Arizona republican., 1920-12-22
When Public Sentiment Awakens

In a dispatch from san Francisco yesterday morning describing the prompt conviction of of the gangsters whose crime was committed as late &s Thanksgiving morning there appears this signif cant phrase "The speed with which the trial conducted was due largely to public sentiment and demands by civic organizations that every means be by the civic authorities rid the city of its criminal clements"
 There the heart of law enforcement Is touched. We the weak spot which the finger may pIaced-an apathetc public sentiment which be started only by a shock such was administered to San Francisco Thanksgiving by the disclosures of the outrages committed in the House of Terrors followed by the murder of officers and the lynching of the murderers
 It all depends upon an active public sentiment courts and dilatory it is because pub lie sentiment permits them be. Our procedure of course is somewhat fault; too many loop holes of escape along the tortuous way between the rest and the punishment of the criminal But if the public were alert. many these would be closed.
 More than seventy-fve years ago the people of two adjoining counties in Ohio developed a senti- against murder that amounted almost to an ob- session. The people not set against other crimes but there was determination that no mur- derer should escape. courts were so affected by this sentiment, that in murder trials the brush all quickly cleared away and the main issue left standing alone. Convictions prompt cautions followed the earliest statutory date App pelate courts did disturb verdicts governors did not interfere For generation thereafter there was not homicide in either county. Then within years murder committed in each. In case the murderer a very wealthy ing in his community. Tn the other the slayer was tho drunken a wealthy family social religious distinction. All that money and the abest counsel could do for both done. Every re- source was exhausted, but the public sentiment of the previous generation had down unmpaired and both murderers were hanged
 Within the next quarter of a century we believe there were but two murders, in each county. No clue was secured in either but the commission CTS of each county spent large sum of money in period of four five with the full approval of public sentiment in search of end of a thread that would lead to the detection of the murderer.
 In one other case there killing in which ,rsra was an element of self defense father had s,iies his son. It was however, an avoidable homI- Ale and public sentiment demanded the life of the shver But the jury acquitted the defendant we be- ulve properly, and the members of it were obliged to leave the county seat that night under of dtrkness For years afterward they rested under tte odium of some of them having been bribed; others having yielded to sympathy which members of certain secret society supposed to entertain rot one another for the defendant member of that society.
 Courts are no better than the people whom they serve and thev will give such service the people run, awakened demand There is something wrong vim a people who will sleep through crimes to be tvkkened only by some extraordinary outrage or a ,.ivo of crime rising to an unusual height
 We have called attention to the promptness with which homicide is dealt in England and to the fact .r.t fewer homIyides are committed in the United Kingdom in a yea thaa LF Vffher New York or chi-