Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1924-06-21
THE COUNTRY HOME
BY MRS " Il FELTON,

Perhaps any of us would do the same
thing under similar circumstances, but there
is another side to this identical question,
illustrated by the Frank McDowels and the
rich Chicago fathers offspring. The chain
gang or the federal penitentiary does not
seem to deter such youths from cold-blooded
murders, for they do not stop to think about
the aftermath of murder. They are so full
Of blood lust that it dominates all moral and
humane inclinations, and they enjoy the vio-
lent contact with their proposed victims.
If capital punishment is essentially wrong,
then we may prepare to build vast number
of cells or dungeons to hold these yiolators
of law, because they lie in wait for innocent
persons, and the innocent are not only help
less but unconscious victims. Such must not
be allowed at large by reason of increasing
numbers of them since the degeneration of
the late World war. TO provide keepers
and prison guards will entail overwhelming
expense on those who already taxed to
the limit to pay for judges and court Of
ficials, including jails and penitentiarie for
the protection of society. Such are mani
testify unfit to live and UNFIT to die. What
should be done with such raVenlng human
beasts? In the Mcdowell case the parents
were evidently in a horrible dilemma after
this degenerate youth had assasSinated the
young sisters (and the mother was cogniZant,
if the sons confession is true). AS the
matter stands today, it was mistake not
to expose his insanity, if such it is, while
do that much to save others from similar
fate at the hands of an insane demon. The
killing of these parents is only another chap
ter in the crime life of the demoniac youth.
Certainly they have paid dearly for their pa
thence with him and vain endeavor to shelter
him from his crimes, so far as concea ment
used.
He must not be tur1ad loose society,
matter what he is, whether human devil
or real maniac. The plea of insanity is
likely to prevail according to the result of
the first rial, and if he is pronounced insane
he is manifestly unfit to be confined with
the harmless insane in the insane asylum. If
he is, what he seems to be, plotting always
murder in his mind all the time, he must
spend his days in a cell, where his murder
lust must be cured and made imperative to
the end when death will come.
None of these demoniac youths here men
toned were fools for want of sense. All
had the opportunity to get first-class educa-
ton. In sense We're any of them idiots,
without mind. If the records are accurate,
they were capable of absorbing learning and
getting prizes as intellectuals.
Evidently ely must be punished by death
or they must remain in dungeons apart from
any of their kind, to protect the innocent
from their blood thirst. 1t is problem,
serious one.
Some days ago 7 had short conversation
with a wel-knoWn judge of the superior
court outside the judicial district in which l
reside. We fell into discussion of these
horrible exposures of de9enera youths. He
remarked that at the beginning of his last
term of court here in Georgia the jail
full of criminals. He told the sheriff to
bring them into the courtroom at the open
ing of court. He said there were no negro
criminals Gas used to be the usual thing,
but there were more than a dozen and less
than twenty of young white men awaiting
trial on criminal charges.
You will not have soon forgotten what
| wrote about the report of the Georgia
prison commission, where one-third of the
number were under twenty md some as
young as eleven years, in the state prison,
as commented upon in the New York Times
newspaper early in May, 1924. Georgia has
something to consider in matters here noted.
We crowded with teachers and public
schools all over the state. We had $50 con-
yicts to turn over to the Georgia convict
lease after the Civil war, nearly all negroes.
We have now over 5000 in the Georgia
state prison, and one-third Of the convicts
are youths under twenty years, and this
does not cover miSdemeanOr cOnYictS in the
counties, where they are worked on the pub
lie roads What will the next generation be
if this continues?