The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1921-04-16
COMMENT
ON LETHA[ GAS LAW

WAoIiisNlOS, D.S., april J.--Ne-
vada's attempt to soften the horrors
of the death chamber by providing for
the execution of criminals by means
of gas administered while the victim
sleeps" is not accepted by the entire
press of the country as step toward
humanizing capital punishment.
+ While many writer's support the.
new plan, which they believe elimin-
ates the horrors of the moose and the
electric chair, others feel that the
mental suffering would be as great or
even greater during the hours of sus-
pense before the sleep that would be
the last. The painful features" of
any execution, many agree with the
Pittsburgh Gazette-Times, "can be
avoided by abolishment of the death
penalty"
The Roanoke Times feels that lust
as the electric chair was deemed an
advance over the gallows, so the gas
chamber seems to be an advance over
| the electric chair" and ito execute
man in his sleep" the Newark News
believes, "invokes a practice as nearly
humane as when Socrates drank the
hemlock." The Utica Press considers
gas "in sense less horrible than the
electric chair" and the Joplin Globe,
recalling that In Missouri capital
punishment was restored because
public sentiment seemed to demand
It," looks upon the inauguration of
the gas Gambler as IAN important de-
velopment of crime punishments"
worthy of being watched with inter-
est 1t Is IAN improvement" the
Omaha World-Herald believes, ION all
attempts to make capital punishment
less horrible for the condemned and
less horrible for the public to con-
template"
This deduction would seem cor
rect at first glance" the Harrisburg
Telegraph remarks, but demands that
its readers place themselves "in the
condemned mans position" 1t con-
tinues: Fear would keep him from
sleep until utter exhaustion closed his
eyes; for days he would be on tire
verge of total breakdown, fighting
away the sleep that might be his last.
Insanity would very possibly result,
as the interminable suspense OF the
Spanish inquisition broke down the
mind of its victim"
In striving to provide humane
method of execution, the Fort Wayne
News and Sentinel thinks that Ne
vada has perhaps adopted plan of
refined torture" for no doubt prison
ers "of a nervous organization will
die thousand Deaths" under the i'm
preston that "gas has been intro
duced into their cells before 1t really
has"
Electrocution is favored by some
newspapers, and the Trenton Times
expressed doubt whether the Nevada
method will be any more painless or
humane" though under the latter pro-
cedure "the condemned man will be
spared the experience and excitement
of being prepard for the death chair
in the presence of score or more
officials and witnesses" But '1ethal
gas" it concludes, "is to be preferred
to either shooting or the gallows,"
the alternatives between which SEN
fenced Nevadans were formerly al
lowed to choose. To place a man in
the specially constructed cell imme-
diately after the death sentence
would tend to produce insomnia" the
Hartford Courant believes, land in
time most refined torture" This,
1t points out, "is exactly what the law
was designed to abolish"
The Times of Buffalo, NY, recalls
the post-mortem of the first criminal
to be executed in the electric chair in
that state, and quotes the authority
DR.. Spitzka, who has witnessed hun
dreds of electrocutions," and who has
declared "very emphatically" that the
"infiiction of the death penalty by
electrocution was by far the most hui
name way of disposing of such cases. :"
To the Philadelphia Public Ledger
death in the lethal chamber will be
more than the one pictured by Poe in
"The Pit and the Pendulum; What
manner of man can retain a CLEAN of
reason in Nevadas gas cell? What
manner of man will ever sleep other
than the sleep of exhaustion that pre-
cedes death? How many deaths will
he die before he dies that death that
the law has ordered and the court ap-
proved? And 1t has been written into
American organic law, the Constitu-
- II