Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1922-04-08
ARMS LIMITATION FOR LADIES
AND MORE TOLL FOR THE WISE
The Unwritten Law 10 Encouraging In.
formal Gunplay In an Age conse.
Grated to Disarmament!

known as champions of a rational pacifsm.
Yet the Limitation of Armament for
Ladies is a subject never mentioned in any
formal debate, though it grows daily more
conspicuous and more pressing. And
long as the feminine artillerist. having neatly
Killed her man. is cheered in courtrooms;
so long as she is permitted to walk tri
umphantly from the dock to freedom 'amid
the plaudits of the crowd as Miss Olivia
Stone did in Brooklyn the other day.
shall have to admit that mankind doesn't
yet know its way about in the wilderness of
its own affairs.
Women cannot be blamed if they still
view some of the fundamental problems of
existence as they were viewed in the half
lights of the worlds beginning. Traces of a
fierce and primitive code may occa casionally
he dsrerned deep in the minds of the gem
tlest of them. When woman sezes pistol
and goes forth 10 be a direct actionist of the
most relentless sort and laughs wildly at all
the laws made since the Stone Age. she be-
haves as If n power greater than herself had
her in hand.
Afterward she will weep and say she
couldn't help it, Perhaps she couldn't help
it,. And yet. no matter how you look at 1t.
the rising vogue of the unwritten law is not
complimentary either to our common sense
or our system Of legal logic 1t is grand
elimination OF an endless series of legisa
tive blunders. The thought of woman in
the electric chair or on the gallows is in
tolerabe to most people. as 1t ought to be.
But the criminal law has not beeD-changed
to meet the changes in general feeling and
opinion.
The state. trying as best it can to keep
order in a multitude Of conflicting spirits.
must ask for what it knows it cannot get
when it demands verdict which would in
volve the death penalty for n woman And
in most of the conspicuous cases similar to
Miss Stones it cannot ask for less
.Iures have made women immune from the
terrible punishments which men have de-
vsed for themselves. yet women continue to
talk quantity of equal rights and seem to
forget that the balance is forever in their
favor
Men have not the heart or the indecenry to
visit upon any woman the barbarities of the
death chamber or the gallows. They do not
recoil from the thought of punishment.
They recoil. rather. from the thought of the
absolute degradation of mind and body which
condemned criminal must suffer. 1t is to
the credit of the race that men can still see
in any woman some sad remnant of mystery
and beauty that no social disaster and no
tide of years can quite obliterate and that
their instinct leads them to feel that this Is
a thing which commands respect, if not rev.
erence even in the dust.
So a very dangerous and extraordinary
precedent is established. Something very
much like mandate for the free use Of
firearms has been extended to women by
juries in the United States. And what is
more, there are altogether too many women
who seem determined to make the most of
their extraordinary privilege.
Now. the whole question Of n Limitation
Of Armament for Ladies has grown out of
obvious defects in the criminal code itself
Few of the men who serve on juries and
render verdicts according to the unwrtten
law ever saw n criminal executed. But in
the backs of their minds are grave doubts
about the rightness. thsg ttpcency and the
utility Of the electric chair or the gallOws
They have some sense of the utter cruelty
and horror of capital punishmcn. as it is
now prarticed. They are willing enough to
send man to execution. But when they
are required to send "A woman to the dea h
cells, they know instinctively and at once
| that the whole business of executions Is
wrong-not for women alone. but for men
and. perhaps. for society.
Of ,,,n al th
| first degree murder. the state could ask for
| lesser punishment than death for life i'm :
| prisonmcnt say fewer women would go ont
! to end affairs OF the heart with bullets.
For the juries would then render verdcs
according TO the evidence They w0udn'
let their instinct stand in the way Of their
reasoning. Ultimately, it might be better
if a law were enacted to exempt women from
the death penalty, even though the law OF
capital punishment were retained for men.
Now and then murderer appears who
deserves no mercy, no consideration, Bu
the record Of every criminal court shOw'
that ninety nine out of every hundred homi
rdas are due to drunkenness or passion
equally near to insanity. Most of the mel
condemned TO death could say with Mis-
Stone II didn't know what ] was doing '
That however. is another matter. Th
worst thing To be said about capital punish
lncnt is that it has never served to preven
homicides To the average man, bereft
desperate or in murderous rage, the pros
pect of a life in cell would be far NOR
terrifying than the thought of death. An
n woman facing life term in jail would b
a far less dramatic figure in the eyes Of
nj 10 Gpl
for her life,