivation and hardship and turn out
our finest citizens. We have no wish or
intent to hold up young Chapman as a
hero or a martyr. His seems to be the
old case of boy born without normal
moral balance, finally lost through fail
ing home support.
Thousands of such boys-regiments,
divisions of them, in war parlance-go
through our children's courts every year
and are saved. This reform has come
gradually, with little pomp or trumpet
ing, but there is surely no change in all
our judicial or social system so far
reaching and splendid as this new atti-
tude toward youth. Miss Jane Adams
voiced it for all time in her book "The
Spirit of Youth and the City Streets"
The juvenile court acts of our states
have written it all but unanimously into
our statutes in one form or another. A
score Of years ago and children were still
held to be as accountable as grownups,
were still tried by the same system of
courts and juries and still sentenced to
the same punshments. There is here a
new breath of life, ours peculiarly, the
work of the last generation.
New York City was not pioneer in
developing this new treatment of the
child delinquent. But it has an honora-
bic record, and to-day can boast Of as
fine and efficient children's court as
any in the land. The boy or girl under
sixteen who violates the law (murder
excepted) is not held as is an adult. He
or she is charged with "juvenile delin-
quency," not with crime. and is tried not
publicly, amid the paraphernalia Of Grim
ina1ity, but privately in the Children's
Court, where the dignity and impressive
ness Of justice are tempered by a SYM
pathy and helpfulness suited to the years
of the accused.
That is obviously the sort of court to
which Paul Chapman should have been
sent. 1t is a tragedy Of the law, an
irreversible tragedy that he could not be
so tried. Since his conviction legislation
has been introduced at Albany to pro-
hibit the death sentence for boys under
eighteen in the future. That is common
sense and justice, and it will have the
support of public opinion. But it does
not look far enough. The past is gone
AS for Paul Chapman, we are confident
that his sentence will be commuted. We
cannot conceive of his execution in this
year of enlightenment and liberty. Gov
ernor Whitman must and will act. But
the law will remain inadequate, brutal
wasteful and destructive until the age of
delinquency is raised and the law amend
ed so that boy charged with murder,
the next Paul Chapman, will automati-
cally escape the full responsibility of the
adult and will go before separate court
for a trial suited to his age and after
care fitted to his repair and restoration.
We have spoken of the procedure of
the juvenile court. But it is only the
first difference. Beyond lies the whole
matter of reformation, wherein expert
medical care first makes diagnosis and
prolonged probation watchfulness seeks
to construct out Of temporary failure
permanent lifetime of success Not all
juvenile delinquents succeed. We do
not pretend that Paul Chapman, sent to
such q court and aidad and halnad ,,,o,,ld