The coastland times with which is combined the pilot and herald of Belhaven and Swan Quarter. [volume] (Manteo, N.C.) 1959-1973, 1960-03-04
WHY DO WE KEEP UP THIS
STUPID APOLOGIZING
This column is lifted from the
Greenville, Is. c. News.

1
In our not so humble opinion
Caryl Chessman, the California
rapist and sex criminal convicted
in several other cases, should have
been gassed, hanged electrocuted
or subjected to the firing squad
long ago for he has been sentenced
and his state allows the death pen
atty.
For IA dozen years he has beer
in and out of the courts, both state
and federal, with a series of delay
ing legal maneuvers and has
escaped the fate that Judge and
jury long ago decreed for him be-
cause of his heinous sins against
society and because of what he
did to a series of much more
worthy persons who seem to have
been forgotten.
just a day or two ago this crea-
ture won another reprieve from his
just deserts when someone in the
State Department of the United
States notified the Governor Of
California that his execution might
have unfortunate repercussions
abroad. It could be, this officer
said, that the people of the Latin
American countries President Els
enhower plans to visit during the
next few weeks might demonstrate
against him.
What has happened to the United
States that it has become afraid
. to follow its own folkwayN and tc
lenforce its laws because of what
the peoples of other lands might
say or do :? Shall our Congress be
frustrated and our courts reversed
because of a mob of Hottentots who
might stage a demonstration? Are
we so weak that we cannot pro-
tect our President wherever he
goes, be it Moscow or the capital
of Uruguay?
If things have gotten that bad
we will gladly volunteer to lead
a couple of platoons of Marines
and paratroopers to go along or
the trip and fend off the rock:
and the rotten eggs. And maybe
help to Install a few more friend!
governments in the process.
America is a glass house; tha'
we have long known. We do no
deny that what the rest of thu
world thinks of the democrac.
that we preach and have tried 81
hard TO export depends largely OF
how we practice it.
But how stupid can we get whel
it comes to telling the rest of thu
world the truth about how W,
practice it? How long will we con
tinue to play into the hands o
Red propagandists?
The facts of the Chessman cas-
have long been known. They hav
not changed. If he had been exc
cuted on schedule, in accordanc
with the law as defined by tn
judges and the facts and foun
by the jury, no one outside of Cal
ifornia would ever have heard o
him.
But what happened? We hav
allowed ourselves to be pilorie
before world public opionion be
cause we have kept him in tn
death cell for IL years while h
presented plea after plea. Their
seems to be no end to it. Agai
and again he has, gone back to tn
same courts which previously ha
affirmed his sentence. The sym
pathy he has received is due sole
ly to the fact that he has bee
so long under the death sentenc,
Why haven't we told our foreig
critics that only in America coul
a man. prolong his life for so man
years when he deserved to die? ]
there another country in the worl
where he could have obtained tn
benefit of so many doubts? Is ther
another country where one maj
alone in prison, could learn NOR
law than many lawyers ever kne,
and use it to fend off the verde
of an impartial jury chosen at rar
dom from among respectable cit
zens? The answers are obvious.
What should we do to mollif
our foreign critics, turn this ma
loose to repeat his crimes, modif
his sentence and place him in
comfortable cell to continue
mortify US with his cunning bu
Ipsychopathic writings? We thin
not.
We survived the Rosenberg cas-
didn't we?
The case of Chessman is but tn
most ridiculous example of lon
series of ridiculous instances o
the sort of thing.
We have done it before. Tn
State Department has told us tina
race relations, especially in tn
South, have hurt our prestig
abroad. Perhaps so. but only be