The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-02-03
PEOPLES FORUM
Jude Fort on Blue Sly Law

 public that the indictments in the, cases against Messrs. Driver, Skin ner and Orr were involved on other constitutional grounds; and that said indictments, being subject to the demurrers interposed, had to be sent back to the grand jury for re- indictment. Thereupon Solicitor Davis and Mir. W. 0. Oates, secrs- | tary of Alabama securities commis- sion, especially requested me to rule upon the constitutional points rais- ed for the express purpose of secur- ing from the supreme court of Ala bama and theAsupreme court of the United States a speedy and authori-i tative ruling upon the validity of the Alabama laws, so as to have a guide and certainty in the prosecu- tion of pending and future cases, before proceeding with prosecutions under this law. On this request l ruled on the Constitutional points involved as best I could under the decisions presented I have no es- pecial pride of opinion in such cases, but trust that the law may be decided finally so as to render certain and clear the construction of this law. > ..
 All parties desired an early de- cision by the courts of last resort, and I trust full exposition of the law may be given to guide. the courts in future. The Alabama blue sky law has never been con-, strued by our. supreme court. The new code of Alabama is said to cons tain a new law on this subject; which, itais hoped, will not be sub ject to the vices pointed ont in the present law; and the new code will probably be issued about May 1, 1924. This subject of legislation is very important and I am in sym pathy with it's general purposes, under wise and sound provisions and With reasonable fixed stand ards. WILLIAM E. FORT, ?. Judge Tenth Circuit of Alabama. Feb. l, 1924.
 Appreciates Lee Memorial Editorial To the Editor of The Age-Herald
 Just line in acknowledgement and appreciation of your. editorial this morning in the interest of the Birmingham campaign for. the Lee Memorial School of Journalism. It was exactly what we needed, and of course admirably written. With cordial ragerds, .-
 vERBoN E. KEMP,
 Field Secretary.
 Birmingham, Ala, Jan. 31, 1924.
 Governor and Parole System To the Editor of The Age-Herald: i
 Governor Brandon has received much criticism because of his al- legged wholesale" parole of pris- oners.. This comes from people who are ignorant of the safeguards which prevent indiscriminate par doning by the chief executive of our state.
 Securing even temporary parole is stupendoHs task. The very difficulties safeguard against undue or illegal paroling.. First, the pa role is advertised in the newspapers for three successive weeks. The first notice and an affidavit from the editor ofsthe paper must be pre- sented together. Then the person requesting the parole writes or re- lates a brief or history of the en- tire case, giving the name, age, birthplace, life, etc, of the pris- oner along with the details of the crime. name of judge, lawyers, date of trial and sentence. The pris- oner himself fills out form, giving his version of the affair, citing ex- tenuating circumstances and making application for a parole. All of this information is consolidated into a file, which is turned over to the pardon board at Montgomery. The l pardon board, one of whose mem bers is the attorney general, head of the legal department of the state, then makes a most thorough inves- tgation of the court records. Black marks for insurbordination, resist ance to discipline, or the like, are fatal. After the entire case has been minutely reviewed, the board recommends ives" or mo- to the governor, who then acts.
 Thus it can be seen that every case is judged strictly upon it's mer- its alone. It usually requires months to go through all the nec- essary steps. and then in rare cases, comparatively, is the request grant ed. The aim of our penal system is to allow men to pay their debts to society, to repent of their crimes, and to restore themselves as useful citizens. Experienced wardens agree that this grows increasingly difficult as the term of imprisonment length ems. Governor Brandon is work ing from purely humanitarian mo- tive. Practically all of his paroles are granted to first-offenders. who have not formed the "crime habit" or to those whose youthful environment was bad and who have never received the home training in ideals that they should have had.
 What is parole? It is simply a means of giving somebody's boy, somebody's husband, somebody's fa- ther, the thing that Americans have always stood for-an0ther chance. There are failures in every under taking. This is inevitably true in reform effort, where we are work. ing with backward or warped char acters. Some of the prisoners on parole go straight for a while and then fall into crime again. The great mistake is that these failures are being emphasized and are being held up as the sole results of the system. No mention is made of the I eases where, after six months under temporary supervised parole, the ex- prisoner becomes an honest, valua- ble citizen.
 For the past three years I have been actively engaged in prison well rare work, and l have seen boy after boy reclaimed for useful citi- zens. Governor Brandon is doing both his Christian and his civic duty In giving few picked prison- CTS another chance.
 MRS. JULIA B. McNUTT.
 Birmingham, Ala. -.