Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-10-23
HE WHO WAS HANGED
By H. Addington Bruce


A FEW days ago you may have read in
~ your paper that a man was hanged
for a brutal murder. Intent on rob-
berry, he had entered a store. The store
| keeper had offered resistance and was shot
down. Now they have hanged the man who
shot him.
AS pictured in the newspaper giving an
account of the hanging, he was not pleas
/ ant-looking. fellow, this murderer. Hate,
malice, vindictiveness were written plainly
on his face. Surely he deserved to be
hanged.
But what pity that there could not have
been printed, side by side with his picture,
another showing how he had looked when a
little boy of four or five.
The contrast would have startled you. 1t
would have given you food for thought. 1t
might have made you curious as to this
slayer's early history and the influence that
came into play to transfer an innocent child
into ruthless bandit and man-killer.
Suppose you made inquiry.
You would most likely find, for one thing,
that the man who was hanged had been born
of parents who made no effort to train him
in the way he should go.
His home was not home but a den in the
slums. Little air, little light came into it.
The hall leading to it resembled, in it's dirt
and darkness, the runway Of some beast Of
prey rather than a passageway for human
beings.
Thus, from the outset, there were present
material as we'll as psychical forces to dead
en- the child's mind and distort his soul Nor
i i ! h fTnro fhnc
forces Slum streets are not, and never will
be, training schools for happiness and clar-
ity of vision and strength of character.
Their influence is toward brutality and
cunning. Unsupported by a good home en-
yironment, this child, thrust into them, soon
became an adept in the unsavory things they
had to teach him. The police began to take
notice. But they did nothing until he es-
sayed a little picking of pockets. Then they
laid VIOLENT hands upon him.
He still was quite young There still was
opportunity to mold him into a useful mem
Der Of society. All that was necessary was
to keep him out of the slums, to give him
better cOmpanionship, above all to place him
in the care Of human and enlightened edu
Gators.
This was not exactly the course followed.
He was sent to an institution where he
learned more about crime than the slums
themselves had taught him. and where he
was inspired with a deadly hatred for the
society which, he vaguely felt, was not deal
ing justly by him. Then, after time, he
was sent back to the slums, to remain there
until another offense brought with it further
opportunity for schooling in criminal ways
Well, he is dead now, as dead as the man
he murdered. And it would be absurd to
sentimentalize over him.
But isn't it a reasonable supposition that
both he and his victim would be alive today
had his early surroundings been different or
had his first peccadillo been a signal for a
real effort to remake him?
And isn't it a reasonable supposition that
so long as society tolerates slums and toler
ates institutional shaping of delinquents into /
criminals, there will be an abundance of can
didates for The hangman's moose?
These are questions worth thinking about. !