The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1920-08-28
PREPARING TO GIVE
MENDENHALL A PARDON

The Star has information that
comes from men who are well inform
ed, and who weigh their words care
fully, that plans laid some years ago
to pardon Mendenhall are being con-
stantly worked on and are expected
soon to eliminate by the prison doors
swinging out to the man who was con-
victed of the worst murder in the re-
cords of Florida criminology
There have been some terrible
tragedies in Florida, but none quite
so bad as that, five years ago, when
Mendenhall killed two women and
burned their bodies, on a lonely road,
at midnight, near Clearwater. He
was tried and found guilty but rec
commended to mercy. which saved his
neck. Since then he has been in the
penitentiary, acting as model pris-
oner and treated as a favored one.
The state should give no pardon to
Mendenhall. God may pardon his
awful crime, but man has no right to
do so. A pardon for him will be fair
notice to the world from this state
that well-to-do and presentable man
may do anything he pleases with a
woman from seducing her to striking
her down and then casting her quiz
ering and possibly conscious body
into. the flames to write in torture I'M
til death brings relief.
The only excuse MendenhalIs
friends can advance for him is that
he was "vampedv by a silly girl, and
threatened by the girls mother, who
finding her daughter in trouble not
unreasonably thought the man who
made the trouble should do as much
as he could in paying for it. And she
was right If Mendenhall had been
half the man his friends say he is he
would have paid the price and taken
his medicine, and gone to work to live
lit down. There are few old and ex-
perienced people who cannot remem-
Der at least one man who has follow
ed that course.
But Mendenhall could not do this.
He tried to murder his way out, kill
ing two women. setting fire to the car
| in which their bodies lay. probably
before life was extinct. And then he
tried to lie his way out. Think of
that, men and women of Florida, and
then think of pardoning board that
would so act as to even allow the
public to think it would release such
a man.
1t is our opinion that any man ex-
| cept his attorney who would try to
have Mendenhall released would, I'M
| der the same circumstances commit
the same crime
The men of Florida can If they
will stop this unending procession of
Ioutrages on the law by the pardon
ling board IF they won't they pro-
lmote the possibilities of such horrors
being dealt out to their own wives
and daughters.
| Susie Elliot may have been foolish
and grasping, but almost any girl
will be if she is not properly brought
lup. Her mother may have been ir-
irritating to the sensitive nerves of
Mendenhall; she should have accept
ed with equanimity the fact that she
had brought up a daughter to be a
Iman's plaything. But over both of
them hung the invisible. but power
full shield of protection for woman
hood that no true man will try to
pierce with a blow; that only beast
viii break
Mendenhall pierced and broke their
shield and killed them and burned
their bodies.
The men of Florida can keep Men
denhall in the penitentiary if they
viii. IL they won't, it's time for the
women to try They have the vote
land the power to enforce the single
standard of morals-let's see if they
Twill do II