Feb. ;0 1912 



I 



®W[P Gi]®OIID 



119 



A. I. Root. 



Therefore the ungodly shall not stand In the judg- 

 ment, nor sinners in the congregation of the Tight- 

 ecus. For the Lord knoweth the way of the right- 

 eous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish. — 

 Psalm l : 5, 6. 



With all my busy cares (at least they 

 seem to me of enough importance to call 

 them "cares") I try to read the dailies 

 enough to keep i)ace with at least something 

 of what is going on in the world; and I con- 

 fess that many things are coming to pass 

 that make me feel the need of some such 

 comforting promise as the one at the head 

 of this talk to-day. What troubles me most 

 is that (Jod evidently expects his chosen 

 followers to help bring about the time when 

 the sinner shall not stand in the congrega- 

 tion of the righteous. Letting criminals go 

 scot free, or letting them oiT with a punish- 

 ment not one-tenth of what they deserve, is 

 what worries me most; and as an illustra- 

 tion of the tendency of the times let me 

 quote from the Chicago Advance of Dec. 28: 



A WIDOW'S CRY. 



■■ My God! Why is there law, any way? There is 

 uo use of expecting any thing from the law. The 

 guilty ones are allowed to escape." 



This was the heart-broken cry of the young widow 

 of a man murdered by an infamous gang of Chica- 

 go toughs when she heard that their execution had 

 been postponed and might not occur at all. 



The police are quoted as saying that the crime 

 was one of the most brutal and atrocious ever com- 

 mitted in tlie city or county. The young man was 

 a gardener, and it was necessary for liim to come 

 to the city in the early hours of the morning. It 

 was a time when half a dozen young robbers were 

 looking for a victim. They met him in the road 

 with clubs and guns. He begged them to take his 

 goods but to spare his life for the sake of his young 

 wife and that of his baby, two months old, who 

 needed his support and protection. The only ans- 

 wer was a more fiendish assault. They struck him 

 on the head with a fence-rail, and it is reported 

 that they even knocked out bis teeth and drove a 

 stick down his throat. Then they left him dying in 

 a ditch and scampered away to make war on other 

 Industrious people who happened to have some- 

 thing which they wanted. 



Fortunately their identity was discovered and 

 they were captured. <;>ne or two of them confessed, 

 and four of the gang were sentenced to be hanged 

 December 22. But in spite of the fact that they so 

 richly deserved it, and that the prevalence of high- 

 handed and bloody crime called for a prompt and 

 effective enforcement of law which would produce 

 more respect for it among the lawless, and more 

 confidence in it among the law-abiding, a move- 

 ment was made upon the governor of the State to 

 prevent the execution, and it succeeded! 



If this movement had been made only by the 

 paid attorneys in the case and the relatives of the 

 murderers it could be passed over; but it had the 

 backing of such influential people as Dr. Ilirsch, 

 Miss Jane Addanis, .lenkin Lloyd Jones, Professor 

 <"harles R. Henderson, and others. Some of these 

 interferers with the mandate of the court seemed 

 to have a rather hazy reason for their meddling, 

 except that they did not want a hanging. As Roo- 

 sevelt once said in a C^hicago address, some people 

 do not feel the pain of the murderer's victim, but 

 do feel intensely the pain which the murderer 

 ought to suffer for his crime. Perhaps this ex- 

 plains in part the aotion of some of these individu- 

 als for blocking the enforcement of law. 



But others of the Interferers were more explicit. 

 Professor Henderson's reasons, as given by the dai- 

 ly press, include the declaration that " capital pun- 

 ishment is not necessary for any rational, social 

 end." But the great commonwealth of Illinois de- 

 clares on its statute-books that It ix necessary; and 

 It is the part of wisdom to pay more attention to 

 the law than to a professor's theories. 



The profes.sor also says that capital punishment 

 tends to increase rather than diminish crime. But 

 the statistics for the crime of murder show that 

 there has been a frightful increase of murder in 

 this country since the decrease in hangings set in. 

 From the year 1887 to 1908, as shown by the statis- 

 tics of the Chicago Tribune, which have command- 

 ed wide attention, tlie murders in this country in- 

 creased from 126(5 to 9000. One year there were more 

 than 10,000. In fifteen years the total number was 

 13;3,192. while during the whole four years of our 

 Civil War the number on the Union side who were 

 killed in battle was only 101,000. That is to say, fif- 

 teen years of murder in this country cost more 

 lives than the battles to save the Union cost. We 

 are fighting tul^erculosis and a lot of other germs : 

 but the worst germ in this country is the murder 

 germ, once we cured it with the rope: now we are 

 treating it with sugar-coated sentimentality, to 

 university theories, and social-settlement softness. 

 During the last two years there have been 653 hom- 

 icides in Cook County — Chicago's county — and not 

 a single hanging : and of these homicides more 

 than 300 were " cold-blooded murders." (This in- 

 formation was received direct from the sheriff's of- 

 fice.) In five years there have been no executions 

 in Chicago, the last having occurred December 13, 

 1906. In Louisville, Ky., a State where the public 

 had the Impression that murderers are hanged, 

 there were 47 murders during the year which end- 

 ed August 1 last, and not a single legal excecution. 



Last year tlie total number of homicides in the 

 country was 8975 — an increase of nearly 800 as com- 

 pared with the previous year, and yet there was a 

 decrease of executions. Only 104 persons were put 

 to death by law. In a word, while murder has 

 been increasing so frightfully as to be but little 

 less destructive than war, hanging is nearly played 

 out. In Chicago, where the execution of these bru- 

 tal murderers was prevented by alleged philan- 

 thropists, murder is a continual occurrence, and 

 executions need uo longer be feared by the infa- 

 mous scoundrels who knock early risers on the 

 head or shoot down women in cold blood because 

 the women get excited when a revolver is thrust in 

 their faces and they are ordered to hold up their 

 hands. "The most significant feature of last year's 

 figures for murder," says the Chicago Tribune's re- 

 port, " is the Increase of murders committed by 

 thugs, thieves, burglars, and hold-up men." It is 

 this kind of murder which the interferers with law 

 have now made more safe in Chicago. The man 

 who wrote the magazine article entitled " Encour- 

 aging Murder" could find great encouragement for 

 another article in this recent performance. 



Dr. Andrew White, in his notable discussion of 

 the subject, said, "The murder rate is from ten to 

 twenty times greater in the United States than in 

 Great Britain and other northwestern European 

 countries. In London, with its great population, 

 during the year 1909 there were only 19 cases of 

 murder. Of the murderers, five committed sui- 

 cide (executed themselves), four were executed, 

 and four were found insane. Compare these fig- 

 ures with Chicago's 300 "cold-blooded murders." 

 and not an execution! And yet Professor Hender- 

 son is quoted as arguing that England has reduced 

 crimes of violence by a reduction of capital punish- 

 ment. The real fact is that England hangs mur- 

 derers, and as a result she does not have many to 

 hang. 



Many of the readers of Gleanings are in- 

 terested more or less in market-gardening, 

 and know what it is to get up early and sit 

 up late to raise stuff, fighting frost and flood 

 and drouth. Now just think or having the 

 crop grown, and on the way to market, and 

 then being beset by a crowd of toughs from 

 saloons, and being murdered in cold blood, 

 as mentioned above. Although the Ad- 

 vance did not touch on the matter I think 

 they will agree with me that this crowd was 

 the direct outcome and outpat of the saloon 

 business. What does Christianity mean, 

 and what does the expression "the land of 



