Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-05-12
FLORIDA SENATE
ADVISES OFFICIALS
TO ABANDON LASH

TALLAHASSEE, Fla, May y
The Florida senate adopted over
whelmingly Tuesday a resolution,
which If concurred in by the house,
would call upon the administrative
officials who supervise convicts to
abolish corporal punishment as an
experiment, and If the experiment
proves successful ''to forever aool-
ish It in this stat" The resolution
was introduced by Senator Turn
bull, president of the body, who de-
clared it solved the whole problem
inasmuch as The legislature was
surely going to abolish the convict
lease system"
The resolution was taken as seC
Ting the matter of the use Oh 'ne
whip in the disciplining OF con'Icts
insofar as the senate was cQncerheu'
It reflected the views, as they "ete
expressed Tuesday and as porhe out
by previous actions OF the majority
Of the upper house that II "ou!o po
Unwise to write into the law OF the
state an absolute prohibition against
the use of the strap when no law
prescribing its use now exists. IL
carried their expressed thougnt tnaU
the officials charged with the al
, administration of convicts woulo
most certainly try other means OF
! handling convicts il such was given
as the "sense" OF the legislature.
Two Hours Debate
The two hours debate that took
Elace turned on the question Oh
whether the resolution should be
eiven to a committee now studying
convict problems and reported back
Wednesday, or whether it should De
considered at once, rather than on
the merits of the resolution Itself
The debate, however, as usual, TOOK
a broad field in which JacksonVll4e
paper figured. Senator Phillips, VINO
did not mention the paper by name,
but whose remarks were 1nterpretu
by other senators as referring to re-
cent editorials on the subject OF con
svict whipping, declared that the
. most common hound dog Will park
before he bites; the rattlesnake sig
mails before he bites" He p-tterly
attacked newspaper statements
that every parliamentary trick ana
subterfuge had been resorted to XIII
the corporal punishment measure.
Senator Lindsey, too, resented an ed
itorial headed Shall it be just
Florida and Russia" He read the
name Of the senators listed in the
editorial as having by test vote
recorded themselves against pan
mig the strap. The inference was
he said, that these senators consul
tuted the band of Russians in the
senate. No subterfuge had been at
tempted, he said. Had he desired
to cut off debate in the instance re-
ferred to by the paper he declared
he could have easily done so ana
defeated the measure then and there.
Rather, he let the discussion go on
, unrestrained, realizing that the SEN
ate was coping with an important
problem and that there were many
conflicting views. He said he nau
never been on the fence" in the
matter and he did not believe any
of his fellow members had. He was
vigorously opposed, he continued, to
IAN outright inhibition against the
use Of the strap without some other
means of punishment being prescrib-
ed. The mere banning of the strap
will not cure the evils developed the
past few weeks as having existed.
eff you tell the convict warden that
he cannot use the strap, you merely
leave him resentful and the door
wide open for him to abuse other
power" he declared. The wording
Of the editorial, he said, reflected on
the senate as a whole
Would Ban Strap
Senator MacWilliams, a leader Of
the forces that supported measure
by Senator Hodges to ban the strap
outright, fought stubbornly against
Immediate consideration OF the reso-
1 luton which he declared did not go
far enough. He wanted legislative
prohibition against the use of the
strap. With Rim spoke Senator Rus
cell, who declared he wanted his
vote recorded On law to prohibit
corporal punishment, and Senator
Mapoles, who declared he was not in
a compromising" mood on the sub
ject.
Senator Hodges, on the other hand,
greeted the resolution as serving an
even better purpose than his meas
ure.
Senator Hodges defended the Jack
sonville paper and said that he
would not resent any criticism of
himself in that paper. He believed
It to be one Of the best newspapers
in the state and admired its coura-
geous stand for what it considered
to be right.
Senator Epperson, who was listed
among the senators against doing
9 away with the whip, asserted that
he, too, did not resent criticism, but
defended his viewpoint.