^ $mi^m^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^= 
 
 Bofwers 
 
 Life Imprisonment vs. the Death 
 Penalty
 
 LIFE IMPRISONMENT 
 
 vs. 
 
 THE DEATH PENALTY 
 
 To the Honorable Members of the Senate and Lower 
 House of the Fifty-eighth General Assembly 
 and to the Chairman and Members 
 of the Judiciary Commit- 
 tees Thereof. 
 
 THE BRIEF OF DUKE C. BOWERS, Et Als., Advocates 
 
 -ON- 
 
 Sciwtc Bill \o. 242 (/;/(/ House Bill Xo. 235. Untitled ".in 
 .'let to Abolish the Death Penalty in the State of Tennessee, 
 and to Substitute Life Imprisonment Therefor."
 
 HISTORY OF CAPITAL Pl'NISHMENT. 
 
 In the early stages of society the man committing homicide 
 was killed by the "Avenger of Blood" on behalf of the family of 
 the man killed, and not as representing the authority of the State. 
 That was the custom for centuries, till the mischief of this prac- 
 tice was mitigated by the establishment of cities of refuge, and in 
 pagan and Christian times of the recognizing of the sanctuary 
 of the temple and the churches. In the laws of Khamurobi. King 
 of Babylon (2285-2241 B. C.) the death penalty was imposed for 
 many offenses ; the modes of execution specially mentioned are, 
 drowning, burning and impalement. 
 
 See Capital Punishment. Vol. 5, Enc. Britanica. 
 
 Draco, the first compiler of the Penal Code of Greece, made 
 death the penalty for all offenses. When asked why he did so. 
 replied : "The least offenses deserve death, and I can impose no 
 worse for the higher crimes." 
 
 Under the Mosaic Code the law of vengeance was personified 
 in the then prevailing doctrine of "EYE FOR AN EYE, AND A 
 TOOTH FOR A TOOTH," in many instances that rule being 
 carried out literally. In the dark ages of the United Kingdom, 
 under the rule of the Saxon and Danish Kings, the modes of cap- 
 ital punishment most common were: "Hanging, beheading, 
 drowning, burning, stoning, and precipitation from rocks." 
 William the Conquerer would not permit the execution of the 
 death sentence by hanging but by mutilation. (5 Vol. Enc. 
 Rritanica.) 
 
 Death was the penalty for the most trivial offenses; for ex- 
 ample, the cutting of a tree or poaching deer. In 1800 there were 
 over 200 capital crimes in Great Britain and t8o in 1819. Men 
 were hung and quartered for oft'enses which now would be re- 
 garded as nn'sdemeanors, while the learned clergy and statesmen 
 looked on with approval and apjilause. During the reign of 
 
 — 2 —
 
 ^L 
 
 Henry the \'III, 72,000 persons were executed. The first allevi- 
 ation came from the extension of the benefit of clergy to all per- 
 sons who coiilfl read the "Xeck-verse" (Ps. Li. 5, i ). 
 
 "At the end of the eighteenth century the criminal laws of all 
 Europe were ferocious and indiscriminate," says the author of 
 "Capital Punishment," in Vol. 5, page 279, Enclycopedia Britanica, 
 in its administration of capital punishment for almost all grave 
 crimes. yet such forms of crime were far more numer- 
 
 ous than they are now." The best blood of England drenched 
 the execution block, and "Kech." the legal executioner, became 
 more infamous than Rob Roy. the banflidt. Death was a panacea 
 for all ills. 
 
 The States of our Union adopted the common law of England 
 replete with capital offenses, but Tennessee, by statute, has finally 
 limited the number, in practice at least, to two, murder and rape ; 
 but the statute names other oflfenses. and hanging is the mode of 
 execution. 
 
 In Belgium no execution hasf taken place since 1863 ; in Fin- 
 land since 1824; in Holland since i860, and was totally abolished 
 in 1870. Xo executions in Norway since 1876. abolished in 1905 ; 
 abolished in Portugal in 1867; in Roumania in 1864. Russia 
 abolished capital punishment, except for military ofiFenses, in 
 T750. but later restored it for a short period, only to again abolish 
 it in 1907. Only 7 out of 22 Cantons in Switzerland have it, and 
 Italy revoked the law in 1888. 
 
 In the United States the number of capital crimes has been re- 
 duced in recent years to only four, and the following States have 
 abolished it : Maine, in 1876, restored it in 1883, but again re- 
 pealed the law in 1887 on the recommendation of the Governor 
 of said State; Rhode Island, in 1853; Wisconsin, in 1853. and 
 Kansas, in 1901, but there have been no legal executions in 
 Kansas since 1872; Michigan in 1847. 
 
 — 3 —
 
 BRIEF AXD ARGUMENT. 
 
 It is now proposed to repeal the law of blood and vengeance 
 in Tennessee, and make life imprisonment the maximum punish- 
 ment in ^aid State. 
 
 The two main objects in enforcing our criminal laws are (a) 
 to protect society, (b) to reform the criminal. Some would add 
 a third reason for punishing criminals, namely, to punish the 
 criminal himself, but in this day of brotherly love, when we are 
 taught lo love our enemies, and when charity and love have 
 irium])hcd over vengeance and hatred no one would seri(nisly 
 Insist that the State any more has the right to kill a man to 
 avenge the death of his victim than has an individual. 
 
 Every man will agree with us on this one point: if social con- 
 ditions will not be made worse by the abolition of the death pen- 
 alty, then it should be abolished. The only way we have to 
 determine this question is by taking the statistics from the States 
 with and without the death penalty. 
 
 St.\T1STICAL Ai5STR.'\CT. 
 
 According to the mortality statistics compiled by the United 
 States Bureau of Statistics, and published in 1912. in table 5, 
 page 376, the number of homicides per 100,000 poindation for the 
 eighteen States composing the registration area was as follows : 
 
 State. 1900 '01 '02 '03 '04 "05 '06 '07 '08 '09 
 California — 
 
 Cities 9.0 13.2 10.6 10.2 
 
 Rural 6.8 8.3 12.1 9.8 
 
 Colorado — 
 
 Cities 10.4 7.4 18.7 9.0 
 
 Rural 13.9 18.0 15.6 12.4 
 
 Connecticut- 
 Cities 0.3 0.5 
 
 Rural 
 
 — 4 — 
 
 0.6 
 
 0-3 
 
 1.8 
 
 2.0 
 
 2-5 
 
 3-^ 
 
 2.8 
 
 0.9 
 
 
 0.9 
 
 1-5 
 
 17 
 
 7^-7 
 
 5-1
 
 Indiana — 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cities . . . 
 
 . I.T 
 
 2.4 
 
 2.0 
 
 1-4 
 
 31 
 
 4-8 
 
 5-7 
 
 7.0 
 
 9.1 
 
 8.0 
 
 Rural . . . 
 
 • 1-5 
 
 0.5 
 
 0.6 
 
 1.2 
 
 0.7 
 
 2.7 
 
 30 
 
 3-6 
 
 2.9 
 
 2.7 
 
 Maine- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cities .... 
 
 
 1-7 
 
 
 2-5 
 
 2.4 
 
 3-2 
 
 0.6 
 
 2.2 
 
 0.6 
 
 I.I 
 
 Rural .... 
 
 '•/ 
 
 I/) 
 
 03 
 
 I.O 
 
 
 2.0 
 
 0.4 
 
 1.6 
 
 1.4 
 
 I.I 
 
 Maryland — • 
 
 
 • 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cities .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 4.7 
 
 7-Z 
 
 3-8 
 
 3-4 
 
 Rural . . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 2.3 
 
 2.6 
 
 3-9 
 
 3-8 
 
 Massachusetts- 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cities .... 
 
 0.7 
 
 r.i 
 
 T-3 
 
 t-3 
 
 1-5 
 
 1-5 
 
 1.8 
 
 2.7 
 
 2.6 
 
 2-5 
 
 Rural .... 
 
 1.2 
 
 1-3 
 
 0.6 
 
 0.7 
 
 03 
 
 0.4 
 
 0.6 
 
 0.4 
 
 1-9 
 
 2.3 
 
 Michigan — 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cities .... 
 
 0.7 
 
 I.I 
 
 1-5 
 
 1-4 
 
 1.0 
 
 0.9 
 
 1-3 
 
 3-2 
 
 4.1 
 
 2.2 
 
 Rural .... 
 
 0.7 
 
 1.6 
 
 1.2 
 
 1-3 
 
 1.0 
 
 0-5 
 
 1.0 
 
 1-7 
 
 2.2 
 
 2.2 
 
 New Hampshire — 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cities .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1.2 
 
 1.2 
 
 
 0.6 
 
 1-7 
 
 Rural .... 
 
 0.4 
 
 0.4 
 
 
 
 0.8 
 
 0.4 
 
 2.8 
 
 
 0.8 
 
 1.2 
 
 New Jersey — 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cities .... 
 
 1-7 
 
 0.9 
 
 14 
 
 0.7 
 
 1-3 
 
 1.8 
 
 2.9 
 
 4.2 
 
 3-7 
 
 4-7 
 
 Rural 
 
 0.1 
 
 0.1 
 
 0.8 
 
 0.2 
 
 0.9 
 
 1-4 
 
 2.5 
 
 3-2 
 
 4.6 
 
 2.9 
 
 New York — 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cities .... 
 
 2.00 
 
 1.8 
 
 2.0 
 
 1-4 
 
 2.2 
 
 3-5 
 
 5-0 
 
 6.1 
 
 5-3 
 
 4-4 
 
 Rural 
 
 0.2 
 
 0.4 
 
 0.3 
 
 0.5 
 
 05 
 
 0.6 
 
 1.8 
 
 3-3 
 
 3-6 
 
 3-3 
 
 Ohio- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cities .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 7A 
 
 Rural .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 2.8 
 
 Pennsylvania — 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cities .... 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 5-8 
 
 6.5 
 
 50 
 
 4-7 
 
 Rural 4.5 4.8 4.9 4.1 
 
 — 5 —
 
 Kliodc Island — 
 
 Cities .... 2.5 2.8 2.7 2.3 3.5 2.5 3.9 5.5 4-2 30 
 Rural J.X 0.7 4.0 1.9 1.9 0.6 2.3 i.i 3.3 2.1 
 
 South Dakota — 
 
 Cities 74 7-2 
 
 Uinal 2.1 2.6 3.8 2.2 
 
 \ rnnoiit — 
 
 Cities 2.0 2.0 .. 3.9 3.8 3.8 
 
 Riiral 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.3 2.0 I.O 1.3 2.3 3.8 
 
 \\ asliington — 
 
 Cities II-7 8.1 
 
 Rural 6.3 4.2 
 
 W'isoousin — 
 
 Cities 31 1-9 
 
 Rural 1.6 1.7 
 
 It will thus be seeu by reiorriug to the statistics quoted above 
 that for the ton-year period, beginning- with 1900, the average 
 number *>l" homicides in the States where capital punishment has 
 been alx^lished per hundred thousand population was : Maine. 
 2.5; Michigan. 3.8; Rhode Island. 5: and for the two years. 
 i<)t">8 and H)c>). for which Wisconsin retorted her homicides, she 
 averaged 4.1. but decreased in 1900 over the previous year. In 
 si^mo of the States where capital punishment prevailed we find 
 that for a ten-year period, beginning with the year 1900. the aver- 
 age number of homicides per 100.000 population was : Indiana, 
 (>.4; New Jersey, .4; New York, 4.8: and for the four years 
 reiH^rted by Tennsylvania an average of 9.8. Ohio reports for 
 the year ux'*!) only, giving 10.2: California for a four-year period 
 .-bows twenty homicides per Ii.k">.o.x"> jx^pnlation. While Massa- 
 chusetts only shows an average of 2:57 for each 100.000 popula- 
 tion, tlie increase in that State from ux>5 to 190*) was 100 per 
 cent. It will bo further seen that California. Connecticut. Ma5isa- 
 
 — 6 —
 
 chusetts. Indiana, New Jersey. New York, Fenniiyhania and 
 \'emK»nt, where capital punishment obtains, and where it is en- 
 forced rigidly, shows an increase in the ninnber ot homicides 
 for the period reported in the above statistics, while of the four 
 States that have abolished the death penalty, only Michigan sIk^ws 
 an increase, which is sligiit. but her general average lor .» ten- 
 year period is less tlian either of the States that have retained the 
 death penaltj-, with the exception of X'ermont and \ew Hamiv 
 shire : ahd that they have increased their homicide rate per annum 
 continually, while Michigan shows a decrease in nx>) over the 
 preN-ious year. Besides, the record shows that the death penatly 
 has been abolished in Wmiont and Xew Hampshire !>v pn»oiioo 
 for twent}' years. 
 
 The general average for the j^eriod re^x^rted in ilic aUne tabic 
 of statistics for the four States where the death ^xMialty has been 
 revoked is 3.85 per 100.000 population, while for the States in- 
 flicting the death penalty, for the period rejx>rtevl. the general 
 average is S.25. or nearly 115 per cent greater. The avcrai;\? hom- 
 icidal rate in Tennessee was five times greater than in either of 
 the abolition States. 
 
 While we were unable to got the statistics on this ciuestioil 
 from Kansas, we arc reliably informed that the number 01 homi- 
 cides in that State per capita is comparatively small, and in a 
 recent letter from the secretary of the presem Governor of tliat 
 State he informs us that the pa^ple there arc universally pleasoil 
 with the workings of tlic now law abolisliin>^ tlu- lioath penalty, 
 and that there is no disposition to restore capital punishment in 
 that State. It will be rcmemborod that tlioro has novor boon a 
 legal execution in that State since 187J. tlio liovornors in their 
 discretion failing to sign the death warrants at ilic end oi one 
 year's imprisonment, as the law required. 
 
 THE RESULTS DRTAIXED IN FOREIGN Gt^^N- 
 TRIES FROM THE ABOLITION OF rill-. Dl-. A III 
 PENALTY ARE NO LESS BENEIHGTAT, Til \\ IM Ol'k 
 OWN STATES. 
 
 — 7 —
 
 We take the folic )\viiii,^ facts and statistics from Report No. 
 io8 on capital crimes of the Fifty-fourth I'nited States Conj^ress, 
 first session, printed January 22, 1896, by order of the House of 
 Representatives : 
 
 BELGIUM. — "The penalty of death has not been abolished 
 in IJeigium, but since 1866 it has not been executed. In order 
 for one to appreciate the results, the following statistics are 
 given: For the period from 1831 to 1890, in the first thirty-five 
 years there were 321 capital condemnations, which was at the 
 rate of 9.17 per year. In the twenty-five years following the 
 cessation of executions there were 201, which was at the rate of 
 8.004, showing a decrease of 1.1696." 
 
 COSTA RICA. — "The results of the abolition of capital pun- 
 ishment for all offenses in Costa Rica are considered very favor- 
 able, thus confirming public sentiment against capital punish- 
 ment." 
 
 IIATI. — "The Constitution of 1879 abolished the death pen- 
 alty for political ofTenses. Since the period of said abolition 
 political crimes have not been more frequent." 
 
 HOLLAND. — "There has been no increase of crime since 
 the abolition of the death penalty." 
 
 ITALY. — "Since the abolition of the death penalty by the 
 new Common Penal Code, which went into force January i, 1890, 
 the results obtained up to this present time have fully realized 
 the expectations cherished by Parliament, by public opinion, and 
 by students of criminal matters ; that is to say, social security has 
 not been (listurl)C(l or diminished by it, and consequently the con- 
 ditions of high criminality have not been rendered worse." 
 
 NORWAY. — "Since 1874 it is made discretionary with the 
 Courts, of death or hard labor for life, since which time a ma- 
 joi^ity of the latter cases have been imposed, and no bad conse- 
 quences, so far as public safety is concerned, have been observed." 
 
 PORTITIAL.— "The death penalty was abolished bv the law
 
 on the first of July, 1867, and the number of homicides to which 
 this penahy was apphed lias diminished durins^ the succeedino^ 
 years." 
 
 SWITZERLAND. — "Since 1874 capital punishment has been 
 abolished in fifteen of the twenty-two Cantons in Switzerland." 
 
 The only light we have to guide our advancing footsteps in 
 enacting ])rogrcssive legislation is the unerring light of experi- 
 ence. The record shows that the death penalty has been abolished 
 in Michigan for sixty-six years; in Rhode Island for sixty-one 
 years; in Wisconsin for sixty years; in Maine for thirty-seven 
 years, and in Kansas by i)ractice for about fifty years, and re- 
 cently by statute, and yet those enlightened and progressive States 
 have discovered no good reason for repealing these laws that have 
 been in force for over a half century in most instances. That 
 alone should be sufficient to convince that the abolition statutes 
 have vindicated their existence. Besides, is it a mere coin- 
 cidence that the States that have so long foregone the death pen- 
 alty have less than one-half the number of homicides of the States 
 that foster executions ? Is it only a coincidence that homicides in 
 Connecticut, Massachusetts, \'ermont and New Hampshire have 
 increased over previous years, while in their sister State of 
 Maine, where life imprisonment is the highest penalty, the num- 
 ber of homicides have decreased in the same period. In 1909 the 
 three States named above registered a total of homicides per 
 100,000 population as follows : Massachusetts, 4.8 ; Connecticut, 
 7.9 ; Vermont, 7.6, while in Maine, for the same period, 2.2 for the 
 same ratio is shown. 
 
 Making further comparisons for the year 1909, we find reg- 
 istered homicides per 100,000 as follows: Michigan, 4.4; Wis- 
 consin, 3.6, and Rhode Island, 5.1, as against the death penaltv 
 ■States as follows: Indiana, 10.7; Ohio, 10.2; Pennsylvania, 8.8; 
 New York, y.y; New Jersey, 7.6; Colorado, 21.4; California, 20; 
 Maryland, 7.2; New Hampshire, 2.9; South Dakota, 9.4; Wash- 
 ington. T2.3. Can all of the above facts, so favorpbic \^ tho 
 
 — 9 —
 
 States that have abolished the death penalty, be attributed to 
 mere chance? 
 
 In the same year the number of homicides per million people 
 in the four abolition States was thirty-five; there were eighty- 
 five in the death penalty States per million population. While in 
 1904, taking the whole United States, the ratio was 104.4 per 
 million, while Maine, for the same year, registers 24 for each 
 million inhabitants; Michigan, 20, and Rhode Island reports 51, 
 or nearly one-half the general average for all the States. 
 
 The record further shows that from 1885 to 1904 homicides 
 increased from 32.2 per million people to 104.4 for the same 
 ratio. This is the face of the facts that capital punishment was 
 in full force in every State in the Union but four or five. 
 
 The foreign States that have abolished it not only refuse to 
 reinstate it, but the reports above quoted show that criminal con- 
 ditions are in all instances as good, and in some reported better, 
 than before the abolition of the death penalty. 
 
 After centuries of observation and experience, the learned 
 Judges of England and America established a rule making a pre- 
 ponderance of evidence in civil cases the guide for tliemselves 
 and juries in deciding questions of disputed facts. That is the 
 only true rule. Then, have we not proven our case by an over- 
 whelming preponderance of the proof? The evidence based on 
 actual experience in our States and in foreign States is so near 
 unanimous in favor of its abolition that it is a mere exception 
 to a general rule that a fact militates against it. 
 
 BUT YOU ASK, "WHY WOULD LEGAL EXECUTIONS 
 INCREASE CAPITAL CRIMES? 
 
 Because crime is largely a disease, and the demoralizing eflfect 
 of a legal execution, and the example thus set by the State ■ 
 arouses the criminal natures and cheapens life in the estimation 
 of the criminally inclined. Like begets like in this respect, as 
 sure as night follows day. We cannot put it better than to 
 
 — 10 —
 
 quote from Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox's beautiful poem on cap- 
 ital punishment : 
 
 "And last the people, frenzied o«r dejjressed 
 
 By sight or sound, or knowledge of the deed. 
 Are wronged and injured by the law's effect ; 
 Crime follows executions ; thought breeds thought, 
 And as from thistledown new thistles s])ring. 
 
 So violent actions to disorders lead. 
 That vengeful God of Hebraic Lore 
 Has blocked the progress of the world too long. 
 When Science seeks the cause, and Love the cure, 
 Then crime will vanish from the human race." 
 
 Did you ever for a moment contemplate the moral wrecks, 
 and devastation, and depravity that follow in the wake of war and 
 of active armies? If anything, it is worse than the active warfare 
 itself. Notwithstanding the guerrilla, if caught either by the 
 Federal or Confederate, knew he would be shot by his captors, 
 hundreds of formerly honorable men, or at least apparently so, 
 became sutlers, ghouls, horse thieves and common robbers, and 
 even little value or respect was placed on the virtue of our wom- 
 anhood. Some of the women themselves were contaminated by 
 the general moral stagnation, and many yielded to the degen- 
 eracy of the times. Human life, especially, became so cheap, in 
 the estimation of the people, that murder became the rule instad 
 of the exception. 
 
 The Government itself was engaged in the vocation of killing; 
 the citizen, or at least the criminally inclined, put no higher value 
 on life than his Government, and that is always true. 
 
 If we are to teach our citizenship that life is sacred we must 
 not take it by law, nor even by law sanction it. As an example, 
 the Quakers even refuse to go to war or for any reason take life, 
 and they do not commit nmrders. 
 
 But you may say it deters others from committing crimes. 
 If that is so. why have States that do not kill the smallest homi- 
 
 — 11 —
 
 cidal rate per capita? Why are such crimes increasing while 
 the death penahy is beings enforced? 
 
 If it deters to kill by hanging- or electrocuting, it would cer- 
 tainly act as a much stronger deterrent if you would, as of old. 
 torture and mutilate the murderer? You say that would be too 
 cruel and barbarous and would demoralize the public and even 
 brutalize men. Well, the majority of the people think inflicting 
 the death penalty is too cruel and barbarous, and that the ma- 
 jority of people think so is proven by the fact that the great 
 majority of the people want the condemned man cummuted to 
 'ife imprisonment in each instance. Our descendants a century 
 hence will look back on our legal executions with the same aver- 
 sion and horror, and denounce us as we do our ancestors who 
 burnt at the stake and mutilated the body of the condemned, or 
 caused it to hang, for weeks, as a warning. 
 
 Dr. A. B. Martin, Dean of the Lebanon Law School of Cum- 
 berland L^niversity, gives a demonstrative illustration from his 
 own observations, that hanging does not deter others from com- 
 mitting crimes. 
 
 A man was to be hanged on the Public Square, in Lebanon, 
 Tenn., and the gallow^s was erected; two enterprising (we think 
 infamously so) young men erected an arena around the scaffold, 
 and on the day of the hanging were present and collected a 
 great deal of money for their seats. W^tihin one and a half years 
 both of the men were hanged for the same offense for which 
 the victim that they had exploited was executed. 
 
 Some of the most shocking crimes follow closely the most 
 notorious executions. For example, the Aliens murdered Judge 
 Massey and four others in the Court House at Hillsville, Va., 
 while the papers of said State were heralding the news of the 
 execution of the noted wife murderer, H. C. Beattie. 
 
 The assassination of Rosenthal in New York City followed 
 closely on tlie heels of the execution of four men in \ew York 
 State within one hour. 
 
 — 12 —
 
 Instances are reiJ(jrtc(l in which the spectators at a hanging 
 in luigland for picking pockets committed the same ofifense for 
 which the victim was being executed. 
 
 ANOTHER REASON WHY CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 
 SHOULD BE ABOLISHED IS, THAT INNOCENT MEN 
 ARE SOMETIMES EXECUTED. 
 
 Says Horace Greely : "I dread human frailty. Men are 
 prejudiced, passionate, and too often irrational. Today they 
 shout. 'Hosanna,' and tomorrow howl' 'Crucify him.' I would 
 save them from the harsher consequences of their frenzy. Our 
 .Savior is by no means a solitary example of the unjust execution 
 of the innocent and just. Socrates, Cicero, Sir Walter Raleigh, 
 Algernon Sidney. John Huss. Michael Servetus, Louis XVI, 
 the Due d'Enghine, Mar.shal Xey. Riego, Xagi Sandor, ]\Iaxi- 
 milian. are among the conspicuous instances of victims of the 
 law of blood. We have recorded instances of innocent men con- 
 victed of murder on their own confession, of men convicted, 
 sentenced and hanged for offenses whereof they were in no wise 
 guilty. Men may suffer unjustly, even though death be stricken 
 from the list of penalties, but to be imprisoned and stripped of 
 property is quite endurable compared with the infliction of an 
 ignominious death in the presence and for the delectation of a 
 howling mob of exulting human brutes. So long as man is 
 liable to error I w^ould have him reserve the possibility of correct- 
 ing his mistakes and redressing the wrong he is misled into per- 
 petrating." 
 
 Mr. B. Paul Newman, writing for the Eortnightly Review, 
 September. 1889, says: "Some time ago Sir James Mcintosh, a 
 most cool and dispassionate observer, declared that, taking a long 
 period of time, one innocent man was hanged in every three 
 years. The late Chief P>aron Kelley stated as the result of his 
 experience that from 1802 to 1840 no fwer than twenty-two inno- 
 cent men had been sentenced to death, of whom seven were actu- 
 ally executd. These terrible mistakes are not confined to Eng- 
 land ; Mittermaier refers to cases of a similar kind in Ireland, 
 
 — 13 —
 
 Italy, France, and Germany. In comparatively recent years 
 ther have been several striking instances of the fallibility of the 
 most carefully constituted tribunals. In 1865, for instance, an 
 Italian named Pelizzioni was tried before Baron Martin for the 
 murder of a fellow countryman in an affray at Saffron Hill. 
 •After an elaborate trial he was found gfuilty and sentenced to 
 death. In passing sentence, the Judge "took occasion to make 
 the following remarks, which should be remembered when the 
 acumen begotten of 'sound legal training' and long experience is 
 relied on as a safeguard against error: 'In my judgment, it is 
 utterly impossible for the jury to have come to any other con- 
 clusion. The evidence was about the clearest and most direct 
 that, after a long course of experience in the administration of 
 criminal justice, I have ever known. I am as satisfied as I can 
 be of anything that Gregorio did not inflict this wound, and that 
 you were the person who did.' 
 
 "The trial was over. The Home Secretary would most cer- 
 tainly, after the Judge's expression of opinion, never have inter- 
 fered. The date of the execution was fixed. Yet the unhappy 
 prisoner was guiltless of the crime, and it was only through the 
 exertion of a private individual that an innocent man was saved 
 from the gallows. A fellow countryman of his, a Mr. Negretti, 
 succeeded in persuading the real culprit (the Gregorio so ex- 
 pressly exculpated by the Judge) to come forward and acknowl- 
 edge the crim-e. He was subsequently tried for manslaughter and 
 convicted, while Pellizioni received a free pardon. 
 
 ".Vgain. in 1877, two men named Jackson and Greenwood 
 were tried at the Liverpool Assizes for a serious offense. They 
 were found guilty. The Judge expressed approval of the verdict 
 and sentenced them to ten years' penal servitude. Subsequently 
 fresh facts came to light and the men received a free pardon. 
 
 "Once more, in 1879. Hebron was tried for the murder of a 
 lK>liceman. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. An 
 agitation for a reprieve immediately followed. The sentence was 
 commuted to penal servitude for life. Three )'ears after, the 
 
 — 14 —
 
 notorious Peace, just before his execution for the murder of Mr. 
 Diason, confessed that he had committed the murder for which 
 Hebron had been sentenced." 
 
 Mr. Charles Burleig^h Galbraith, writing for Friend's IntelH- 
 gencer for October 6, 1906, says : "Juries and Judj^es are still 
 falliable." Maud Ballington Booth, writing- under date of Sep- 
 tember, 1908, gives details to two interesting cases: "A man was 
 sentenced to life imprisonment and served sixteei, and a half 
 years. Most of the evidence had been purely circumstantial and 
 he was convicted mainly on the testimony of one witness. He 
 was saved from the gallows only by the earnest efforts of those 
 who had known of his previous good character. Last winter the 
 woman who had been the main witness against him came to whal 
 she believed was her death bed, and, sending for a priest, con- 
 fessed that she had committed perjury. The matter was brought 
 to the attention of the Governor, and the man at once liberated. 
 He still lives. The State took sixteen years of his liberty, but did 
 not shed his innocent blood." 
 
 "At present I know a man." continues Mrs. Booth, "who has 
 served nine years and is still in prison, where he has been visited 
 by the boy whom he was supposed to have murdered. 
 
 "The fact that, in our day, justice may thus miscarry, must 
 give men constant pause before they seek remedial vengeance in 
 the death penalty." 
 
 Mr. Buttram, present .Attorney-General for the Second Judi- 
 cial District of Tennessee, in talking to me recently, said : "I am 
 against capital punishment because men are too liable to err. Be- 
 fore I was elected Attorney-General, a white man was convicted 
 in my county of murder in the first degree. He pleaded acci- 
 dental killing. He v.as a ]xwr fellow, and the C<nirt had ap- 
 pointed a lawver to defend him. I thought at the time the verdict 
 was rendered that the jury had erred. The peoj^le were bitter 
 against him and had threatened to lynch him. Some of the jury 
 wanted to hang him outright, but they finally reported mitigating 
 
 — 15 —
 
 / 
 
 I 
 
 circumstances as a pari of their verdict and tlic juds^e sentenced 
 the i)ris(»ner to hfe imprisonment, l-'rom later developments it 
 became evident that the man was innocent, and tor that reason 
 riovernor ncM)per pardoned him recently. 
 
 Mr. Scruggs, former Secretary to ex-Governor Patterson, 
 states on his honor that, while he was serving as said ex-Gov- 
 ernor's Secretary, an innocent negro was hanged, as it developed 
 subsequent to the hanging. 
 
 .Mr. Duke C ilowors had a cousin convicted on a charge of 
 murder and sentenced to be hanged, but his sentence was com- 
 muted to life imprisonment by the Governor of Texas, through 
 the intervention of the prisoner's w'ife. After serving twelve 
 \ears. the man who had committed the murder for which the 
 prisoner was sentenced confessed on his dying bed that he had 
 committed said offense, and the prisoner was released. 
 
 From experience and observation, we know that manv men 
 who are innocent are convicted of various grades of crime, and 
 that the greater the crime tlu' more it arouses the passions of 
 men. and the more a])t to ])rocure an unjust \'erdict through 
 iM'ejudice. Every lawyer knows how eas\' it is to convict the 
 poor and friendless fellow charged with crime, and how hard to 
 convict the man who has the influence and "pull." The present 
 laws and practice foster extremes in both of said instances. 
 Thus in the name of Justice, in order to vindicate -a barbarous 
 law. the State itself commits murder. 
 
 S( )rTOT/)GIC.\T. RKAS( )N. 
 
 There is another reason, almost fundamental, why society 
 .^hould not execute its befallen uiembers. That rea.son is a 
 sociological one. Experience shows that the great niajoritv of 
 criminals are either born criminals or their invironment pro- 
 moted criminal instincts and even criminal traits. Had organzed 
 government done its duty towards him. he never would have 
 been a criminal. .\n investigation of the penitentiaries shows 
 
 — 16 —
 
 that the majority are illiterate. Many of them have had no moral 
 or religious training, and, of course, none of them arc criminals 
 from choice. They are "weak vessels," depraved degenerates, 
 and. in manv instances, monomaniacs. Yet they hollo, "PTang 
 him." 
 
 It is estimated by sociologists who have scientifically studied 
 the question that 90 per cent of the crimes would have been pre- 
 vented had care, and prudence, and charity been exercised by the 
 State and muinicpal governments. For example, the four gun- 
 men of New York City sentenced to be hanged. They are vic- 
 tims of environment. They had been agents for gambling houses 
 and houses of ill-fame, and divided their spoils with the officers 
 of the law elected by the people of a great city. In that manner 
 the agents of society educated them in crime, and yet the State 
 says they must forfeit their blood to the State that trained them 
 in vice. They had been trained in ihe underworld from infancy 
 to commit crimes till they became callous and did not scruple in 
 taking life. 
 
 No State has the right to kill men when it contributes 
 to their downfall. It owes them the duty to educate them and 
 throw nothing but moral influences around them, and when it 
 fails, organized society is at fault. You may ask, "What will we 
 do with them?" 
 
 Why, do your duty towards them, by placing them in a prison, 
 reformatory in its character, and teach them morality, and, if 
 necessary, give them mental training, and allow them the right to 
 expirate their crimes and prepare for the hereafter. Make men 
 out of them, and give them in the most, if not all instances, the 
 hope that they will be rewarded if they will reform 
 and become worthy of again taking their places among their 
 fellowmen. 
 
 — 17
 
 THK FALLACY L\ Till-: PLEA KOR "RETRIBUTIVP: 
 JUSTICE." ' 
 
 But a few will say in this enlightened day even, that the 
 criminal should be punished measure for measure for his crime. 
 That is the old spirit of blood and vengeance that perished 
 nearly two thousand years ago. That was a failure even under 
 the old Jewish law. under which the penalty for every offense 
 but one was death. Cain. Moses, Lamech. David, Simon and 
 Levi were all murders, yet none were deprived of their lives on 
 that account. Under that old law of revenge, the wife who be- 
 lieved in a different God from her husband forfeited her life, 
 and slavery and polygamy were as much sanctioned by God as 
 the law of murder, and yet no one would say it was not right 
 to abolish them. 
 
 When Christ came and died for his enemies, he impliedly 
 forbade us to kill our enemies. He forgave his murderers, say- 
 ing, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." 
 F'ather Mathew says: "I have been in the ministry for thirty 
 years, and I have never yet discovered that the founder of Chris- 
 tianity has delegated to any man any right to take away the life 
 of his fellow-man." I did not intend going into that phase of 
 the case, but refer you to the articles printed in the appendix 
 hereto. 
 
 . ABOLITION WOULD NOT INCREASE LYNCHING. 
 
 It is claimed by the advocates of the death penalty that if 
 it is abrogated, it would increase lynching. Here again statistics 
 come to our aid. In the State that have abolished the death 
 penalty there has not been a lynching in several years, while 
 there were eighteen men in the United States last year who were 
 executed for rape, from January i, 1912. to November 15, 1912; 
 fifteen were lynched, leaving only three. We do not think con- 
 ditions would be made worse. 
 
 A learned statesman and criminologist has said : 'The death 
 penalty as inflicted by governments is a perpetual excuse for 
 mobs. The greatest danger in a republic is a mob, and as long 
 
 — 18 —
 
 as States inflict the penalty of death, mobs will follow the ex- 
 ample. If the State does not consider life sacred, the mob. with 
 ready rope, will strangle the suspected. The mob will say : 
 "The only diflference is the trial ; we know he is guilty. Why 
 should time be wasted in techincalities?" 
 
 In other words, why may not the mob do quickly what the 
 law does slowly? 
 
 PARDONING LIFE PRISONERS. 
 
 Some members of the Legislature have said they would be 
 
 for'the bill if the Governor did not have the pardoning power. 
 
 . The records s how that 89 ^r cent of thqsj given a life sen- 
 
 ^7 tence die in the penitentiary; that only 5 3-10 per cent are par- 
 
 ] doned, and 5 7-10 are commuted, and not a single life prisoner 
 
 has ever escaped from said prison. We know that a large per 
 
 cent of the few who were pardoned were pardoned so they could 
 
 die out of the prison walls, as was Lee Holder. Besides, when 
 
 you assume they will be pardoned wrongfully, you assume you 
 
 will elect corrupt Governors, which is not likely to occur. 
 
 Out of 150 life prisoners received at the State prison within 
 the last ten years, only seven have been pardoned, some to die 
 outside the walls, and one because it developed that he was inno- 
 cent. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 I want to say that it is no "maudlin sentiment," nor misplaced 
 sympathy, that moved the parties whom I represent to work 
 for the passage of this measure. We have no interest except 
 the best interest of the old "\^olunteer State" and her hospitable 
 citizenship. 
 
 For the foregoing reasons, we respectfully but earnestly re- 
 quest you. and each of you. to use your vote and influence for the 
 passage of this bill. 
 
 Respectfully submitted, 
 
 R. L, SuDDATH, Attorney, 
 On Behalf of Himself, Duke C. Boivers, Et Ah. 
 
 — 19 —
 
 OPINIONS OF OTHERS. 
 
 The following opinions are taken from diflferent periods 
 of thought relative to this subject: 
 
 Andrew J. Palm: '"It needs no extraordinary judgment to 
 comprehend the truth that if government wishes to teach that 
 life is sacred it must not set the example of deliberately destroy- 
 ing it. As well might it steal from the thief or burn the house of 
 the incendiary as to snufif out a human life to teach that human 
 life is sacred and should be held inviolable. The evil force of bad 
 example is the strongest argument that can be made against the 
 death penalty, and in itself should be sufficient to the law of life 
 for life in every civilized country. .. . . The man who has 
 a high regard for life needs no law to restrain his hand from 
 murder." 
 
 Mr. B. Paul Neuman says: "Lord EUenborough predicted 
 chaos if men were not to be hanged for petit larceny, and Lord 
 Eldon heartily agreed." 
 
 G. Raleigh Vicars : "The obstacles in the way of determining 
 the mental condition of a man makes hanging a dangerous and 
 unjust method of punishment, and is a major objection to the 
 same." 
 
 Lafayette : "I shall insist on having the death penalty abol- 
 ished until I have the infallibility of human judgment demon- 
 strated to me." 
 
 Elizabeth Cady Stanton: "You ask me if I believe in capital 
 punishment. Indeed, I do not. When men are dangerous to the 
 public they should be imprisoned ; that done, the remaining con- 
 sideration is the highest good of the prisoner. Crime is a dis- 
 ease; hence our prisons should be moral seminaries, where all 
 that is true and noble in man should be nurtured into life. Our 
 jails, our prisons, our whole idea of punishment is wrong, and 
 will be until the mother soul is represented in our criminal legis- 
 lation. It makes me shudder to think of the cruelties that are 
 inflicted on criminals in the name of justice, and of the awful 
 
 — 20 —
 
 waste of life and force — of the crushing out of hundreds and 
 thousands of noble men and promising boys in these abominable 
 bastiles of the present country. "As to the gallows, it is the tor- 
 ture of my life. Every sentence and every execution I hear of 
 if- a break in the current of my life and thought today. I make 
 my son the victim. I am with him in the solitude of that last 
 awful night, broken only by the sound of the hammer and the 
 coarse jeers of men, in preparation of the dismal pageant of the 
 coming day. I see the cold sweat of death upon his brow, and 
 weigh the mountains of sorrows that rest upon his soul, with 
 its sad memories of the past, and fearful fore-bodings of the 
 world to come. I imagine the mortal agony, the death struggle. 
 and I know ten thousand mothers all over the land weep and 
 pray and groan with me over every soul that is lost. Woman 
 knows the cost of life better than man does. 
 
 "There will be no gallows, no dungeon, no heedless cruelty in 
 soiitiude when mothers make the laws." 
 
 William Cullen Bryant: "I am heartily with you. as you 
 know, in your warfare against the barbarous practice of punish- 
 ment by death, and my prayer is that your labor may be crowned 
 with perfect success. Sooner or later T am confident that the 
 infliction of the punishment of death by the law will become as 
 obsolete to the civilized world as torture by the rack." 
 
 John r.. Whittier: "I have given the subject of capital pun- 
 ishment much consideration, and have no hesitation in saying 
 that I do not regard the death penalty essential to the security 
 and well-being of society ; on the contrary. I believe that its total 
 abolition, and the greater certainty of conviction which would 
 follow, would tend to diminish rather than increase the crimes it 
 is intended to prevent." 
 
 Alice Carey : "I cannot, probably, add anything to the force 
 of what must have been already said by your contributors against 
 the crime of crimes — capital punishment. As I regard it. the sec- 
 ond murder is worse than the first; for the first may have been 
 attended with extenuating circumstances — not so the second." 
 
 Henry \\\ Longfellow : "I am, and have been for many 
 years, an opponent of capital punishment. It would be useless to 
 
 — 21 —
 
 state my reasons. They are, in the main, the same, doubtless, as 
 those w hich influence the other opponents to the death penalty." 
 
 Horatio Seymour: "I do not know exactly how far we shall 
 agree with regard to capital punishment. 1 am decidedly in favor 
 of softening our criminal code for many reasons. By so doing 
 we shall secure greater certainty of conviction in cases of guilt. 
 I am a strong believer in the influence of hope, rather than fear. 
 The longer I live and the more I see and learn of men, the more 
 I am disposed to think well of their hearts and poorly of their 
 heads." 
 
 Dr. Benjamin Rush: "The power over human life is the 
 sole prerogative of him who gave it. Human laws, therefore, are 
 in rebellion against this prerogative when they transmit it to 
 human hands. I have said nothing of the punishment of death 
 for murder, because I consider it an improper punishment for 
 any offense." 
 
 Father Matthew : "I have been about thirty years in the min- 
 istry and T have never yet discovered that the founder of Chris- 
 tianity has delegated to man any right to take away the life of his 
 fellowman." 
 
 Henry Ward Beccher: "In our age, and with the resources 
 which Christian civilization has placed within reach of civil gov- 
 ernments, there is no need of the death penalty, and every con- 
 sideration of reason and humanity pleads for its abolition. It 
 does not answer well the ends of justice, and often defeats them. 
 .\s an example, it tends rather to brutify than to quicken the 
 moral sense of .spectators, and yet, while the fear of hanging does 
 not deter men from crime, the fear of inflicting death deters many 
 a jury from finding a just verdict and favors the escape of crim- 
 inals. It is the rude justice of a barbarous age. We ought, long 
 ago. to have done with it." 
 
 Wendell Phillips : "The gallows should be abolished alto- 
 gether. It never could have been defended, except on the ground 
 of absolute necessity, in order to protect society. It would be 
 absurd to make any such plea for it now, since we all know that, 
 within the resources of modern times, we can keep a man within 
 four walls as long as we see fit. That guards the community, and 
 we have no right to punish him in order to deter others from fol- 
 
 — 22 —
 
 lowing in his footsteps. The moment a man violates law he for- 
 feits his civil right. This gives society the right, and it imposes on 
 it the duty, of subjecting hm to the best moral nfluences it can 
 command, as long as it needs to make him a good citizen. That 
 is all the right society acquires over him, and this does not justify 
 the gallows." 
 
 '-.y Victor Hugo : "The law that dips its finger in human blood to 
 write the commandment, 'Thou shalt not murder,' is naught but 
 an example of legal transgression against the precept itself." 
 
 Robert Burns : "Man's inhumanity to man makes countless 
 thousands mourn." 
 
 William Shakespeare : 
 
 "The jury, passing on the prisoner's life, 
 May, in the sworn twelve, have a thief or two 
 Guiltier than him they try." 
 
 Cicero : "Away with the executioner and the execution, and 
 the very name of its engine. Even the mere mention of them is 
 unworthy of a Roman citizen and a freeamn." 
 
 Francis Bacon : "There is no passion in the mind of man so 
 weak that it mates and masters the fear of death. Revenge 
 triumphs over death, love slights it. honor aspireth to it. and grief 
 fleeth to it." 
 
 Arthur C. Mellette, a former Governor of South Dakota, has 
 this to say of capital punishment: "T have long been of the opin- 
 ion that capital punishment fosters crime and murder, and that 
 imprisonment for life, without power of pardon, would better 
 subserve the interest of society." 
 
 Former Justice of the United States Supreme Court Samuel F. 
 Miller, on the day before his death, wrote as follows : "I have 
 only to say that I am now, and have been for many years, a 
 disbeliever in ihe merits of capital punishment as a means of pre- 
 venting crime. A long judicial experience has impressed me more 
 and more with the force of the argument against the policy of 
 such punishment, but I have not abandoned my original belief 
 against the moral right of taking life as a judicial proceeding. 
 
 "You would, perhaps, be interested to know that the following 
 
 — 23 —
 
 sentence is a part of a judgment delivered by me in the Circuit 
 Court of the United States for the District of Iowa, 1867. and is 
 to be found in the case of United States vs. Gleason, Woolworth 
 Reports, 140: 
 
 " 'The penahy which the law attaches to your offense is one 
 which my private judgment does not approve, for I do not believe 
 that capital punishment is the best means to enforce the observ- 
 ance of the laws, or that, in the present state of society, it is 
 necessary for its protection, but T have no more right, for that 
 reason, to refuse to obey the law than you have to resist it. '" 
 
 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 
 By W. T. Rolling, D.D. 
 
 Has man any moral right to take the life of his fellow-man, 
 under any circumstances, except to save his own life? I think 
 not, because the divine law says : "Thou shalt not kill, and when 
 God says this He either means it, or indulges in grim humor, 
 which would destroy the confidence of man in the sincerity of the 
 Great Lawmaker, and practically would destroy the entire deca- 
 logue as of binding force, and excuse all crime. ' 
 
 If God made jjrovision to depart from this commandment, 
 He provided for the abrogation of every commandment under 
 certain conditions. "Thou shalt not steal" would mean that thou 
 shalt not illegally steal, but may steal when the human law pro- 
 vides for it. So might we deal wnth every commandment and 
 nullify all of thenL I take it for- granted that God meant what 
 He said when He gave the moral code to Moses at Sinai, and if 
 so,'man has no right to amend the divinely made and given law, 
 and therefore has no right to take the life of his fellow-man. 
 under any cc^ndition, unless it be to preserve his own life, and 
 prevent its being taken by another. 
 
 Xo man or body of men caul justly claim the right to take 
 what he or they cannot restore, and because human-made law 
 provides for conditions under which man may take the life of 
 man, in no wise alters the moral crime involved in doing so. 
 
 — 24 —
 
 It is urj^ed tliat capital punishment is necessary in order to 
 maintain government, but this is a mere assumption without 
 proof, for g-overnment in States and counties which have aban- 
 doned capital inmishment is as good, if not better, than in those 
 States which still use this mode of punishment. To take a man's 
 life is no punishment, so far as this life is concerned, and man 
 has no power to punish in the world to come. Really punishment 
 is only in relation to this life so far as man can inflict or suffer 
 it, and to claim that the State takes the life of a man to punish 
 him is sheer folly. Life imprisonment would be real punishment, 
 and with man living and yet alone in self-communion, and in the 
 presence of his crime and folly, would far surpass death as a 
 punishment fr)r the taking oi the life of his fellow-man. 
 
 Many a man. under the burden of his sin and shame, has 
 taken his own life, because death is far preferable to being com- 
 pelled to live in presence of conscious crime and remorse for 
 having committed it. True, many a man has petitioned for the 
 commuting of the death sentence to life imprisonment, but in 
 nine cases out of ten it is done under the hope of pardon : and 
 take away this hope, and the same men would prefer death to 
 life imprisonment, for then death would be the least of the two 
 punishments. 
 
 The taking of criminal life is but a relic of heathenism, and 
 utterly antagonistic to the law of God and Christian civilization. 
 It does not bring back the dead ; and, in humanity, satisfies only 
 the low spirit of revenge in the living — a spirit murderously crimi- 
 nal within itself, and severely rebuked by the Christ himself. "'Ye 
 have heard it said, in olden times, an eye for an eye, and a tooth 
 for a tooth, but I say unto you, love your enemies, and pray 
 for them that dispitefully use you." and the taking of human life 
 is out of harmony with this teaching. 
 
 lmj)risonment for life gives the criminal some opportunity for 
 reformation, and at the same time puts the seal of contamination 
 upon his crime beyond any that can be put by depriving him of 
 life. Add to this the withdrawal of the power of pardon from 
 the Governor, making a life sentence be for life, unless it can 
 be shown that an innocent man has been wrongfully condemned, 
 and this through a board of pardons, and then we would have 
 punishment for the guilty and vindication for the innocent, meet- 
 ing the design of all just law, which is not for taking revenge 
 
 — 25 —
 
 upon the i^uilty. hut to punish the guilty in order to protect 
 society and to vindicate the innocent. Since the individual nor 
 the State cannot give life, neither has any right to take it, as that 
 right is alone lodged in the Great Giver of all Life, and the 
 province of the State is to deal with the living along the lines 
 of life, punishing for the present only, with no power to deal with 
 
 the things and conditions of the future life. What adequate sat- 
 isfaction to the individual or the State can there be in the taking 
 of a human life, unless it be to satisfy a spirit of revenge, which 
 has no place in the divine law, and should have none in human 
 law. To imprison for life, depriving man of his liberty and all 
 citizen privileges, while at the same time protecting society, is 
 reasonable, just and even humane, and beyond this is but a 
 usurpation of power upon the part of the State in the exercise 
 of the power of life or death, which alone belongs to God. 
 
 If we are to judge by the past, the taking of human life by 
 the State is no remedy for crime, for in the face of possible 
 death murder is alarmingly on the increase, and human life was 
 never so cheap as it is at present, and certainly there is a demand 
 for .some other deterring preventive of crime, for capital punish- 
 ment is a failure. With capital punishment the penalty for 
 crime, it is difficult to get a jury to convict, because the taking 
 of human life is repugnant to even the coarsest type of mankind, 
 and utterly out of all harmony with refined nature, so that even 
 unconsciously men recoil from the idea of taking human life — 
 men who would readily give a verdict for life imprisonment com- 
 l^romise on acquittal. 
 
 iJi course, I am aware that many will disagree with me, for 
 I have never been able to get everybody to see my way and be 
 right in their view, but I am sure that, as men grow more civil- 
 ized, capital punishment grows less poi^ular and wholesale mur- 
 der, in the shape of war, is regarded as the last resort by the 
 civilized nations of earth, and the time will come when human 
 life will be rightly valued and war shall be no more. 
 
 If this is not to be the case Christianity will have proved a 
 failure, to become an efifete religion, cast by intelligent humanity 
 upon the religious scrap-pile of the ages. 
 
 Is it not time to put aside the unwarranted penalty of capital 
 punishment and adopt the more humane and effective punishment 
 
 — 26 —
 
 by life imprisonment, put beyond the reach of one-man pardon? 
 The capital punishment experiment has proved a faihire, so 
 far as it bein,^ a remedy for crime is concerned, and we cer- 
 tainly should cease to officially commit the crime for which we 
 han.e^ the other fellow. — Mfiiipliis Commercial Appeal, January 
 26, 1913. 
 
 DETECTIVE AGAINST IT. 
 
 Stout Says Capital Punishment Should Re Abolished. 
 "Capital punishment does not act as any benefit in deterring 
 crime," said J. T. Stout. Chief of the Stout Detective Agency, 
 talking with a reporter for The Democrat yesterday. 
 
 "I think that the principle of taking a life for a life is entirely 
 wrong, and should be abolished. My long experience as a de- 
 tective has shown me that it does not carry out the fullest aims 
 of justice. 
 
 "We have capital punishment in this State today and yet 
 crime still continues, especially murder. I believe in giving every 
 man a chance if possible, and I think that imprisonment for life 
 would at least give a man a chance to lead a decent life in prison, 
 where otherwise he would be dead. Then if in prison he is of 
 that much value to the State as a laborer, whereas dead men 
 can't work." — Nasln^iUe Democrat. 
 
 By H. W. Lewis. 
 
 There are many persons who do not want to investigate pro- 
 gressive ideas in the treatment of crime and criminals, those 
 who believe in blood for blood, and who do not want to believe 
 anything else can find the sum total of the argument in its favor 
 in the Pentateuch. 
 
 An ignorant conscience is an uncertain guide. Slavery was 
 an institution of so long standing that it was assented to as right 
 and proper without investigation on the part of the great major- 
 itv. Arguments in favor of slavery were drawn from the Scrip- 
 tures, and it was defended from the pulpit as a divine institution 
 because Moses held it to be such. Many persons are displeased 
 with the idea of doin gaway with the death penalty, and charge 
 
 — 27 —
 
 the origin of such ideas as a disbeHef in the Sacred Word. 
 These people have a strong sentiment for the Bible, but it is 
 mostly a mere sentiment. The two verses, "Whoso sheddeth 
 man's blood by man shall his blood be shed," and the one like 
 •imto it, "Pie that spareih the rod hateth his son," constitute the 
 sum total of their knowledge of the Old Testament, while their 
 respect for the new is based largely on Paul's advice to Timothy, 
 to take a little wine for his stomach's sake. They are just as 
 firm in the faith of hanging, whipping and moderate drinking 
 as if they had much more authority for their position. Many 
 persons, usually in the rear of the van of progress, want "Thus 
 saith the Lord" for everything they undertake, and while waiting 
 for the '.'still small voice" to come with sufficient force to set 
 them in action, others grasp the situation, go ahead, on the prin- 
 ciple that the Lord helps those that help themselves, set the 
 wheels of reform in motion, and these obstructionists come up 
 just in time to say "amen" and thank the Lord that the victory 
 was won by faith and prayer. 
 
 Tt will not be denied that slavery was defended from the pul- 
 pit less than seventy years ago, North and South. 
 
 The tendency on the part of the clergy to be conservative 
 may be accounted for on the ground that they draw their in- 
 spiration, and the principles by which they are governed, largely 
 from what has been aptly called the "carpenter" theory of crea- 
 tion. They make no allowances for the race to grow, but think 
 that what was good enough for Abraham and ^Moses four or five 
 thousand years ago is good enough for I'ennesseans in this, the 
 twentieth century. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to add that ministers, as a body, are 
 ardent advocates of the law that demands blood for blood, and 
 they can justly claim the credit, whatever it may be, for having 
 kept the old law so long in force. Some of their ablest men. 
 however, who, by the way, are usually the most liberal, are op- 
 posed to overcoming evil with evil, and have had the courage so 
 to express themselves. 
 
 \\'hen ministers become convinced that it is their duty to fight 
 a custom they go into the contest in earnest. As soon as the 
 preachers were satisfied that slaverv in Tudea did not make 
 slavery right in Tennessee, they went at it "tooth and nail," and 
 
 — 28 —
 
 (lid much to create the impression that banished slavery from 
 existence. If the time comes when they outgrow another Jewish 
 custom, when they believe what they preach — that the vilest sin- 
 ner may return, that forgiveness, mercy, and amity are better . 
 than vengeance, retaliation, and blood — then death as a punish- 
 ment for crime will be relegated to its proper place among the 
 relics of a lower degree of civilization. Suppose we found our 
 criminal jurisprudence on the Mosaic code, what crimes or of- 
 fenses would be punishable with death? Here is a list that in- 
 cludes many of them : Murder, kidnaping, eating leavened bread 
 during the Passover, allowing a cross ox to kill a person, witch- 
 craft, bestiality, idolatry, oppression of widows and orphans, 
 making holy ointment, violation of the Sabbath, striking father 
 or mother, sodomy, eating the flesh of the peace offering with 
 uncleanliness, eating any manner of blood, offering children to 
 Moloch, screening an idolator, going after familiar spirits, un- 
 chastity before marriage, when charged by the husband or un- 
 chastity of a priest's daughter, blasphemy, forbearing to keep the 
 Passover, uncleanliness, stranger coming near the tabernacle, and 
 a number of others. 
 
 No matter how great any man's respect for the Old Te ta- 
 ment may be, the most that he can say for the ceremonial and 
 criminal law of the Hebrews is that it was adapted to men in a 
 very crude condition, who wxre making their first advances in 
 the rudiments of moral and religious truths : that it taught them 
 only as much as they were prepared to receive, with a promise 
 of something better to come after. Ministers admit that the 
 ceremonial law of the Jews is no longer binding, and that the 
 criminal code has no force except in case. of numbers. They in- 
 sist that God's covenant with Xoah, in which occurs the verse. 
 "Whoso sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed." 
 is binding for all time and upon all nations. They do not un- 
 derstand that it is repealed, both in the language and the 
 spirit of the New Testament, li they believe as firmly as they 
 pretend that killing the murderer is pleasing to God and a duty 
 sacredly enjoined upon man. they should act as executioners : 
 they certainly should not hesitate to pull the string or cut the 
 rope that sends the soul of a murderer to the answering bar of 
 God. 
 
 The prinicples of the Jewish law of penal jurisprudence are so 
 diametrically opposed to the spirit of Christianity that there can 
 
 — 29 —
 
 be no compromise between them. Either Christ's command when 
 He says, "Ye have heard that it hath been said an eye for an 
 eye, and a tooth for a tooth, but I say imto you, that ye resist not 
 evil," must prevail, or the very thing He forbids must be ac- 
 knowledged as right. Moses put his enemies to death, Christ 
 died for them ; Moses was sinful, Christ was sinless ; Moses in- 
 sisted on sacrifice, Christ required mercy; Moses was a law- 
 giver and teacher for a single nation, Christ gave a gospel for the 
 world." 
 
 H Jesus had not given His thought on this law of Moses, 
 as found in the Sermon on the Mount; if he had not set up a 
 standard immeasurably higher, then we might pretend that this 
 law of Moses for the punishment of murder was a statement for 
 all generations and all forms of civilization. But His teaching 
 is actually as much or more in advance of Moses' law as that 
 was in advance of the ideas and practices of men when it was 
 given. But this law of Moses is all there is in the Bible which 
 can be pleaded as an exception to the commandment, "Thou 
 shalt not kill." Jesus did enforce this law against killing, but 
 He did not, directly or indirectly, recognize any exception to it. 
 "Thou shalt not kill" is more a command than God's covenant 
 with Noah. It is binding on nations as well as on individuals, 
 for there are no exceptions provided. What right have we to 
 make any? — Nashville Banner. 
 
 THE FEAR OF DEATH. 
 
 Government statistics show an average of i,6oo homicides 
 committed per year, for the past ten years, in the United States 
 and 5,500 suicides per year during the same time. 
 
 Which conclusively proves that the fear of death does not 
 deter when desperation takes hold of a man. 
 
 Putting people to death did not deter the Christian religion, 
 but, on the other hand, made it the most powerful religion in 
 the world. 
 
 Christ, who was put to death by a howling mob, and who had 
 the power to save himself, exemplified and proved the correct- 
 ness of the doctrine which He preached. "Vengeance is mine, 
 saith the Lord." "Be not overcome with evil, but overcome evil 
 with good." — Duke C. Bozuers. 
 
 — 30 —
 
 BOVVERS, OPPOSER OF DEATH PENALTY, MAKING 
 HARD FIGHT. 
 
 Duke C. Bowers, retired grocery merchant of Aleniphis, 
 has returned to Xashville to resume liis fight for the 
 passage of a bill in the Legislature abolishing capital punishment 
 in Tennessee. Mr. Bowers is entering into the fight with great 
 enthusiasm, and is making a telling campaign among the legis- 
 lators and with the public. Largely through his eflforts the issue 
 of capital punishment has been brought before the people of 
 Tennessee, and will be kept before them until after the bill in 
 the Legislature is passed or defeated. 
 
 Mr. Bowers has made the abolition of capital punishment his 
 study for many years, and is thoroughly familiar with the sub- 
 ject. The following interview was given out by him Monday 
 night : 
 
 "Capital punishment has been abolished in five States. In 
 each of these States, with one exception, homicides have been on 
 the decrease, while in the neighboring States, in almost every 
 instance, homicides are on the increase. 
 
 "The government reports regarding the States on which tab 
 is kept as to homicides and so forth showed that, taking the 
 whole as an average, there are almost two and one-half times as 
 many homicides in those States that have the death penalty as 
 against those that have done away with it. 
 
 Mob Law Argument. 
 
 "Some argue that mob law will increase if the death penalty 
 is abolished. Statistics show that from June i, 1912, to November 
 15, 1912, there were eighteen people killed in the United States 
 for rape, of which number fifteen were lynched and three were 
 executed, which refutes the above argument, because fifteen out 
 of eighteen are already being lynched. 
 
 "Others argue that so long as the pardon power remains with 
 the Governor that they are against the abolishing of the death 
 penalty. There have been received at the Nashville penitentiary 
 in the past ten years 151 life-time prisoners, and during that time 
 
 — 31 —
 
 only seven have been pardoned. Some of them having been so 
 as to let them die at home with their people, one of them because 
 the jury and court that tried the man decided he was not guilty, 
 and anyone with a heart in him would have done what the Gov- 
 ernors did in these cases. 
 
 "The old doctrine of 'an eye for an eye' was done away with 
 by that Great Teacher who said, 'Be not overcome of evil, but 
 overcome evil with good.' 'Vengeance is mine, saith the T.ord.' 
 
 Fear of Death, 
 
 "The fear of death does not deter homicides. For the past ten 
 years there have been an average of about i,6oo homicides and 
 5,500 suicides per year, showing that when desperation takes hold 
 of a man the fear of death does not deter him from taking even 
 his own life. The fear of death did not prevent our ancestors 
 from joining the army in defense of our country. If the fear of 
 death had prevailed, then our State would not bear the name of 
 the Volunteer State. 
 
 "The death penalty is ghastly, inhuman, unchristlike, barbarous 
 and absolutely inexcusable from statistical standpoints as well as 
 from all other standpoints. 
 
 "Part of the taxes you pay, I pay, and all of us pay, is being- 
 paid someone in this State for the purpose of having him take 
 some poor, weak, misguided, unfortunate human being out and 
 hang him by the neck until he is dead, dead, dead. 
 
 "Who is able to know that we would not have committed the 
 same crime for which this God-given human soul was put to 
 death, had we have sprung from the same ancestry, been thrown 
 in the same environment and have been cursed with the same 
 devils? Who knows but what in the sight of God we commit as 
 great a wrong when we take His name in vain as does the 
 vilest lawbreaker in his misdeeds ? 
 
 "Help us to be merciful unto others as we would have God be 
 merciful unto us."— Ka^hvil I c Tcnncsscan and American. 
 
 — 32 —
 
 DR. PAYNE AGAINST CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 
 
 Educator Dixlakks Barbarous Custom Does Not Act as 
 Crimk Deterrent. 
 
 "All of my feelings are against capital punishment, and always 
 have heen." said Dr. lirnce R. I'ayne, President of the George 
 I'eabody College, talking with a reporter for The Democrat last 
 night. 
 
 "Even the thought of capital punishment is cruel, and I think 
 that such method of punishment is unnecessary. It is rather a 
 barbarous custom, and theoretically does not reach its ends. 
 
 "When a State punishes a criminal and at the same time re- 
 pairs a broken life. I think it is far better than snuffing life out, 
 thereby neither helping in reformation nor deterring crime." 
 
 When asked if he thought the bill introduced yesterday was 
 a good one. and should be passed. Dr. Payne replied: 
 
 "Well. yes. it is a good thing, and should be passed. Capital 
 punishment doesn't seem to get anywhere, so to speak. If a 
 criminal is dangerous to society, then lock him up. 
 
 "Frequently the very lowest type of criminals represented in 
 the South by the negroes considers it not dishonorable, but rather 
 distinguishing, for members of his class to die the ostentatious 
 death on the scaffold. 
 
 "On the other hand, the example of long years of imprison- 
 ment, or enforced labor on pubilc works proves a much stronger 
 deterring influence than capital punishment." — The Democrat. 
 
 DR. PARRISH AGAINST CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 
 
 "I am totally against capital punishment in any form," said 
 Dr. H. P). Parrish, one of Nashville's prominent physicians, and 
 the Councilman from the Twentieth Ward, talking with a re- 
 porter for The Democrat. "And I am willing to do anything 
 in reason to do away with it. 
 
 "Capital punishment is barbarous, and inhuman, and any- 
 thing but the right thing. 1 do not think that it is the correct 
 thing for a civilized community to have such a law on its statute 
 books. 
 
 — 33 —
 
 "No man has a right to take something which he cannot re- 
 store, as I see it, and therefore the State has no right to take the 
 Hfe of a man which it cannot give back. 
 
 "1 think that the bill introduced by Charles C. Gilbert and 
 others in the Legislature is an excellent one. and I certainly hope 
 that it will go through. 
 
 "From the standpoint of humanity, civilization and Chris- 
 tianity, we should do away with capital punishment." — The 
 Democrat. 
 
 POPUL.AR PASTOR AGAINST LEGAL KILLING. 
 
 "I prefer to learn towards mercy's' side,'' said Dr. Carey E. 
 Morgan, one of the most popular ministers in the city, and pastor 
 of the Vine Street Christian Church, when asked last night if 
 he was for the abolishment of capital punishment. 
 
 "My whole nature rebels against it, and, really, I'm with you 
 for the abolishment. It does seem to me that, under the influ- 
 ence of Christianity, there should be some method of reformation 
 as well as punishment. 
 
 "We are not under the ancient Mosaic law of "an eye for an 
 eye, and a tooth for a tooth,' but under the gospel of the grace 
 of God. We are taught to 'love om- enemies and do good to 
 them that despitefully use us.' 
 
 "It seem that some method looking toward the reformation 
 rather than the sheer punishment would be more Christian, and. 
 perhai)s, finally would serve as a surer ijrotection for society." 
 — The Democrat. 
 
 PROMINENT RECTOR OPPOSES DEATH PENALTY. 
 
 "I am heartily opposed to capital punishment," said Rev. 
 Nicholas Rightor, assistant rector of St. Ann's Episcopal Church, 
 when interviewed. 
 
 "I have always i^ecn against capital punishment, for I think 
 that civilization and humanity demands reformation rather than 
 punishment from a criminal, and when a man's life is napped out 
 there is no opportunity for reformation, as far as the outer world 
 is concerned. 
 
 "Capital i)unishment is a barbarous custom, for in this day 
 and age we are not under the ancient law. of Mosaic days, call- 
 
 — 34 —
 
 ing" for an 'eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' — The 
 Democrat. 
 
 "I have never been in fav(^r of this method of punishing^ a 
 criminal or makinj^ it an example for society, and I think it would 
 be a good thing to abolish it. 
 
 "In this christian dispensation it is not for any man to usher 
 another into tlie other life before his time." — 7 he Democrat. 
 
 CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. 
 
 To the Editor of The Democrat : 
 
 Of real crime, all crimnologists affirm : l^irst, that it is a 
 social disease like insanity, of which it is really a form; and, 
 second, that it is the result or effect of definite causes, and is not 
 effected in the slightest degree by the infliction of punishment 
 upon the criminal. 
 
 Government deals with this matter in a blundering, unscien- 
 tific manner, the basis of which is the stupid and savage idea of 
 revenge, the idea that crime is to be restrained, if nnt prevented, 
 by examples of punishment. 
 
 Those who have made this problem a study very generally 
 agree that punishment not only does not prevent or lessen crime, 
 but tends, rather, to propagate it. This is so well understood ta- 
 day that the death penalty is no longer made a public exhibition 
 because of its demoralizing effects. 
 
 In those districts where the death penalty has been abolished 
 no one is less safe than elsewhere. Since crime is a social dis- 
 ease, its cure or prevention can only be effected by the removal 
 of the generating causes. The chief cause of crime is unnatural 
 social conditions, such as poverty on the one hand and opulence 
 on the other. Wealh, with its idleness, creates vice, for vicious 
 living is characteristic of all aristocratic classes whose members 
 are not obliged to labor and are compelled to find some way to 
 amuse themselves in order to prevent ennui. Poverty, with its 
 enforced idleness, tends also to dissipation and vicious propen- 
 sities. 
 
 In a social system where neither of these extremes of poverty 
 and wealth exists, and in which all are employed in some form 
 of rational and useful activity, the incentive to vicious living 
 will no longer exist, and vice and crime will naturally vanish 
 
 -35-
 
 tor want oi conditions to produce iheni. The establishment of 
 rational social conditions will thus in time eliminate all crime, 
 which is unnatural and would not exist under perfectly natural 
 conditions. 
 
 Elviko D. Lai'ra. 
 Xashville. Februar\- 2. 
 
 Tlll<: TREND OF CAPErAL riWlSl EMEXT. 
 
 Editor I'cnnesscan and American : 
 
 The taking of life in punishment for offenses aJ2^ainst society 
 is as old as the human race. It is very natural the idea of such 
 punisiimont would suggest itself to ])rimitive and barbarous peo- 
 ple. To put the offender out oi existence was the first way 
 thought of. Thus we find in both sacred and profane history 
 the death penalty inflicted for countless offenses. In dark days 
 we find it caused very little disgust even to the most sensitive 
 natures. 
 
 Early writers speak lightly of it. What is ghastly impression 
 is made when we find Ovid, at a time when the sexes were seated 
 together at Rome to witness the executions of criminals, speak- 
 ing of this as a "fit place for a lover to prosecute his suit !" In- 
 creased intensity of seriousness may be observed with the growth 
 of literature. Strange that Nero, "the monster of cruelty," 
 should say during the first few years of his reign, when death 
 warrants were presented him to sign, that he regretted he had 
 ever learned to write, so averse was he to shedding human blood. 
 Later, when he became brutalized, he could sign them without 
 pain, and put his own mother to death without remorse. In the 
 middle ages the church, the Christian church, put to death thou- 
 sands who refused to acept its theological dogmas. 
 
 In the reign of George III of England, only a century and a 
 half ago, above 300 offenses were capital. Goldsmith and his 
 disciples began to recast the public conscience. A few years later 
 Sir Samuel Romilly, slavery and law reformer, fought vigorously 
 for abolition of the death penalty. Himiane societies played 
 their part. One crime after another has been stricken from the 
 list till only two are left — high treason and first degree murder. 
 In 1864 the question of complete abolition was considered by a 
 royal commission. They reported two years later differing on 
 expediency, and recommending that it be confined to first degree 
 murder. English juries now seldom give a first degree verdict, 
 
 — 36 —
 
 and when they do, the sentence is not often carried out, for the 
 crown reserves the riij;ht to chant^e sentence, and fre(|uen;ly does. 
 
 In continental Europe, perhaps Beccaria. philanthropic writer 
 of the eighteenth century, was foremost in diminishing^ capital 
 punishment. Norway. Roumania. Portugal. Holland, and fifteen 
 of the twentv-two cantons of Switzerland, have comnle^^elv abol- 
 ished it. while the larg^er countries have reduced capital offenses 
 to a few. In France, when death sentence is i)ronounced. mercy 
 is g^reatly exercised by the president. 
 
 In our own country four state*-" — Maine, Michi.sfan, Wisconsin 
 and Rhode Island — no lon,s^er inflict the death penalty. The capi- 
 tal offenses of the states retaining? it vary from one to four. 
 Others have considered, and are still considcrins^. abolition. In 
 \'ir_s^inia's last General assembly the subject received no little at- 
 tention. Recently in Orejjon we find Governor \\'est urfjin.c^ the 
 people to abolish it by vote. 
 
 Xext. the methods of infliction. Naturally, when the death 
 penalty would sutjgest itself to the race in its infancv, the most 
 cruel and torturing- means would be thought of. The trend is 
 significant — burning, crucifixion, impalement, i)recipitation from 
 rocks, stoning, beheading, poisoning, hanging, electric shock. 
 In early ages executions were public, the community taking part. 
 Today only the morbidly curious or the brutally disposed would 
 care to witness an execution. Only a few would hold that a 
 puldie execution frightens the criminally inclined. Second to 
 a free lynching in demoralizing a community is a free execution. 
 Hence UK^st Christian countries debar the public. Hence secular 
 newspapers that arc inclined to swell their columns with grue- 
 some details to gratify the morbidly curious are debarred. Such 
 is a very meagre account of the subject. It is significant. Com- 
 menting is in order. 
 
 Who do people sanction capital jiunishment when it is so gen- 
 erally accepted as a relic of barbarism that it has become a tru- 
 ism ? 
 
 First, it is an ingrained habit. It is a case, of persistent racial 
 habit developing almost into an instinct. 
 
 Secondly, lawmakers (\o not err. A good citizen will honor 
 and res];eet the sacred charge of a legislative body. A citizen 
 
 — 37 —
 
 is not necessarily bad if he does not agree with every expression. 
 Thev sometimes hold that the licensed saloon is for the best in- 
 terest of the State. Many are not persuaded. 
 
 Thirdly, some accept every expression as they do Chicago 
 canned labeled goods. They swallow and think no more. 
 
 Fourthly, the brutality of crime justifies it. Yes, some crimes 
 are brutal — brutal beyond conception of the ordinary mind. But 
 to balance brutality and play the part of a savage is unworthy of 
 a great and humane people. 
 
 Fifthly, it is a great deterrent of crime. If so, records of the 
 foreign countries, the States in our own country that have abol- 
 lished it .and the personal testimony of Governors and officials 
 are meaningless. Some States and nations have abolished and 
 restored. It is noteworthy that in the majority of such instances 
 no difference in rate of crime could be observed. 
 
 Sixthly, Scri])ture justifies it. With all reverence, passages 
 can be transposed literally to fit either side, strained and distorted 
 to carry points. Most of the passages justifying it are found in 
 the shady portions of the history of the race. We do not expect 
 for men to see as well at mi f night as at noonday. I cannot har- 
 monize the taking of human life for ofifenses with the heart of 
 Christ. 
 
 Seventhly, the law gives ample time for a condemned person 
 to prepare for eternity. If there is a future existence of the soul, 
 what person can say, what person would dare say, when a soul 
 is ready to meet its God? We do not live by the click of a clock. 
 Preparation for eternity is not a rnechanical process having a 
 common measure. A pliant heart may prepare in a brief period. 
 -An obdurate heart may require years. Surely the person who 
 commits a capital ofifense is most likely to be the latter. Hence 
 the power to settle a person's fate irrevocably can be exercised 
 ju.stly only l)y the Omniscient. 
 
 Personally. w<ire I to take the life of the vilest human being 
 conceivable. I should be guilty of his blood. And according to 
 Christ's teachings to sanction the same by others T must be 
 equally as guilty. Pardon the sentiment, but if my life were 
 taken by another, I should only want my avengers to confine my 
 slayer in some place where the light from heaven could serve to 
 
 — 38 —
 
 transform him more into the likeness of his Maker. 
 
 Above is the trend ; following, the comment. I believe, with 
 many others, I can repeat, feeling innocent of maudlin sentiment, 
 or of being an enemy of the common weal, the closing lines of 
 Myra Townsend's poem on the subject : 
 
 "Cease not from striving, till our law 
 
 Is clear from bloody stain. 
 And reformation — not revenge — 
 Tn principle sustain." 
 
 L. W. Hexdrickson. 
 Nashville. Tenn. 
 
 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS MURDER! 
 
 The following news item from Special Correspondent W. G. 
 Shepherd appeared in The Memphis Press, February 17, 1912. 
 Read it: 
 
 Chtcwgo. February 17. — "How did my boy die?" 
 It wasn't a mother or a father asking a question. It was a 
 deputy sheriff, who stood on the gallows looking down at the 
 swinging form of an 18-year-old boy about whose neck he had 
 fastened a rope five minutes before. 
 
 "Wasn't his neck broken?" insisted the deputy, talking to one 
 of the dozen doctors who were examining the boy's body. When 
 the doctor answered in the affirmative the deputy stepped back 
 from the trap-hole, satisfied. 
 
 What you see at a hanging is one thing: it shows you what 
 society is doing to criminals. But what you hear at hangings 
 shows you what society is doing to itself when it takes the life 
 of a human being. 
 
 I'm going to put down what I heard — the talk of men — at 
 the haneing of Ph'llip Summerling. 34 years: Thos. Schultz, 18 
 years: Ewald Shiblawaski. 24: Ewald's brother, Frank, 21. and 
 Thos. Jennings, negro, 35. 
 
 For two hours and ten minutes there were gathered in the 
 
 — 39 —
 
 vast, liigh-ceilinged room forty-five physicians, thirty-five guards 
 and twenty ne\vsi)ai)er men. They were the representatives of 
 society, and 1 want to show by the thin^s^s I heard them say what 
 hanging does to the men who are not hanged. 
 
 In his office, before we went into the death chamber. I asked 
 Deputy Sherifif I^eters how many men he had hung. 
 
 "Whv. young fellow." he said. "I hung men before you were 
 born. Ihu'ng the Haymarket rioters. And I've hung forty men.'" 
 he added proudly. 
 
 ■'Have a smoke." some one said to Peters. 
 
 "Xo. No smokes, eats or drinks until this job is done. Then 
 I'll go out and take a stifT drink of whisky. I always have a re- 
 action after a hanging. It always makes me tired and sick." 
 
 "Doctors ! Doctors !" exclaimed some one in the hallway. 
 
 We looked out of Peter's office and saw a double line of 
 deputy sheriffs, leading from the main door of the jail. Between 
 then was passing a line of forty-two physicians, who wore being 
 admitted to the death chamber. 
 
 Peters went to the telephone and called up the State's At- 
 torney. 
 
 "There's a fellow who's trying a four-fiush in Judge Landis' 
 court to make us put ofif this hanging. It's a piece of hocus- 
 pocus.. The fellow just wants to get into the limelight. I want 
 you to understand that I am going right along with this busi- 
 ness." 
 
 When he had hung up the receiver. Peters said to the deputy: 
 
 "Fix up the sawbones! Get them in their chairs, and then 
 we'll get busy." 
 
 "Press ! Press !' 'a deputy called. That meant that the dozen 
 newpaper men were to go into the death chamber. 
 
 A doctor tried to sc|ueeze in with us. 
 
 "Xo. no; you can't go with these fellows. Sit down with 
 the doctors. You can examine the corpse with them." 
 
 The doctors all sat in cliairs, at the foot of the high scaf- 
 fold. 
 
 I heard one doctor with whiskers talking to another. 
 "Hanging is all damn fooli.shness," he said. "Xow here are 
 
 — 40 —
 
 four good strong men. One of them has a penniless wife and 
 hahy. Tlie murdered man left a penniless wife and bahy. Why 
 don't they put these four men in jail somewhere for life, and 
 make them work to support the two penniless women and their 
 babies? .Ain't it daiun foolishness to kill them?" 
 
 "I heard the guard say: 
 
 "There's a fellow in Xew "S'ork City who's the best executioner 
 in the country. He's killed 140. and he never makes a miscue. 
 Must have nerve, huh ?" 
 
 "What'll you have to eat?" one reporter asked another when 
 they sat down at a reporters' table that was covered with a 
 white cloth. 
 
 "Yow ! yow ! pow ! pow !" These noises came from the cell. 
 Inmates of the jail were rattling their bars, yelling and ])ounding 
 tin cups. The death march had begun. 
 
 ■■Tiiey"ll show uj) around that corner in a minute." said one 
 reporter. "I'm an old hand in this hanging room. I've seen 17 
 hangings here." There was a huffle of feet on the iron floor and 
 the procession walked onto the gallery from an upper tier. There 
 was a priest, in white, officers in blue, and two men roughly 
 drssed — the Shiblawski brothers. 
 
 All you could hear was the murmur of the i)riest'£ prayer 
 and the murmur of the men. who re])eated his words in low tones. 
 What were they saying]^ \\'hat kind of a i)rayer do men make 
 on a gollows? 
 
 No one could hear their words. The brothers kissed the 
 cross which the priest held- to them. While this was going on 
 their legs and arms were being strapped. We tried to hear 
 what they were saying as the deputies put a white shroud about 
 their bodies, but we stopped trying when the white cajis were 
 tied over their heads. Rverybofly seemed to be working slowly 
 on the gollows. ( )ne brother turned his muffled head toward 
 another. We heard the nuirmur of his voice. 
 
 "Crash!" that was the next sound. Then came the scuffling 
 of the feet of 14 doctors, as they walked to the two bags, their 
 contents twitching, which hung from the swaying ropes. 
 
 The reporters rushed to a back room, where their telephone 
 and telegraph wires had been placed. 1 caught these bits of 
 news as they talked : "Just as the writhing body of the boy stop- 
 
 — 41 —
 
 ped swaying." "Strangled, gurgled." "Twitched like cats in 
 a bag." "Oh, is that yon taking my stuff. Bill? Great show! 
 (jreat show. Three more to come." 
 
 "What, in Christmas, was that prayer?" said one reporter. 
 "I don't know. Tell your office to look it up in the prayer 
 hook. They can copy it from that." 
 
 Two men were fixing up two other ropes. They carried out 
 two bodies on a wheeled table, covered with a white cloth. 
 
 "Both of their necks were broken." said a doctor, coming to 
 the reporters' table. 
 
 During the lull I talked to seven of the 14 doctors wIkj had 
 examined. T wanted to know whether they believed in capital 
 pimishment. Not a one of them did. 
 
 "Capital punishment doesn't keep people from committing 
 murder, unless you hang men on a high gallows, in a big space, 
 where all the folks in the city can see it." said Dr. A. C. Koethe. 
 
 "This is my first hanging, and my last." said Dr. I. E. Huff- 
 man. "After this T don't believe in capital punishment. I can see 
 a patient die. but to see sane men kill a well man. in cold blood — 
 excuse me." 
 
 All of this talk was sort of "between the acts." 
 "Hats off! No smoking," called a man in overalls, from the 
 gallows. 
 
 The next sound was that of the prison inmates, who w^ere 
 watching the death watch. Then we heard the shuffle of feet, 
 and again the priest and the deputies in bhie brought two poorly 
 dressed men onto the scaffold. 
 
 "Well, the other two got across in time for lunch, said one 
 deputy in a seat near me. looking at his watch. 
 
 "These fellows'll eat with them." answered another guard. 
 "But I guess they'll all get there too soon to please them." 
 
 The two men in poor clothes stood on the trap where the 
 denuties placed them. One of them wasn't a man. but a boy. 
 John Schultz, 18 years old, son of immigrants, who. as one re- 
 ported said, "hadn't done anything but get into bad company." 
 And now we know what the nrayer was. for John raised his head 
 and Iroked up. he fixed his blue eyes on the high ceiling, he re- 
 peated the words which the priest murmured. 
 
 -—42 —
 
 "Oh, Christ: have mercy on my soul!" His words rang out, 
 clear and distinct as a bell. "Holy Mary, intercede for me ! 
 Pray for me ! Brings me to everlasting life." 
 
 The deputies were tying the straps about his arms and legs. 
 
 Another of them tied the white shroud about the boy's neck. 
 
 "Savior, save me. Forgive me niy sins!" 
 
 "Listen to that young fellow pray." said a reporter. 
 
 "Christ. T love Thee!" said the boy. Tn the white covering 
 he looked like a choir boy. 
 
 "Grant me to live wtih Thee. Forgive me my sins." 
 
 While he said these words, still looking upward, William 
 Davies. the jailer, put the noose over his head and tightened 
 the knot under the boy's ear. 
 
 Another deputy was doing the same thing to Summerling. 
 
 "Forgive me my sins! Forgive me my sins!" rang out the 
 voice of the boy. His voice was growing louder : there was a 
 tone of wildness in it. 
 
 "Holy ]\Iary !" — "Crash!" Tt was an awful thing to hear in 
 the same moment those words from the mouth of that boy, and 
 that sound. But they came together. Again the feet of fourteen 
 doctors scuffled over the cement floor to the white, swaying, 
 twitching bags. 
 
 There was another intermission. 
 
 "Xow. if this nigger'll only confess before he's hung, you 
 fellow'll get a fine top-off for your day's story." said a deputy 
 sheriff to the reporters. 
 
 "We've got a good early start in the dav's work." said a re- 
 porter. "Are you going out for lunch ? Whv don't you sheriffs 
 go out now and then coiiie back for the afternoon's work? You 
 can fini.sh a lot of men at this raet." 
 
 "Ciee," said a young doctor, coming up to Jailer Davies. "I 
 thought you'd left your handcuffs on that young fellow. I lifted 
 up his hand, and I didn't see that another doctor was holding 
 it by the elbow. I thought his hands were locked together, be- 
 cause I couldn't move his arms." 
 
 "They don't suffer," another doctor was telling the reporters. 
 "But isn't there some easier way to kill a man?" asked a re- 
 porter. 
 
 — 43 —
 
 "I sboukl sav so," said the dnctor. "They could put a tiny 
 drop of hydrocyanic acid in his soup some day, and in an instant 
 he would he stone dead, without a twitch or a pain. Or they 
 could kill a man with morphine, and he would die pleasantly, in 
 leautiful dreams. But this hanging! It's the crudest thing in 
 civilization !" 
 
 "I saw a voung doctor put young Schultz's neck back into 
 place in fine shape." said a deputy — "iust grabbed his head, gave 
 it a twist and it snapped right back where it belonged." 
 
 I saw plenty of smiles during the two hours and ten minutes. 
 1 heard plenty of attempted jokes and commonplaces, among the 
 42 doctors and the reporters and deputies. Why did we smile and 
 try to talk of everyday things? 
 
 Because hanging is so awful that a man who witnesses it 
 dare not admit to himself how awful it is. He knows in his heart 
 of hearts, that the cold, deliberate killing of a man by his fellow'- 
 man brutalizes the killers — and that is all society — just as much 
 as it ends human life. Perhaps the killers suffer more harm than 
 the killed. — The Memphis Press. 
 
 MOORE IS .\GATXST C.\PITAL PUNISHMENT. 
 
 "Capital punishment is a relic of the days when men were 
 forced to trod red-hot ploughshares to prove their innocence," 
 said John Trotwood Moore, Tennessee's distinguished novelist, 
 talking on the subject last night. 
 
 "I (1(^ not believe in taking a man's life for having commit- 
 ted a crime. That is a barbarous custom, a relic of ancient days. 
 We must he progressive, and more humane toward our fellow- 
 mortals. 
 
 "It seems to me that in a Christian land, with all our boasted 
 Christianity, we should practice such, and abolish this terrible 
 method of punishment. 
 
 "Ca])ital punishment does not prevent crime. We make use 
 of it in Tcnnesseee. yet murders are continually committed. Why 
 not try the other method? 
 
 "\yhen a man's life is taken at the end of a rope, or in the 
 electric chair, his usefulness is done for. He is of no value to 
 the State, or to society. 
 
 — 44 —
 
 '"Xow it such men were placed in the penitentiary they would 
 have to work for the State, and he of concrete value to the State. 
 In the same time such a man might reform while in prison, and 
 be a factor for good in that institution. 
 
 "There is the case of Cole Younger. When a boy his father 
 was killed by bushwhackers, and he entered into killing others. 
 When surrender was declared they refused to let Cole Younger 
 surrender. Later he was placed in the penitentiary. There he 
 proved to be a model prisoner, and won the love of all about him. 
 
 "In fact he was so industrious, and so perfect in conduct that 
 he won the sympathy of all wardens under whom he served, until 
 the mater was called to the attention of the Chief Executive of 
 that State, and when put to the people as to whether Cole 
 Younger should be pardoned, after having served twenty-five 
 years for the State, it was overwhelmingly decided that he should 
 have his life and liberty. 
 
 Today that man is a good citizen, and has even become the 
 president of ;'. railroad. He gave twenty-five years of his life 
 to the State — was that not enough? Now, isn't he of better 
 use to humanity in general than if his, life had been snapped out? 
 
 "I think that we should allow our women to vote, for by so 
 doing our laws would become more humane. I think that if 
 women had the ballot in Tennessee this barbarous custom would 
 be speedily abolished. And I sincerely hope that this session of 
 the Legislature will work to that end. — Xaslii'ille 7 emiessean. and 
 American, January 26. 1913. 
 
 JUDGE R. H. PRESCOTT, ONE OF THE LEADING 
 CRIMINAL LAWYERS OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Mr. Duke C. Boiccrs, Dresden. Tcnn.: 
 
 Dear Sir : — I am in receipt of your request that I give you 
 my views concerning Capital Punishment, as now provided by 
 the statutory enactments of our State. 
 
 In reply will say that as a penalty for the infraction of the law 
 I believe it to be a failure. In the very face of the most extreme 
 punishment more murders are committed yearly in the United 
 States than ever before, especially in the history of the large 
 American cities and the territory adjacent to them. It does not 
 
 — 45 —
 
 prohibit; it never has; it never will. The man who kills with 
 cool, deliberate purpose and premeditation moved by malice does 
 not pause to reflect upon the consequences of his act, and the fact 
 that it is written in the law that murder in the first degree shall 
 be punished by death by hanging is no deterrent or restraint to 
 him. In fact, I am constrained from many years' practice in the 
 Criminal Court to believe that punishment of all kinds do not 
 restrain from an infraction of the law, except in the rarest in- 
 stances. I am of the opinion that the impulse to commit crime 
 is in the blood, like some dissease that lurks in the human body, 
 and is nurtured by the infirmities and frailties of hu man nature. 
 
 On the other hand, often a good citizen is impelled, by sudden 
 impulse of passion, to perpetrate violence against the person 
 of his fellowman. Not one criminal in ten thousand stops to con- 
 sider the consequences of his act. 
 
 After all there is no law or its enforcement save that reposed 
 in and reflected by the virtues and patriotism of the masses of the 
 people. And capital punishment does not add to or stimulate 
 either of these characteristics. To take life, even by authority of 
 law, is abhorrent to the better feelings and ideas of justice of 
 the average man. Down in his heart he has an idea that it is 
 wrong — that it is a bloody, cruel, surviving relic of the past ages 
 wherein men were sought to be ruled by power of might and 
 not right. Humane methods of government have advanced with 
 civilization. As a rule, men are more humane, kind and gentle. 
 
 I do not touch on the moral right to take human life by opera- 
 tion of law. That is a question that must appeal to each indi- 
 vidual. I do not believe we have the right as a government to 
 execute one of our citizens. History teaches that it had its origin 
 in revenge. In the early history of England the next of kin to 
 the deceased had the right to pursue and kill the assailant. This 
 give way to a kind of tribal court. 
 
 It is interesting to study the origin of capital punishment. 
 The Mosaic Law. as to that, is but a reflection of the custom of 
 the times, and but an expression of the customs of previous 
 ages. In my opinion there was no divine sanction for it. 
 
 Again, mistakes have been made and clearly demonstrated, 
 in verdicts of guilt, but too late to do any good, because the de- 
 fendant had paid the unjust penalty. 
 
 — 46 —
 
 I am enclosing a copy of a poem, by Ella \\ heeler Wilcox, 
 on the subject of capital punishment. It is the best I have seen. 
 
 Wishing you success in your movement, I remain yours 
 very truly, R. H, Prescott. 
 
 To the Editor of the Banner 
 
 In your issue of January 30, you publish, in your Forum of 
 the I'eople. a letter from A. A. Xorth. I woukl thank you to 
 publish this reply, hoping that he will see it, and that it will con- 
 vince him that there is logic as well as sentiment in the proposed 
 movement to do away with capital punishment in Tennessee. 
 
 Mr. North apparently thinks that we should not be controlled 
 by sentiment and sympathy, yet if he will investigate all of the 
 great movements that have done more to civilize all nations he 
 will find that these two great motive powers have had much to 
 do with it. 
 
 But I am willing to discount these considerations and place 
 my argument before him on a sound basis of logic, reason and 
 statistics. Many men believe that one fact is worth a hundred 
 analogies, and, like Mr. North, insist on knowing "how it works" 
 before they will give up the old for the new. And some are even 
 so constituted that offering undeniable facts to controvert their 
 position will even then fail to put their minds in harmony with 
 the spirit of progress. The idea of the abolishment of the death 
 penalty is no new theory, and has been in practice for a number 
 of years in many States and countries. Former Warden Hatch, 
 of the Michigan State prison, said : ''Michigan is a poor shib- 
 boleth for capital punishment advocates, for it is about the only 
 State in the Union that shows a decided falling ofT in the crimi- 
 nal populations. / believe it impossible to reinstate the lazv au- 
 thorising the death penalty in this State. The civilized world 
 is tending toward the abolition of the law of death for crime, and 
 the number of executions is constantly decreasing. In this coun- 
 try the States of Kansas, Maine. ^Iichigan. Rhode Island and 
 Wisconsin have abolished the death penalty, and the statistics 
 show that in those States for the last decade and more crimes 
 and criminals have been on a decrease. 
 
 In the State of Rhode Island, according to the statistics of 
 the Bureau of Census, there was but five homicides in that State 
 
 — 47 —
 
 to each loo.ooo population ; while in the State of Connecticut, 
 which is an adjoining State, and similar in conditions, there were 
 eight homicides to every 100,000. In the State of :Maine there 
 were only 2.2 homicides to a population of 100,000, while in the 
 State of N'ermont, which is very similar to the State of Maine, 
 there was 7.6 homicides to every 100,000 population. These same 
 statistics hold good throughout the entire list of the States that 
 have abolished capital punishment. 
 
 Again, when people are imbued with the value of life as 
 taught them by the example and precept of the State that human 
 life is sacred, they will themselves appreciate that value more 
 than ever. To show the effects of the two methods of dealing 
 with murderers, statistics have been compiled as to the number 
 of convictions in Rhode Island, as compared with Massachusetts 
 and Connecticut, for various periods. In Connecticut it was 
 shown that from the year 1850 to 1880 there were ninety-seven 
 persons tried for murder in the first degree, and but thirteen 
 of that number or a little over 13 per cent, wre convicted as 
 charged. In Massachusetts from 1862 to 1882, a twenty-year 
 period, the number tried for murder in the first degree was 170, 
 with twenty-nine convictions, or 17 per cent of the number tried. 
 But the convictions in Rhode Island, in thirty years after the 
 abolishment of the punishment of death, numbered 6}^ per cent 
 of the number tried. Thus experience speaks with no uncertain 
 voice as to the advisability of abolishing the penalty of death. 
 Reason adds her plea to mercy in demanding a more sensible and 
 humaiie method of dealing with felons, and there seems to be 
 no good reason why every man should not work to have our 
 present Legislature pass the enactment amending the present 
 law of the death penalty. 
 
 Mr. North makes the statement that the fear of death is a 
 strong deterrent for crime, but this apparently has not proven 
 true in Tennessee, for capital crimes in this State are not on the 
 decrease, but on the increase. Every man knows before he com- 
 mits any crime that there is a penalty attached, but that appar- 
 ently does not deter him. In order to arrive at a correct con- 
 clusion to Mr. North's argument, we must try to see the case 
 from the viewpoint of the nnirderer himself. If any man takes 
 the time necessary for deliberation to make his crime murder 
 in the first degree, what is likely to be his line of thought? Will 
 
 — 48 —
 
 the penalty attached as a punishment enter at all into his consid- 
 eration of the case? 
 
 That depends upon the character of the man, the degree of 
 his malignity, or the intensity of his purpose. There are some 
 men so constituted that they would scarcely give a serious 
 thought to the probable result of their actions. A determina- 
 tion to have revenge, or whatever their object might be, would 
 overcome every other consideration, and they would carry out 
 their evil purpose, no matter whether the punishment be burning 
 at the stake, or simply a fine and imprisonment. 
 
 Others, and perhaps the large majority, would think of the 
 threatened punishment. Suppose they do, knowing that a severe 
 penalty is attached will not remove their evil desire to commit 
 the deed. It isniply puts them to devising ways and means to 
 escape detection. When they have settled this to their satisfac- 
 tion, they will no more hesitate to perpetrate the deed than they 
 would if there were no punishment, because they have convinced 
 themselves that they can escape the legal penalty. Today many 
 of our jurors have a personal prejudice against capital punish- 
 ment, and many men who would have been convicted for life im- 
 prisonment as the penalty, are dismissed without punishment. 
 The man who has nothing but the fear of punishment between 
 him and murder, has only the chance of escape to consider. 
 When he has this arranged to suit himself, the act will be com- 
 mitted, because what matters it to him whether the punishment 
 be light or severe, so long as he confidently expects to escape the 
 penalty entirely? One of the greatest criminologists the world 
 has known, Beccaria, says : 
 
 "Perpetual slavery has in it all that is necessary to deter the 
 most hardened and determined as much as has the punishment 
 of death. I say it has more. There are men who can look upon 
 death with intrepidity and firmness, some through fanactism, 
 others through vanity, which attend us even to the grave, others 
 from a desperate resolution to get rid of their misery, and cease 
 to live." 
 
 Life has strong claims upon the healthy, the industrious, the 
 happy and the good, but to the diseased, the indolent, the poverty- 
 stricken and the vicious, it is oftentimes a sad mixture, with more 
 
 — 49 —
 
 misery than pleasure, and is frequently regarded more as a curse 
 to be thrown off, than as a blessing to be cherished. Lord Byron 
 is said to have decleared that he had never known more than 
 twelve happy days in all his life. The United States mortality 
 statistics show that in the cause of death the annual average for 
 homicides from the year 1900 to 1909 was 1608, but the annual 
 average from suicides 5,560, thus showing that the fear of death 
 is no argument to those who have the intention of committing 
 murder. 
 
 The sentiment of every enlightened people is against the in- 
 fliction of the death penalty, whether they are conscious of the 
 fact or not, they will raise doubts not testified by the evidence, 
 to avoid assuming the responsibility of condemning a fellow- 
 creature to death, a responsibility which most men feel is too 
 great for erring man to take upon himself. It has been estimated 
 that in Chicago one man out of every fifty-four tried for murder 
 in the first degree is made to suffer the penalty. 
 
 Mr. North brings in the argument of mob law. I would like 
 to quote him Horace Greelye's objection to capital punishment 
 on this point. "I dread human fallibility. Men are prejudiced, 
 passionate, and too often irrational. Today they shout 'Hosanna,' 
 and tomorrow howl 'Crucify Him.' I would save them from the 
 harsher consequences of their own frenzy. Our Savior is by 
 no means a solitary example of the unjust execution of the inno- 
 cent and just. We have recorded instances of innocent men con- 
 victed of murder on their own confession, of men convicted, sen- 
 tenced and hung for oft'enses whereof they were in on wise guilty. 
 Men may suffer unjustly, even though death be stricken from 
 the list of our legal penalties. So long as man is liable to error, 
 I would have him reserve the possibility of correcting his mis- 
 take, and correcting the wrong he has been led into perperating." 
 
 In speaking of life imprisonment, Mr. North says: "Prison 
 bars may be sawed in two, pardons may be obtained." If Mr. 
 North will investigate the statistics of our own State prison he 
 will find that eighty-nine per cent of those given a life sentence 
 die in that institution; that only five and three-tenths per cent 
 are pardoned, and five and seven-tcnlhs per cent of life terms 
 are coiumuted. He will also find that in the history of that in- 
 stitution that there has never been a life prisoner to escape. 
 
 — 50 —
 
 Therefore he has based much of his letter on statements that 
 he cannot substantiate, and I personally would like to meet Mr. 
 North and submit to him even more statistics; and many more 
 arguments, against capital punishment than I can place in this 
 letter because I know that 1 have even now imposed on your 
 good nature and have occupied a bit more space than I should. 
 
 Henry W. Lewis. 
 
 SIX REASONS. ^^ 
 
 Why Capital Punishment Should Be Abolished. 
 
 reason no. i. 
 It does not deter the commission of murder. There are 
 fewer murdes per capita in states which have abolished the death 
 sentence — as in Maine and Wisconsin — than in New York and 
 Pennsylvania, which still retain it. 
 
 REASON NO. 2. 
 
 Innocent individuals are occasionally executed, which makes 
 the State a murder of the worst kind. Capital punishment pre- 
 vents reparation in cases of subquently proven innocence. 
 
 REASON NO. 3. 
 
 Two or more men, organized under a form of government, 
 have no more right to take life than one man has. It is murder in 
 either case, and brutalizing in both. 
 
 REASON NO. 4. 
 It is certainly a relic of barbarism. To abolish it would be 
 a step forward. As civilization has advanced, punishment has 
 always become less severe and crime has also become less com- 
 mon. 
 
 REASON NO. 5. 
 
 Capital punishment usually deprives the criminal of the one 
 due which civilized society owes its unfortunate children of this 
 class — the chance for spiritual reformation and expiation to pre- 
 pare for the hereafter. 
 
 REASON NO. 6. 
 
 Life improsionment is a severer and juster punishment for a 
 murderer than to be given early his earthly quietus. Those States 
 which sanction legal murder do more — they murder civilization. 
 
 — 51 —
 
 EXTRACT. 
 
 Because the m^ijority of men sentenced to death petition for 
 a commutation to life iiuprisonment, is not by any means, con- 
 chisive evidence that death is a more severe punishment, nor that 
 it acts as a stronger deterent. As a whole, I am inclined to think 
 to give a life sentence would do more good than the infliction 
 of "the death penalty. I.ike extracting a tooth, we put 
 
 it oft' as long as possible and really suffer more than if we had 
 had the tooth pulled when it first pained us. So with a life 
 prisoner, as a deterent. ITe takes the life sentence in preference 
 to hanging. Had he been hanged the matter would have been 
 forgotten, but while in prison he is a continuing example to keep 
 others from committing crime and meeting a like fate. Besides 
 if it devclopes he is innocent he can be freed and at all events 
 he will be given time to reform and expiate his crime and pre- 
 pare for the hereafter. 
 
 .... Prisoners Do Not Contemtlate Any Punishment 
 
 As a matter of fact, criminals who commit infamous crimes, 
 commit them under circumstances, by which they expect to escape 
 detection or capture entirely. I remember within i6 months, 
 four men who had committed murder, in Weakley County, Tenn., 
 escaped and neither has ever been apprehended. We should 
 have better facilities in Tennessee for catching criminals and 
 make the law against procuring and carrying the means with 
 which to commit murder, adequate to restrict the use of deadly 
 weapons; then have Jury Commissions for each County and make 
 punishment swift and certain for crimes in Tennessee and crimes 
 will diminish. 
 
 — 52 —
 
 EXTRACT FROM AGUMENT AGAIXST THE DEATH 
 
 PENALTY. 
 
 While we submit that where the equities are equal, the ele- 
 ment of mercv should hold the balance of power in decidins: this 
 question, we would not have appealed to you on that s^round. had 
 not a ce''tain Attorney-tieneral, with a master hand pictured, in an 
 article in the Nashville papers of the ist inst., the awful suffer- 
 ing and remorse of the family o fthe vicitm of a homicide. Now 
 we agree that it is hard on the family of the deceased and our 
 sympathy goes out to them, whether his death was the result of 
 an assassination or a justifiable homicide it is all the same to 
 them in either case. But for that reason would you have two 
 widows, two sets of orphans and two sorrowing parents ? Why, 
 the family of the prisoner are just as innocent of an offense as 
 the family of the deceased, and are just as much entitled to com- 
 passion and sympathy. For example, a man commits murder. 
 He probably got drunk or was by environment made a criminal. 
 He has a good wife and also children; a good mother and father 
 and a large number of relatives, all innocent people and pro- 
 foundly grieved that the offense was committed. The accused 
 is tried and convicted and sentenced to be hanged. The very 
 thoughts of taking the life of the husband, father, brother and 
 son breaks a multitude of hearts. The time has healed the wounds 
 that grief for the victim rent, but as the days roll by and the 
 time approaches for the execution of the prisoner the heart 
 of the mother and father all but breaks ; the affectionate and 
 tender cord of love that stretches from the altar to the scaffold 
 is cnished but not broken, and the heart of the wife once ,gay is 
 burned to its very socket. She goes to and from the awful death 
 sell. Little innocent hearts of children are crushed like the ten- 
 der blades of grass, beneath the angry wheels of cannon on the 
 Turkish battlefield, yet they are all innocent. The brother and 
 sister suffer for his sins, and see his ghost-like form in their 
 dreams of repose. As the day draws near the father and mother 
 with tottering footsteps visit the death cell, and their minds won- 
 der back to the time when a little boy said his prayers at his 
 mother's knee and whistled the tune that his father carrolled and 
 they ask God "why they have this affliction to bear." The wife, 
 children and relativ^es and friends all bid him goodby and leave 
 with breaking hearts, "bitterly thinking of tomorrow." With 
 
 — 53 —
 
 heart-breaking despair, the mother prays God to spare her child, 
 and as the time Ayes by the height of heaven could not measure 
 her sorrow. The father's hair turns gray over night, and the 
 very souls all are scarred and forever seared over by the thought 
 of the vengeance visited on their unfortunate relative, son and 
 husand and father. The parents are hurried to their graves of 
 broken hearts, the wife tries to forget, but cannot forgive and 
 the hearts of the children, relatives and friends are hardened 
 by the harrowing example of killing by the State. Two families 
 are in mourning and the prisoner's family crushed and heart 
 broken by a protracted suspense, and that amounts to cruelty to 
 the innocents. Then why make two families instead of one deso- 
 late? Then supix)se he was innocent ? The State cannot retract 
 what it has done. If life imprsonment would serve the same 
 purpose, would you not prefer it to the death penalty. 
 
 The French painter has depicted a weired but striking pic- 
 ture. In the dreary hours of night Napoleon's drummer boy 
 is made to arise and sound the march. The ghost of Napoleon 
 comes forward and stands attention ; and then the Grand Army 
 and the Old Guard pass by in solemn review before the "Arch 
 Angel of War." They come from Areola, from Lodi, from 
 Australitz, from Waterloo. As you are considering the passage 
 of this law, the blood of the luany martyrs of the block, the gil- 
 lotine and the gibet appeal to you to abolish the law that is 
 founded on vengeance and destruction instead of mercy and 
 reform." 
 
 CRIMES AND THEIR PENALTIES. 
 
 Compiled From the Codes or Revised Statutes of the Sev- 
 eral States as Amended rv SunsEouENT Legislation. 
 
 Murder in the first degree, in the table below, may be gen- 
 erally defined to Ije the unlawful, intentional and premeditated 
 killing of a human being, or such a killing resulting from the 
 commission or attempt to commit one of the graver crimes, such 
 as arson, burglary, rape or robbery. 
 
 Alabama — For murder, first degree, deatli or life -mprisonment : rob- 
 bery. death or not less than lo years; rape, death or not less than lo 
 years ; arson, first degree, death or not lessi than lO years. 
 
 — 54 —
 
 .'vlaska — For murder, first degree, death or life imprisonment; robbery. 
 
 1 to 15 years; rape, 3 to 20 years; arson, first degree, 10 to 20 years. 
 
 Arizona — For murder, first degree, death or hfc imprisonment; rob- 
 bery, not less than 5 years ; rape, not less than 5 years and up to life ; 
 arson, first degree, not less than 2 years. 
 
 Arkansas — For murder, first degree, death ; robbery, 3 to 21 years ; 
 rape, death to 10 years ; arson, first degree, 2 to 10 years. 
 
 California — For murder, first degree, death or life imprisonment; 
 robbery, not les than i year; rape, rot less than 5 years; arson, first de- 
 gree, not less than 2 years. 
 
 Colorado — For murder, first degree, death or life imprisonment ; rob- 
 bery, 3 to 14 years ; rape, i to 20 years ; arson, first degree, t to 10 
 years. 
 
 Connecticut — For murder, first degree, death; [robbery, nolt over 7 
 years ; rape, not over 30 years ; arson, first degree, not over 10 years. 
 
 Delaware — For murder, first degree, death; robbery, not over 12 years; 
 rape, death or life imprisonment ; arson, first degree, death. 
 
 Florida — For murder, first deeree. death; robbery, not over 20 years; 
 raoe, death or life imprisonment ; arson, first detrree, any term up to 
 life. 
 
 Georg'a — For murder, first degree, death or life imprisonment; rol)- 
 bery. 4 to 20 years; rape, death or i to 20 years; arson, first degree. 5 to 
 20 years. 
 
 Idaho — For nuirdcr. first degree, death or life imprisonment ; robbery, 
 not less than 5 years and up to life; rape, not less than 5 vears and up 
 to life; arson, first degree, not less than 2 years and up to life. 
 
 Illinois — For murder, first degree, death or not less than 14 years and 
 up to life; robbery, i year and up to life; rape, i year and up to life: 
 arson, i to 20 years. 
 
 Indiana — For murder, first degree, death or life imnrisonment ; robbery. 
 
 2 to 14 years, $1,000; rape 2 to 21 years; arson, first degree, 2 to 21 years. 
 
 Iowa — For murder, first degree, death or I'fe imprisonment; robbery. 
 10 to 20 years: rape, any term up to life; arson, first degree, any term 
 up to life. 
 
 Kansas — For murder, first degree, life imprisonment ; robbery, 10 to 21 
 years; rape. 5 to 21 years; arson, first degree. 10 to 21 years. 
 
 Kentucky — For murder, first degree, death or life imprisonment; rob- 
 bery, 2 to TO years ; rape, death or 10 to 20 years : arson, first degree. 
 TO to 20 years. 
 
 Louisiana — For murder, first degree, death ; robbery, not over 14 
 years ^ rape, death; arson, first degree, death. 
 
 Maine — For murder, first degree, life imprisonment ; robbery, any 
 term of years; rape, any term of years; arson, first degree, life. 
 
 — 55 —
 
 Maryland— For murder, iirsl degree, death; robbery, 3 to 10 years; 
 rape, death or 18 months to 21 years; arson, first degree, death or not 
 over 20 years. 
 
 Massachusetts — For murder, first degree, death ; robbery, life im- 
 prisonment ; rape, life imprisonment or any term of years ; arson, first 
 degree, life imprisonment or any term of years. 
 
 Michigan— For murder, first degree, life imprisonment ; robbery, life 
 imprisonment or any term of years ; rape, life imprisonment or any term 
 of years ; arson, first degree, life imprisonment or any term of years. 
 
 Minnesota — For murder, first degree, death; robbery, 5 to 40 years; 
 rape, 7 to 30 years ; arson, first degree, not less than 10 years. 
 
 Mississippi — For murder, first degree, death or life imprisonment; 
 robbery, not over 15 years; rape and first-degree arson, death or life im- 
 prisonment. 
 
 Missouri — For murder, first degree, death or life imprisonment; rob- 
 bery, not less than 5 years ; rape, death or not less than 5 years ; arson, 
 first degree, not less than 5 years. 
 
 Montana — For murder, first degree, death or life imprisonment; rob- 
 bery, I to 20 years ; rape, not less than 5 years ; arson, first degree, not 
 less than 5 years. 
 
 Nebraska — For murder, first degree, death or life iniorisonment ; rob- 
 bery, 3 to 15 years; rape. 3 to 20 years; arson, first degree, i to 20 
 years. 
 
 Nevada — For murder, first degree, death or life imprisonment; rob- 
 bery, not less than 5 years; rape, not less than 5 years and up to life; 
 arson, first degree, not less than 2 years and up to life. 
 
 New Hampshire — For murder, first degree, death or life imprison- 
 ment; robbery, not over 30 years; rape, not over 30 years; arson, first 
 degree, not over 30 years. 
 
 New Jersey — For murder, first degree, death; robbery, 15 years or 
 $1,000, or both; rape, $5,000 or both; arson, first degree, $2,000 or both. 
 
 New York — For murder, first degree, death ; robbery, not over 20 
 years; rape, not over 20 years; arson, first degree, not over 40 years. 
 
 North Carolina — For murder, first degree, death ; robbery, no statutory 
 definition ; rape, death ; arson, first degree, death. 
 
 North Dakota — For murder, first degree, death or life imprisonment; 
 robbery, not less than i year ; rape, not less than 10 years ; arson, first 
 degree, not less than 10 years. 
 
 Ohio— For murder, first degree, death or life imprisonment; robbery, 
 I to 15 years; rape, 3 to 20 years; arson, first degree, not over 20 
 years. 
 
 Oklahoma— For murder, first degree, death or life imprisonment; 
 robbery, not less than 10 years; rape, not less than 10 vears; arson, first 
 degree, 20 to 30 years. 
 
 — 56 —
 
 Oregon — For murder, first degree, death; robbery, not less than lo 
 years and up to life ; rape, 3 to 20 years ; arson, first degree, lo to 20 
 years. 
 
 Pennsylvania — For murder, first degree, death ; robbery, not over 10 
 years and $1,000; rape, not over 15 years and $1,000; arson, first degree, 
 not over 20 years and $4,000. 
 
 Rhode Island — For murder, first degree, life imprisonment ; robbery, 
 not less than 5 years and up to life ; rape, not less than 10 years and up 
 to life ; arson, first degree, not less than 10 years and up to life. 
 
 South Carolina — For murder, first degree, death or life imprisonment ; 
 robbery, no statutory definition; rape, death or life imprisonment; arson, 
 first degree, death or not less than 10 years. 
 
 South Dakota — For murder, first degree, death or life imprisonment; 
 robbery, 10 to 20 years; rape, not less than 10 years; arson, first degree, 
 not less than 10 years. 
 
 Tcnn2ssee — For murder, first degree, death; robbery, 5 to 15 years; 
 rape, death or not less than 10 years and up to life ; arson, first degree, 
 5 to 21 years. 
 
 Texas — For murder, first degree, death or life imprisonment ; robbery, 
 not less than 5 years and up to life ; rape, death or any term over 5 years 
 up to life; arson, first degree, 5 to 20 years. 
 
 Utah — For murder, first degree, death or life imprisonment; robbery, 
 not less than 5 years and up to life; rape, not less than 5 years; arson, 
 first degree. 2 to 15 years. 
 
 Vermont — For murder, first degree, death or life imprisonment ; rob- 
 bery, not over 20 years; and $1,000; rape, not over 20 years or $2,000, or 
 both; arson, first degree, any term up to life. 
 
 Virginia — For murder, first degree, death ; robbery, death or 8 to 18 
 years ; rape, death or 5 to 20 years ; arson, first degree, death. 
 
 Washington — For murder, first degree, death or life imprisonment ; 
 robbery, not less than 5 years ; rape, not less than 5 years ; arson, first 
 degree, not less than 5 years. 
 
 West Virginia — For murder, first degree, death or life imprisonment; 
 robbery, not less than 10 years ; rape, death or 7 to 20 years ; arson, first 
 degree, death or life imprisonment. 
 
 Wisconsin — For murder, first degree, life imprisonment; robbery. 3 to 
 10 years; rape. 10 to 30 years; arson, first degree, 7 to 14 years. 
 
 Wyoming — For murder, first degree, death; robbery, not over 14 years; 
 rape, not less than i year and up to life ; arson, first degree, not over 
 21 years. 
 
 — 57 —
 
 LYNCHINGS AND LEGAL EXECUTIONS. 
 
 Lyiichings — The total number of ^nchings in the United States from 
 1S85 to November 15, 1912, was 3,413. In 19T2, to November 15, there 
 were 52 lynchings, of which 49 occurred in the South and 3 in the North ; 
 49 were males and 3 females. Of the Ijnched, 50 were negroes and 2 
 whites. The offenses for which they were lynched were: Rap,, 10; 
 nnirdcr, 26; attempted rape, 2; insults to white women, 3; unknown 
 causes, i ; robbery and assault, i ; race prejudice, i ; arson, 3 ; complicity 
 in murder, 3; murderous assaults, 2. The States in which the lynch-'ngs 
 occurred and the number in each were as follows : Alabama, 5 ; Arkan- 
 sas. 3; Florida, 3; Georgia, 11; Louisiana, 4; Mississippi, 5; Montana, i; 
 North Carolina, i ; North Dakota, i ; Oregon, i ; Virginia, i ; West Vir- 
 g'nia. i; Wyoming, i; Oklahoma, i; Pennsylvania, 5; South Carolina, 5; 
 Texas, 3. 
 
 Legal Executions — In 1908, to November 15, there were 92; in 1909 
 there were 107; in 1910 there were 104: in 191 1 there were 61; and in 
 1912. to November 15, there were 128, of which 62 were in the North 
 and 66 in the South ; 89 were whites and 39 were colored ; 127 were males 
 and I female. The crimes for which they were executed were : Murder, 
 125; rape, 3. The States in which the executions in 1912, to November 15. 
 took place, and the number in each, were as follows: Alabama. 4; 
 Arkansas. 8; Calofirnia, 4; Connecticut. 2; Colorado, i; Florida, 3; 
 Geoi..da, 9; Ilhnois, 6; Kentucky, 4; Massachusetts, 5; Maryland, i: 
 Mississippi. 7; Missouri, i; New York, 21; New Jersey, 4; North Caro- 
 lina. 4; Nevada, 2; Ohio, i; Pennsylvania. 6: South Carolina. 5; Tennes- 
 see, 9; Texas, 4; Utah, 6; Vermont, i; Washington, 2; Wyoming, 2; 
 Virginia. 6.—Fmm a table prepared by Geo. P. Upton, Chicago, III. 
 
 — 58--
 
 APPENDIX. 
 TO ABOLISH DEATH PENALTY. 
 
 C. C. GILBERT. OF D.WIDSON. 
 
 ".-\s long^ as the human race will be called to sit in judj^ment 
 over a fellow creature and are sworn to decide whether he must 
 die, the death, penalty must be a question of urg^ent interest and 
 one upon which every man should form an intelligent opinion." 
 The above statement was made by the Hon. C. C. Gilbert, mem- 
 ber of the Legislature from Davidson County, who will. Tuesday, 
 introduce a bill to abolish the death penalty. 
 
 "The more I study this problem, the more I am convinced 
 that to punish murder by death is wrong." continued Mr. Gilbert. 
 "If a man's judgment c.')ul(l possibly be infallible then a remote 
 excuse for caj^ital punishment might exist. Looking at this sub- 
 ject from one viewpoint it seems incredible that in this wonderful 
 age. when civilization is reaching its highest point in the history 
 of man, that the same spirit of revenge that existed when the 
 human race was still in its infancy should still control the people 
 of Tennessee in their treatment of its most unfortunate class. 
 
 ".Ml that is needed to erase the punishment of death from 
 our statutes is to get our citizens to throw aside their prejudice 
 long enough to examine the case fairly and intelligently. As 
 Wendell Phillip says: 'To get men to listen is half the battle, and 
 the hardest half in all reforms.' Many persons never investigate 
 a subject with any other jjurpose than to strengthen the opinions 
 and prejudice they already hold. It is a fact that a large majority 
 of those who have studied this subject fairly are impressed with 
 doubts of the righteousness of the death penalty, sufficient, at 
 least, to excuse them from service on juries for murder trials — 
 if, indeed, they are not fully convinced that hanging men for crime 
 is in itself a crime. 
 
 "In the most primitive state of sttcieiy retaliation was the 
 
 59
 
 method of punishing offences, and this was inflicted b}- the one 
 who suffered the injury or by some of his friends the punishment 
 of death, according to Agassiz, Darwin, Humboldt, and other 
 noted scientists, is of heathen and savage origin and it is a lament- 
 able fact that Tennessee still adheres to this barbarian idea. 
 Among primitive people the death penalty was most likely in- 
 flicted by stoning, as stones were about the most convenient and 
 effective death dealing weapons they possessed. After stoning, 
 came burning, and it was long years after before an instrument 
 was made by which a man could be beheaded. 
 
 "In the days of Blackstone. there were in England one hun- 
 dred and sixty offences punishable by death, and at one time 
 they reached two hundred and twenty-three, ^^'ithin the memory 
 of many yet living it was the law of England to hang persons 
 convicted of stealing goods to the value of five shillings from a 
 store, warehouse or stable, while the person convicted of trea- 
 son should have his bowels torn out and burned while he w^as 
 yet alive. 
 
 "Imprisonment for debt was the law in every state of the 
 union e.xcept five as late as 1845. A case in the Pennsylvania 
 reports is cited to show where a man was actually imprisoned 
 thirty days for two cents. It is hardly necessary to speak of the 
 nineteen persons who were executed in this country under the 
 law because they had gone into league with satan and practiced 
 witchcraft. The early history of Tennessee relates such a case 
 occurring in this state. 
 
 "There are many goofl men and women in Tennessee who are 
 constantly agitating the work of reform in penal jurisprudence 
 and great progress is being made toward humane, sensible and 
 effective means of dealing with those who are in danger of fall- 
 ing into the criminal class. And today there is a growing senti- 
 ment among law-makers to hold a post-mortem over antiquated 
 and obsolete methods and statutes. Laws, when outgrown by civi- 
 lization should be declared legally dead. 
 
 "Without any apology for crime or unworthy sympathy for 
 the criminal, it can be said that justice as well a's mercy should 
 make great allowance for human conduct. Xo human mind is 
 able to decide how far any man may justly be held for his acts. 
 Every man who has been immuned in prison walls or suffered 
 
 — 60 —
 
 death at the hand of hi> fellow was once an innocent, helpless 
 babe. His whole life may have been one continuous stru.fjf^le 
 against disease, against poverty and tning circumstances, against 
 temptation thrown in his way by society and perhaps against his 
 own natural inclination to do evil. 
 
 "Reason speaks with no uncertain voice as to the advisability 
 of abolishing the dealh penalty and in demanding a more humane 
 method of dealing with felons, and it seems to me there can be 
 no good reason why every man should not oppose the cruel law 
 and why this present Legislature should not erase it from the 
 statute books of Tennessee. Capital punishment is a disgrace to 
 our age. to our race, to our civilization. When society insists 
 that it must still strangle some of its members in order to im- 
 press others with the value of life, that it must teach peo])le the 
 sacredness of life by maintaining a school of murder, it con- 
 fesses itself a lamentable failure and a jM-etentious fraud. I. for 
 one. will give the best of my ability to aid in amending our pres- 
 ent laws on the death penalt} ." — Xashznlle Tennesscan and Ameri- 
 can. 
 
 DUKE C. BOWERS' ARGUMENT AGAINST CAPITAL 
 PUNISHMENT. 
 
 The first case of nuirder of which we have any record was 
 that of Cain killing Abel. In this instance God himself was the 
 judge, the jury, and the whole court. He did not put Cain to 
 death, neither would he allow the people to do it. 
 
 In God's commandment to man he said : "Thou shalt not 
 kill." There were some man-made laws after this that stated : 
 "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth ' — likewise a life for a 
 life; but these same Mosaic laws made it a capital offense to pick 
 up sticks on the Sabbath. 
 
 Christ came and changed the old law, "an eye for an eye." 
 declaring that vengeance belonged to God. He also taught that 
 it was better to do good than evil on the Sabbath. The difference 
 in the teaching of Moses and Christ was that Moses shed his ene- 
 mies' blood, while Christ shed His own blood for His enemies. 
 
 Imprisoning a person and trying to reform him exemplifies 
 the teachings of Christ to overcome evil with good ; while taking 
 
 — 61 —
 
 one's life is wreaking vengeance, and vengeance is the Lord's so 
 saith Jesus. 
 
 Because we are Southerners is no reason why we should favor 
 lynching or hanging. Christianity should be the same all over the 
 countrv. Life belongs to God in the South as well as in the North. 
 "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away' should apply to the 
 whole world. 
 
 Ella Wheeler Wilcox says, "Thought breeds thought." and 
 this power of suggestion is strongly illustrated in a story ex- 
 Warden Rice tells. A hanging took place one morning at the 
 Xashville penitentiary; all was gloom about the prison; yet that 
 very afternoon a prisoner slipped up behind a fellow prisoner and 
 killed him. 
 
 Who is able to say whether or not the murder committed in 
 the morning by the state did or not put the idea into the man's 
 head to commit the second murder ? 
 
 Some people argue that if capital punishment is abolished 
 crime will increase. Brand Whitlock tells in his lecture. "Thou 
 shalt not steal." that in the debate of the House of Lords on the 
 bill to abolish the death penalty for stealing from a dwelling to the 
 amoiuit of 40 shillings, Lord Chief Justice Ellenborough declared 
 that if the bill passed, the property of every householder in the 
 kingdom would be left wholly without protection, but his Lord- 
 ^■•hip's fears have not been justified in England. 
 
 The experience of those of our states that have abolished 
 capital punishment proves that if anything deters capital of- 
 fenses, it is by the state not doing what it says its citizens shall 
 not do. Burning at the stake did not prevent the spread of the 
 Christian religion. If putting people to death could not stop a 
 righteous cause, how^ can you expect it to stop an unrighteous one? 
 
 From a statistical standpoint, as gathered from the United 
 States Mortality Report in the states reporting for ten years 
 previous to 1910, those in which capital punishment prevails show 
 one and one-half times as many homicides per 100,000 population 
 as against those states that do not have capital punishment. For 
 1909, the last year reported, those states that have capital pun- 
 ishment had two and one-fourth times as many homicides as did 
 the states in which capital punishment does not obtain. 
 
 — 62—"
 
 Another, and perhaps the strongest argument against cajjital 
 punishment, is that the innocent are sometimes hanged. Follow- 
 ing is a letter I received a few days ago from a friend : 
 
 Columbus, Ky., Feb. 7, k^i.v 
 
 Mr. Duke C. Bonrrs, Drcsdent, Tenn. : 
 
 Dear Duke — I will try and state a case to you that 
 Mr. Otis Peehles told me happened in Milburn some 
 years ago. Two negroes by the name of Duvall and 
 Clapp were arrested for rape on a white woman by the 
 name of Warden. She could not state whether her 
 assailants were white or black. They tried, convicted 
 and hanged the two negroes at Blandville, Ky., Their 
 last words were that they were innocent of the crime. 
 Some years later a white man by the name of Gossop 
 moved to .Vrkansas from Milburn, and shortly after- 
 wards took sick, and on his deathbed made confession 
 to the crime. But two innocent lives' had gone to meet 
 their Maker. 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 Harry Pearson. 
 
 Now, if life imprisonment had been the maximum punish- 
 ment in the above case, then these two men could have been given 
 their liberty and the state would not bear the stain of having mur- 
 dered two innocent men. Isn't it better that ninety-nine gnihy 
 ones' lives should be saved than for one innocent life to be taken? 
 
 Rev. J. O. McClurkan of this city told me that he had talked 
 with nearly every person that has been hanged here in the past 
 fifteen years, and that according to his judgment, there were only 
 about three or four cases out of the whole bunch in which there 
 were no mitigating circumstances. 
 
 Some people are against capital punishment because of the 
 pardoning power resting in the (k)vernor's hand. Warden Rim- 
 mer of the state penitentiary at Nashville wrote me that within 
 the past ten years 151 life prisoners have been received; of this 
 number only seven have been pardonerl and ten commuted, leav- 
 ing 88 4-5 per cent to serve out their time. 
 
 Anyone familiar with the courts of our state knows that a 
 great number of men who would make good jurors are disquali- 
 
 — 63 —
 
 ficd from service on account of their conviction on the subject of 
 capital punishment. To aboHsh the death penahy would, to my 
 mind, give the speedier convictions, save money for the state, 
 be more in keeping with the progressive spirit of this era. and be 
 the best advertisement the State of Tennessee could procure. 
 
 There are people in the North who think that we of the South 
 are a lot of hot-heads, blood-thirsty murderers. Let us abolish 
 capital punishment and show these people that they are mistaken. 
 It will be the biggest boost Tennessee ever had. I believe it will 
 help to bring capital and investors into our midst. Let's quit em- 
 ploying a man to hang people — rather let us give them to under- 
 stand that we want them to take a man and reform him. 
 
 Believing that my judgment is right in this matter, I appeal 
 to you to rally to the support of Mr. Gilbert and his bill to abolish 
 capital punishment in Tennessee. 
 
 Duke C. Bowers. 
 
 Editor The News Scimitar : 
 
 The campaign being waged before the Tennessee Legislature 
 by Mr. Bowers, of Memphis, and others, has aroused much in- 
 terest throughout the state and elsewhere. In nearly every news- 
 paper in Tennessee communications are printed as often as the 
 papers themselves appear. All of which is well. So far as the 
 writer of this is concerned, he has never cared to go deeper in 
 his antagonism to capital punishment than the conviction long 
 held that no community of men has a right to go further than an 
 individual, and that neither community nor individual has a right 
 to take from a man that which God gave him, and which he is 
 entitled to retain until God's finger of finality touches him and 
 he gives it back. 
 
 Nearly two thousand years ago the Old Teatament became a 
 back number, an interesting but obsolete reminder of an era 
 when men were in the formative state, and needed the supreme 
 penalty for mundane misdeeds. Since that time there has come 
 the New Testament, God's latest pronouncement, making love 
 and mercy the basis of men's deeds. We have long been growing 
 away from capital punishment. 
 
 No more than four generations ago, in England, the world's 
 — 64 —
 
 most progressive and advanced nation, there were a hundred or 
 more crimes which called by laws for the death penalty. These 
 have one by one been changed, until today only murder and trea- 
 son, save perhaps in war times, are punishable by death. In 
 many other countries, even the murder of a sovereign calls 
 for nothing severer than life imprisonment. A few years ago 
 in our Western States, when Isolated communities were their 
 own law-makers, horse and cattle thieves always left the country 
 by the noose route. Certain states have recently done what Ten- 
 nessee is considering, abolished the death penalty entirely. Sta- 
 tistics show that in those states the crime of murder has dimin- 
 ished instead of increased. The theory is that the convicted 
 criminal has the chance of being prepared for eternity. It also 
 secures to the convicted one the privilege of a restoration to 
 liberty in the event that exculpatory evidence later comes to light. 
 In 50 per cent at least of murder convictions there is the possi- 
 bility of juries' errors, either as to the guilt at all of the defend- 
 ant, or as to the actual degree of his guilt. This percentage of 
 uncertainty is itself sufficient to relegate the custom, were that 
 the only argument against it. 
 
 It is no surprise to find a majority of lawyers against Air. 
 Bowers in his fight. Lawyers, and there's a pity to it, become, 
 from their earliest legal training, inoculated wath the virus of 
 precedents and custom. I call it virus because it has been a 
 bane to society. There is as much wrong done society and the 
 law by the antiquated and obstinate adherence of the legal pro- 
 fession to precedents and procedures as by any one class of 
 criminals in the world. You may shake up the profession, but 
 you can't wake it up. It's for the people, with visions unre- 
 strained and minds free, to do the work of radicalism in law- 
 making. 
 
 I don't know whether the present Legislature will abolish 
 capital punishment or not. ] do know that some future Legis- 
 lature will, if this one fails. And it will be for two reasons: 
 
 First, that it is not necessary as a preventive of murder ; and. 
 Second, because it is an unholy and a barbarous crime in 
 itself. Walter Cain. 
 
 Gen. N. AI. Curtis, in his speech before Congress to abolish 
 the death penalty, among other things, said : "Those who claim 
 
 — 65 —
 
 it to be our duty to continue the law of past ages are of the 
 same class of men Sir Thomas More spoke of as those who 
 thought it a moral sin to be wiser than their grandfathers." 
 They have lived in every age. valiant defendants of established 
 customs and laws. They suppressed Galileo Galilei, and sent 
 him to a dungeon, 'guilty of having seen the earth revolve around 
 the sun.' " 
 
 AGAINST DEATH PENALTY. 
 
 Rev. Green P. Jackson Op|X)ses Capital Punishment. 
 
 "Capital punishment should never have been u-ed before the 
 coming of Christ, and it is an outrage to civilization that it has 
 been used since then." said Rev. Green P. Jackson, a Methodist 
 minister, who has been preaching in Middle Tennessee for fifty- 
 five years, while talking with a reporter for The Democrat 
 yesterday. 
 
 "Man has no right to take what he has not given — man has no 
 right to say to this man, 'Thou shalt die,' when God himself has 
 ordained, 'Thou shalt not kill.' 
 
 'When the Christ of Galilee came to earth it was to preach 
 the kingdom of God upon earth — and it was his wish that man 
 should not slay his fellow-man. 
 
 "The Son of God suflfered the excruciating tortures of capital 
 punishment. Is it not enough that the Son of Man was put to 
 death? Why should we wish U> kill men in this day of enlight- 
 ened civilization? 
 
 "It is my hope and prayer that the bill against capital ]jun- 
 ishment will be passed in this session of the I.egislature." 
 
 Yesterday Mr. Jackson called upon Duke C. liowers, of 
 Memphis, who is here to trv to get the bill passed, and handed 
 Mr. liowers a petition signed by some of the most prominent men 
 of the city against capital punishment. — The Nashville Democrat. 
 
 AliOLISH BARBARISM, SAVS RABBI LKWINTHAL. 
 
 "The bill for repealing capital punishment in Tennessee may 
 pass or may not, but it is a good sign of the progress of humanity, 
 
 — 66 —
 
 justice and civilization. This strujjgle is not merely a passing 
 sensation — it has been going on for a century, and even if the 
 bill is defeated, the agitation will be resumed." said Rabbi l.ew- 
 inthal of this city in a masterful sermon ag^ainst capital punish- 
 ment a day ago. 
 
 "To the credit of the human race it must be said that in every 
 generation and every clime people were anxious to practice jus- 
 tice. Their will was good and their heart craved justice, but 
 the trouble was they were not advanced enough intellectually to 
 know what justice was. They believed they were practicing 
 justice, but in fact they were practicing barbarism. In our days 
 we know better: therefore, let us drop all prejudices and refomi 
 our penal codes. 
 
 "Let us alK^lish capital pimishment. Just alx^lish it. and the 
 people of Tennessee will be satisfied. They will be satisfied be- 
 cause humanity demands it. justice demands it. experience de- 
 mands it, and civilization demands it. Away with capital punish- 
 ment, away with it now, and away with it forever." — 77;c Xash- 
 z'illc Democrat. 
 
 lUSIXESS Ml-.X FAVOR AROLITIOX OF DEATH 
 PENALTY. 
 
 I'nanimous endorsement was given by the members of the 
 Nashville Business Mens Association, at the regular meeting 
 Monday night, of the campaign which is being waged before the 
 Legislature for the abolition of capital punishment. IL \V. Lewis. 
 M. S. Ross and other members of the association spoke in reganl 
 to the bill i^^nding before the Legislature, and told of the gixul 
 effects obtainetl where capital inmishment has been abolished. — 
 Xasln'illr 7V»/»t\\\\«'a;j and .hucricaii. 
 
 EDITORLXL FROM THE LEXINGTON PROGRESS. 
 
 Duke C. Howers. who has residence in the town of IVesden 
 since retirement from active and personal management of the 
 chain of groceries he established and conducted for several years 
 with signal success in the city of Memphis, has been in Xashville 
 since the convention of the Fifty-eighth General .\ssenibly for 
 the sole purpose of pushing to passage if possible a bill abolishing 
 the death }>enalty anil substituting therefor life imprisonment. 
 
 — 67 —
 
 Mr. Bowers, prompted by humanily alone, is bearing; the 
 whole expense of this work and says that if he can be successful 
 in the Tennessee Legislature he is s2:oing to carry the fight before 
 the legislative bodies of all the states in the Union. 
 
 He is conducting a vigorous, persistent and intelligent cam- 
 paign and that his cause is gaining ground is known to all who 
 know the facts as they existed before the convention of the 
 Legislature and at present. 
 
 Air. Bowers shows by statistics that the number of homicides 
 per year is greatest in the states in which the death penalty is 
 inflicted, but he thinks his greatest argument was made by Judge 
 Greer, who spoke before the legislative committee, depicted a 
 legal hanging and at the close asked this question : "(Gentlemen 
 of the committee, if Jesus of Nazareth could have looked down 
 on that scene and spoken do you think he would have said, 'Well 
 done, thou good and faithful servant?'" Air. Bowers says that 
 if his bill passes and is amended by the exception of any crime, 
 it will be like a fellow saying, "Yes, I will get religion — with the 
 sole exception that I will keep on stealing." Air. Bowers has 
 the help of some of the best members of the Legislature and still 
 others suggest that his plan in the punishment of criminals 
 might safely be given a trial. 
 
 \IGOROUS FIGHT AGAINST CAPITAL PUNTSHAIENT. 
 
 An effort is being made to abolish capital punishment in the 
 State of Tennessee, which has brought out very conspicuously 
 that there is a large element of people who oppose the taking of 
 human life for any reason whatever, those holding to this view 
 contending that the individual crime of shedding blood does not 
 justify the shedding of blood on the part of the State as an ex- 
 piation. They contend that nothing should be taken from a 
 human being that cannot be restored ; that only the Giver of 
 Life has the right to take the life of a human being. 
 
 The discussion of this question has developed a lofty senti- 
 ment among the peoi:)le. It has shown that in their sober mo- 
 ments and mature judgment they look with horror on the legally 
 sanctioned i)ractice of killing those who kill. 
 
 It is commendable in those who are making this light for 
 
 — 68 —
 
 the abolishment of capital punishment that their contention is 
 that the real and only object of the law in punishing^ criminals is 
 to prevent a repetition of of their crime, and to hold out the 
 punishment of them as object lessons to deter others from com- 
 mitting similar crimes. 
 
 These zealous and active opponents of capital punishment 
 take the position that confinement for life, without the hope of 
 j)ardon or esca])e. would be just as effective a deterrent to crime 
 as the death penalty. They contend that it is the certainty and 
 not the severity of punishment that is effective in preventing 
 crime, and that if this be true it is the duty of the State to do 
 away with the gallows altogether, and in its stead provide a mode 
 of punishment for atrocious crimes that would be free of the 
 horrors of the gibbet. 
 
 Though capital punishment has the sanction of the ages, there 
 is much to be said against it. Divested of all the moods and 
 pass'ons that inflame us in the presence of an atrocious crime, we 
 can with, good reason argue the wrong of legal death and show 
 that solitary confinement for life would serve the same end in 
 giving protection to society, but there is a spirit of resentment 
 and a passion for revenge, which, if aroused, leads us to invoke 
 the ^Fo^aic law of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." 
 
 Whatever policy, with respect to the solution of this problem, 
 may be determined on as wise and expedient for the Legislature 
 to follow, we feel sure the discussion of the question which has 
 been engaged in by a large number of people will have good re- 
 sults, for it has brought out the finest sentiments of the people, 
 showing that they not only want to be just, but merciful as well, 
 and that if they can be l)oth just and merciful in the abolishment 
 of the death penalty they will at least have soothed fheir own 
 consciences in deferring the taking of human life to a higher 
 ])ower than that which has been created at the hands of man. — 
 .Xashfillc Tcnncsscan and American. 
 
 OPPOSES CAPIT.AL PTXISHMEXT. 
 
 Jiditor Tcnncsscan and American: 
 
 Allow me to say. T heartily approve of your stand against 
 capital punishment.. Of course. T am not surprised to find you 
 
 — 69 —
 
 on this side, as you have always been for the right and against 
 the wrong. 
 
 Since I commenced to think about it I have been opposed to 
 capital punishment because, first, it is not the best correction of 
 crime ; second, it appears to me a savage practice — a relic of 
 savagery ; third, shall the state commit cold-blooded murder to 
 offset the same crime committed by the individual? The latter 
 commits his crime for some real or imaginary grievance ; the 
 state does it in the nanie of civilized law and decency ; fourth, 
 as I see it, there is nothing in Christ's teachings that sanctions 
 capital punishment. 
 
 His prominent characteristic was that ''He did not resent 
 evil," and His example is to be taken as final. 
 
 I am praying that this Legislature' of Tennessee will do itself 
 the honor to pass a bill abolishing capital punishment. 
 
 Martin, Tenn. Rev. J- J- Thomas. 
 
 OPPOSES THE DEATH PENALTY. 
 
 Editor Tennessean and American: 
 
 As a mother and one who would be rejoiced to see capital 
 punishment done away with, let me say through your columns 
 that I heartily endorse what Mr. Duke C. Bowers and Rev. ]. J. 
 Thomas had to say on the subject. 
 
 As a people who believe in the religion of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, let us unite in one strong battle array against capital 
 punishment. Have the lawmakers of a great commonwealth 
 the right to plunge immortal souls into hell — even if under 
 provocation one had committed murder? Give time for repent- 
 ance. 
 
 David, the man after God's own heart, committed murder, 
 and yet, after all, was restored in His sight. And then in the 
 name of her, who in the valley of the shadow of death bore the 
 son her heart cherished so dearly, and whose love can penetrate 
 prison walls, let our legislators do away with capital punishment. 
 
 "Am I my brother's keeper?" Yes, and as you seldom hear 
 of the rich, or well-to-do being electrocuted, and as justice sel- 
 
 — 70 —
 
 clom reaches the influential; hut as the weak and erring-, un- 
 tutored and unprotected, are often the victims of injustice, we 
 pray that imprisonment, say without the chance of pardon, be 
 substituted for death penaUy. Life is sweet to even the lower 
 animals. And how much more precious must be the life even of 
 one imprisoned for a life sentence? There is chance of and op- 
 portunity for repentance. Mrs. Rodert E. Link. 
 Cottonwood, Tcnn. 
 
 Tllh: JI'DICIARV eO.M.MlTTEh: HEARINGS. 
 
 Judge Greer, of Memphis, opened for the Gilbert bill, the 
 first considered. "I state on the threshold," he said, "that a 
 private citizen of the State has been the most active recent mover 
 in this matter. I have been working on this matter for thirty 
 years. He has done more in thirty days to get it before the 
 Legislature. I wish, therefore, to ask Mr. Duke C. Bowers to 
 either read or make a statement of the faith that has moved 
 him in this humane work." 
 
 bower's suggestion. 
 Mr. Bowers suggested that Judge Greer be heard, and that 
 the committee then postpone the hearing to Tuesday, when there 
 would be more time and other speakers to present the matter. 
 Mr. Bowers referred in this to K. T. McConnico, of Xashville, 
 who sat beside him. 
 
 .Mr. liowers' suggestion was followed by judge (ircer, who 
 said in part: "T have come away from the beside of a sick wife, 
 so deeply am I interested in this matter. It is therefore im- 
 perative that I must, if 1 am to speak at all, speak to you now. 
 
 "I have been so immensely gratified after all the weary years 
 of waiting at the assurance that there is a probability of this 
 measure, for which I longed since my childish eyes looked for 
 the first and only time on the judicial murder of a fellow-man. 
 becoming a law^ 
 
 "It has been the longing that has caused me to send to each 
 Legislature a bill to do away with this relic of barbarism. I 
 have been turned down and turned down, but I have seen the 
 thing grow to a point where there is a proba])ility of passage. 
 
 — 71 —
 
 "I am not going to put my reasons for this step as mere sen- 
 timental reasons. A little reflection will show that the object of 
 punishment is twofold, with a third and subsidiary consideration. 
 First, there is the reason of restraint, to protect society from the 
 man who has outraged it. The second is to deter crime by the 
 example of the punishment. The third has come of late years, 
 to reform the criminal and make him go forth a better man. 
 
 "There are some, indeed, who go back to the old law of 
 vengeance, or an eye for an eye, but every thinking man knows 
 that punishment can have but two reasons, protection by re- 
 straint and prevention by deterrents. 
 
 "If the killing of a man by law served either of these pur- 
 poses, I would say let them die. But if the figures show, as 
 they incontrovertibly do, that wherever that form of punishment 
 has been abolished and the experiment of milder punishment has 
 been tried, the percentage of homicides has decreased, the per- 
 centage of convictions increased. If this is true, gentlemen, that 
 the aim of punishment is better subserved by the milder form, is 
 there any shred of excuse for shedding human blood? 
 
 Tf this is not true, why have vou ]>rohibited public execu- 
 tions? If you wanted to deter by brutality you would see that 
 all saw the executions. If it is right to take life, always there 
 would be volunteers to cut the trap door from under criminals. 
 Can you imagine such a thing? 
 
 "You have no public execution because oi the norrf:>r of it 
 and because of the brutalization of other men witnessing it. If 
 you can deter without shedding blood, why shed it? 
 
 "I can tell you something of the horrors of it. I was only 
 a boy. I went to the jail and saw a man brought from ihe jail 
 in his shroud ; saw him sit on his cofiin in a wagon and ride a 
 mile through a glorious day to the place of execution. 
 
 "With bound arms, he half staggered up to the scaiTold. The 
 black cap was put on. The legs were bound. The trap dropjied, 
 and the figure dangled in space, arms and legs struggling to rise. 
 Can you imagine Jesus of Nazareth saying to )^ou and to me, 
 to the instruments of the law about that dangling fellow, 'Well 
 done, thou good and faithful servant!'" — Xashz'illc Tcnncsscan 
 cnuj American. 
 
 — 72 —
 
 ABOLISH PENALTY OF DKATII. 
 
 15y a vote of 8 to 3 the Judiciary Committee of the House 
 ^^onday afternoon recommended for passage the Gilbert bill. 
 House bill Xo. 235, abolishing- the death penalty for all crimes 
 in Tennessee. This action was taken following a short address 
 by Duke C. Bowers and a powerful presentation of the objections 
 to capital punishment by K. T. McConnico. of the .\ashville bar. 
 and was taken on motion of Lee \\'inchester. of Shelby, who 
 himself had a bill before the House, leaving the death penalty in 
 effect for rape. Speeches against the bill were made by Repre- 
 sentatives Chamlee. Creswell and I'n'ant. who were the onlv 
 members of the committee opposing it. 
 
 -Mr. McConn:co's argument, which was so remarkable that 
 it actually convinced men who had made up their minds the other 
 way, was devoted almost entirely to the legal aspects of the 
 case. 
 
 He based much of it upon reported cases in which actual 
 confessions had revealed, after men had been executed upon cir- 
 cumstantial evidence, that they were innocent. He had with him 
 a volume of 550 pages filled with such cases, and while he re- 
 ferred to only a few of them, the presence of such a volume, 
 which only covered the cases up to T()oi. was in itself a tre- 
 mendous argument for the passage of the bill. 
 
 "The main objection to capital punishment from the lawyers' 
 standpoint is the liability of judicial murder, of mistaken execu- 
 tion through the honest mistake of the courts and juries. This 
 book here is the graveyard of only those cases we know about. 
 How many others there are which have never come to light no 
 man may say." 
 
 The most |;owertul case cited by Mr. McL'onnico was the 
 l^urand case, from California. Uurand. ablv defended by Del- 
 phine M. Delmas. who afterward defended Harry K. Thaw, was 
 convicted of the murder of his sweetheart in the tower of a 
 church on what appeared, so far as human eye could tell, to be 
 an absolutely perfect and unbreakable case of circumstantial evi- 
 dence, and executed. One year later the pastor of the church 
 in which the murder occurred confessed the murder, when it 
 was too late. 
 
 — 73 —
 
 "And vet." said Mr. McConnico, "we must use circumstantial 
 evidence in criminal cases. Were it otherwise, all a man would 
 have to do to go free would be to get his victim off by himself." 
 
 "Fifty per cent of the acquittals in homicide cases are due to 
 capital punishment. I am speaking now from my experience in 
 defending half a hundred homicide cases. I know that in cases 
 where the lawyer knows there will be no hanging, he lays his 
 plans from the beginning and fights to convince the jury that the 
 case is 'either hanging or nothing.' The jury naturally revolts 
 at hanging the man, and acquittal results. I have profited by that 
 myself. 
 
 IN TENNESSEE. 
 
 "Capital punishment increases crime, for the state sets the 
 example of taking life. Not to go so far from home or so far 
 back as the days in England when men were hanged for 300 
 crimes, in the State of Tennessee, in 1858. men were still hanged 
 for burglary, robbery and arson. Do we have more of those 
 crimes now that capital punishment for them is done away with ?" 
 
 Mr. McConnico took up the arguments of those who base 
 their opposition to the bill on the pardoning power of the Gov- 
 ernor. One class, he pointed out, objected to it because the Gov- 
 ernor could, through the exercise of the pardoning power, correct 
 errors of the courts, while the other objected on the ground that 
 the Governor would have power to overturn the decrees of the 
 court. Mr. McConnico criticised both views, citing law and ex- 
 perience- on his side. 
 
 Tn regard to mob law, he pointed out tliat hanging does not 
 prevent the horrible crime for which lynching is committed in 
 the South, but that capital punishment really increases lynching 
 by furnishing an excuse for it. on the ground that the state 
 would take life. "We have all the lynchings that we can have 
 or are going to have as it is," he added. 
 
 Two impressive facts were brought out in Mr. Bowers' 
 speech for the bill, that homicide in six states which have abol- 
 ished capital punishment is only 48 ])er cent what it is in the cap- 
 ital ])unishment states, and that back in England two such great 
 authorities as Lord Elgin and Lord Ellenborough predicted ruin 
 and increase of crime if the death penalty was removed from petit 
 larceny. 
 
 — 74 —
 
 CHANGRD HIS VIEWS. 
 
 At the close of Mr. McConnico's speech Mr. Winchester, ex- 
 pressing^ his conversion and conviction, moved the ])assajje of 
 Mr. Gilbert's bill. Other members of the committee speaking for 
 the bill were Mr. Gilbert and .Albert E. Hill, who stated that 
 years ago he had three times voted against a similar bill, but 
 that he now realized that he had made a mistake in so doing. 
 
 Mr. Chamlee and .Mr. IJryant o])iK)sed the bill, particularly as 
 it removed the death penaltv for rape, and Mr. Creswell oj^posed 
 it on the ground that it removed the ])rotection from crimes of 
 violence. He cited the whitecappers of Sevier County, who. he 
 declared, had been checked only by the execution of two men. 
 Mr. Fuller somewhat took issue with Mr. Creswell on this point, 
 maintaining that the man really responsible was never punished. 
 
 The final vote of the committee follows: 
 
 For the bill — Bejach, Collier of Sumner, Fuller, .\bernathy, 
 Neely. Taylor of Jefferson, W'illiamson. Winchester. 
 
 Against the bill — Creswell, Chamlee, Bryant. — Xashville Ten- 
 nesscan and .luicrican. 
 
 EX-WARDFX SAYS "D( )X"T HAXc;." 
 
 "Relative to the bill now j^ending before the Legislature to 
 abolish capital punishment for any crime I wish to say that I 
 heartily endorse it and think the stand and work of C. C. Gil- 
 bert, Duke C. Bowers and others in endeavoring to effect the 
 abolition of capital punishment is highly commendable," said B. 
 M. Rice, former Warden at the main state ])rison, talking with 
 a reporter for The Democrat. ".After having been connected 
 with the state penitentiary for twenty years, I feel fully war- 
 ranted from this long experience and close touch with the crim- 
 inal class that any man of whatever vicious or criminal disjxisi- 
 tion can be cured under the rigid discipline observed by the 
 oflficers of the state. The rules imposed upon prisoners school 
 them to such obedience that their conduct necessarily becomes 
 changed from their former life. The mind meets these conditions 
 and accordinglv the influence of such environments changes the 
 criminal disposition. 
 
 "Under the merit svstem of commuiation of sentence over 
 
 — 75 —
 
 seventy-five per cent earn this and not one per cent of the remain- 
 ing twenty-five per cent are convicted of oflfenses of such nature 
 that could have resulted in capital punishment — that is, they are 
 not capital crimes. The twenty-five per cent spoken of as not 
 meriting commutation are, as a rule, convicted of minor oflfenses. 
 
 "The record also shows that after a convict has served ten 
 or twenty years and has been released, he becomes a law-abiding 
 citizen, as a result of the rigid discipline imposed while in prison. 
 The practice of capital punishment was not inaugurated under 
 the old barbaric teaching of an eye for an eye, but solely as a pro- 
 tection to society. It is not to punish the oflfender. No man 
 wants the blood of his fellow-man on his hands, nor should I 
 think he would want it on the hands of his State, of which he is a 
 citizen. 
 
 "The responsibility of the State is merel_\- the responsibility of 
 its citizens. Are you willing to assume this responsibility? 
 
 "Capital punishment is not a deterrent to crime. I have known 
 of murder being committed almost under the shadow of the gal- 
 lows. The rapist never reaches the hand of the law. The assassin 
 who lies in wait to kill reasons at the same time that this con- 
 cealment will avoid the discovery of his connection with the 
 crime. If capital punishment does not deter further crimes and is 
 not a protection to society in this respect, then confinement for 
 life in prison meets every demand of a Christian world." — Nash- 
 ville Democrat. 
 
 HITS CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 
 'T am heartily opposed to capital punishment," said Dean A. 
 B. Martin of the Cumberland Law School, talking with a reporter 
 for The Democrat. 
 
 "It does not carry out the true aims of justice — the deterring 
 of the crime. Crime, to a large degree, is a disease, and should 
 be treated as such. When capital punishment takes place there is 
 no opportunity for reformation. 
 
 "I am further opposed to capital punishment because man is 
 not infallible. Mistakes are occasionally made, which, under the 
 present system, cannot be rectified. 
 
 "Finally, I am opposed to capital punishment because no man 
 has a right to take what he did not give." — Xaslwillc Democrat. 
 
 — 76 —
 
 CAPITAL PL'XISHMEXT. 
 
 To the Editor of The Banner : 
 
 How a Christian minister, who has spent his hfe attem])tinj? 
 to preach Christianity, can favor capital puni'^hment is a mystery 
 to me. To cut the murderer off, behevins^ that he is doomed 
 to eternal punishment, seems to be committing- the same crime 
 that the murderer did, and i)erhaps he did it in the heat of pas- 
 sion, while state does it deliberately. 
 
 When Cain slew Abel. G(jd was the only arbiter between men. 
 He was both the political and moral governor of men. Did God 
 kill Cain? No; he gave him a life sentence. .\ fugitive and 
 a vagabond shalt thou be. and when thou tillest the earth it 
 shall not yield her strength, and added, in order to prevent an- 
 other murder, whosoever slayeth Cain vengeance shall be taken 
 on him seven-fold. Lamech also, one of Cain's descendants, 
 said to his wives : I have slain a man to my wounding, and a 
 young man to my hurt. If Cain shall be avenged seven-fold, 
 truly Lamech seventy and seven. God. who was all-wise and 
 merciful and changeth not, was not then in favor of capital pun- 
 ishment. Lamech confessed to murder, and Cain denied it. 
 
 When a man commits murder his own conscience is a con- 
 tinual tormentor while he lives. 
 
 When the state hangs a man she sets a bad example to her 
 citizens, and need not expect any better of them. Would it not 
 be far better to let a murderer be a servant to the state the 
 balance of his life, and give the proceeds of his labor to the 
 bereaved ones of the murdered man? 
 
 Think of eternal punishment ! Has the state or any indi- 
 vidual a right to send any one there? I can hardly see how 
 Lazarus could be so happy while he saw Dives and heard him 
 calling for water to cool his parched tongue. And how ministers 
 now can favor sending their fellow-men to hell does not agree 
 with the teachings of Christ who said: T say unto you that ye 
 resist not evil. If thine enemy hunger, feed him; and if he 
 thirst, give him drink ; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of 
 fire upon his head." 
 
 Now, was he only talking to his chosen twelve and allow- 
 ing all other to resist evil? This seems ridiculous; the New Tes- 
 
 — 77 —
 
 tament was given to the world of men. When Cain slew his 
 brother would have been the ver\^ time for God to set an ex- 
 ample of capital punishment, if he had thought it best. 
 
 J. H. Ogilvie. 
 104 Neil Avenue, Nashville, Term. 
 
 JOEL B. FORT ON CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 
 To The Editor of The Democrat: 
 
 The article of Dr. G. A. Lofton in Tuesday's r)anner causes 
 me to come forth and make reply for the simple reason that such 
 sentiment as therein expressed by so good and devout a man 
 should not go unchallenged. 
 
 That the laws of the liible are bloodthirsty no one will deny; 
 that the rule of life for life prevailed then goes without dispute ; 
 but the question is not whether they were laws then, but should 
 such laws prevail now ? 
 
 If we are to be governed by the law of life for life, why not 
 also follow the rule of its execution? God gave the law, so the 
 Bible says, and told the Jews how to execute it. 
 
 Cities of refuge were set apart, and when a man committed 
 murder and outran the "avenger" and got in the city of refuge 
 safely, then he could have a trial ; otherwise the avenger was to 
 kill him. Does any one think such a law just or right? How 
 many oflfenses were punishable with death? Just think of the 
 horror of it. If a man and woman were caught in adultery it 
 was not a trial and death, but they were stoned to death by a 
 mob. If a man's wife thought to change her religion and wor- 
 ship any other God but the God of the Jews her husband was 
 directed to kill her. I might go at length into the horrible de- 
 tails of those old Jewish laws, but it is not necessary. Our own 
 ancestors brought a list of death penalties to this country that 
 would shock the sensibilities of an average Tennessean — put a 
 man in jail for preaching anything but the orthodox theory of 
 religion, had to go about on Sunday with a look of sanctity that 
 was frightful and forbidden to kiss his wife or babe under pen- 
 alty of the law. 
 
 Times have changed and laws to be wholesome and beneficial 
 must bf* changed to suit the times. 
 
 — 78 —
 
 I care not what good men may think on this subject. After 
 practicing law in the courts of Tennessee for thirty years I know 
 that today human hfe is held more sacred than at any time in all 
 the history of the world. So true is this that it is hard to get a 
 jury that favors inflicting the death penalty. 
 
 Talk of England and her enforcement of the law. it has been 
 but a few score of years since there were more than a hundred 
 offenses punishable with death, and for years it was a nation of 
 king and queen killers, and the laws there are no better enforced 
 than here if you consider the difTerence in the poi)ulation. That 
 is an old, settled country, and immigration in that land is all emi- 
 gration ; from all lands come the lower classes to this country, 
 and of course we have a liardcr criminal proposition to deal with. 
 
 There is only one justification for taking the life of an indi- 
 vidual in our law, and in the great heart of justice as enthroned 
 in the present day civilization, and that is in necessary self-defense. 
 When the State kills a man. does she do it in necessary self- 
 defense? That is the great question. I don't suppose I am as 
 good a man as Dr. Lofton, but as weak and imperfect as I am, 
 there is nothing that so saddens and horrifies me as all the cir- 
 cumstances and details that are enacted from the Criminal Court 
 to the hangman's noose, an unfortunate creature with the day and 
 hour .set for his execution, manacled and carried to the dungeon, 
 with all the blood of his victim red on his hands and reeking 
 and rankling in his heart. Ministers are sent for to aid him in his 
 preparation for his last long journey. They open the Book and 
 tell him of the two roads, one leading to a blissful, eternal life, 
 and another leading to eternal hell fire and torment. He has got 
 to take one or the other, and always takes the heavenly route. A 
 few days of singing and praying and then the fatal hour, and he 
 is consoled by the good men while the black cap is fastened over 
 his eyes and he is sent shooting into eternity. 
 
 How a Christian man can see that this method of punishment 
 is just and Christian-like passeth my understanding. If the wolf 
 is not all out of humanity, and they still cry for blood incited on 
 by ministers of the go.spel of Christ, let them mob the culprit as 
 did the Jews of old, and let the State set the example of reforma- 
 tion by life imprisonment. 
 
 But the Doctor says: "Sickly sentimentalism is even trying 
 
 — 79 —
 
 to change the penitentiary into a mere reformatory." Now, 
 doesn't that look strange for so good a man to condemn the 
 efforts of all the good people who are devoting time and talent 
 to alleviate the condition of the under-class of society? I have 
 never been a supporter of Governor Hooper, but every time he 
 does anything to relieve the distress of these unfortunates I feel 
 kinder to him. Sickly sentimentalism. Well, I am glad that I 
 am sentimental and I am glad that I have a forgiving heart, for 
 it is written "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who 
 trespass against us." 
 
 Most astounding of all I see in the article is this : 
 
 "Those who rail at capital punishment for those who murder 
 God's image, rail at God, and make Him out a liar and a tyrant 
 of archaic ignorance and stupidity" Now, what do you think of 
 that ? 
 
 A good man comes to Nashville at his own expense to beg 
 the Legislature to repeal this brutal law of Jewish barbarism, and 
 he, with all the good men, Dr Vance included, are "railing at God 
 and making him out a liar" But the pity of it is that the Doc- 
 tor sees that we are growing worse all the time, and says, 
 "and yet the twentieth century has not changed human nature 
 one whit. Vice and crime, murder, adultery, divorce, monopo- 
 listic robbery, gambling, political graft, the white slave trade, the 
 saloon and assignation house iniquity, maladministration of jus- 
 tice, lawlessness — all this and more is on the increase in the 
 twentieth century." 
 
 I am afraid the Doctor is growing too pessimistic, for a truth 
 I can see that the world has grown better in my day. If what he 
 says is true, what profit has been all the efforts of good men and 
 good women? Away with such an idea! We are climbing higher 
 up the mountain and are leaving the putrid bogs farther behind 
 each year. Civilization has declared against war of concfuest, and 
 we have no nation which would stand for a moment to see a 
 Joshua go uj) and murder the people of Ai and plunder and burn 
 for no other motive than because those ])eople defended their 
 homes. •' 
 
 The banner of the Red Cross in the hands of Christian women 
 floats on every battlefield, and tender arms are outstretched to 
 every uunfortunate soldier on either side of the contest. Tt is 
 
 — 80 —
 
 humanity that calls for help, and it is the glorious spirit of the 
 advancing age of civilization that is everywhere responding. 
 
 Physicians are struggling to stamp out the disease that num- 
 bers its victims by the thousands, and right in your own city is a 
 home for those who are in the grip of the great white plague. 
 The Governor and the prison officials and good men and women 
 are at work on the convicts in penitentiary, trying to make them 
 better. Consecrated men and women are baring their breast to 
 every danger in every clime, all working for the uplift of human- 
 ity ; everywhere orphan asylums managed and cared for by patri- 
 otic, Christian men and women, old women's homes, old soldiers' 
 homes, pensions for soldiers on their crutches. My ! my ! I am 
 glad I live in an age of humanity, when there is not so much 
 prating about the tortures of an endless hell of fire and brim- 
 stone, and more unselfish labor for the cause of suffering human- 
 ity. 
 
 The Doctor says further : "Love and law are correlatives : 
 love alone fulfills or keeps the law — it is love that insists on 
 vindicating the law." This kind of logic may well be advocated 
 in his theology, but I fear the Doctor cannot see daylight when he 
 puts his theories in practice in the criminal law of the State. 
 Keep the law from love ! Is that the way you expect the law 
 obeyed, just for love, and when a man doesn't love the law he 
 won't keep it, and| he outrages a beautiful woman, and then the 
 State from love hangs him higher than Ilaman. 
 
 It is this way : An honest man does not steal because he 
 stands above the law. It does not affect him. The thief is be- 
 neath, and if he refrains from theft it is not for love of the law, 
 but for fear of the law. So with nuirder. I love the life of my 
 fellow-man and do not murder. I am above the law, and all the 
 good people stand above the law and are trying to raise others 
 above it, and they are reaching down and helping those who are 
 in the underworld to a higher plane and to a new and better life; 
 and so the tendency is in prisons to make the culprit an honest 
 and good man. Is this sentimentalism. If it is, God bless all the 
 thousands of sentimentalists who are today fighting for the uplift 
 of humanity ! 
 
 The minister stands every Sunday and teaches that though 
 the sins of man are "as scarlet" and of the darkest and deepest 
 dye, that repentance will bring forgiveness. So God will even 
 
 — 81 —
 
 forgive the murderer and save him in the eternal haven of hliss, 
 the wise and merciful and g-ood God who knows the secrets of the 
 heart, will do this, but when it comes to the State of Tennessee, 
 she must not forgive, nor even confine the murderer for life that 
 he may have time to remedy and repent of his evil deeds, but 
 must cry for blood and must send the murderer from this to an- 
 other world in a disgraceful manner. 
 
 "And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye 
 for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, and foot for foot." 
 (Deut. xix.. Chap. 21.) 
 
 Why ! I do not believe if one should advocate such a horrible 
 and barbaric law as that one written, it is said, by the direction 
 of God, in this progressive age, on any inquisition for lunacy he 
 would safely land in the asylum for the insane. It is brotherly 
 love now ; it is pity for the unfortunate now ; it is mercy and 
 charity now ; and with such grand and powerful influences coming 
 from these virtues, the world is growing better and is becoming 
 a place where every man can have enjoyment in knowing there 
 is work for him to do in raising the fallen, cheering the faint and 
 ministering to the unfortunate. "Blessed are the merciful, for 
 they shall obtain mercy." Joel B. Fort. 
 
 Adams, Tenii,^ February 13. 
 
 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 
 
 (Editorial from the Nashville Banner.) 
 
 Mr. Duke C. Bowers, retired merchant, capitalist and hu- 
 manitarian, has brought into the present session of the Legislature 
 a unique interest apart from politics and not connected with other 
 public matters to which the attention of the solons has been 
 most deeply directed. Mr. Bowers has a deep conviction that 
 the taking of human life is wrong and not to be justified even 
 though it be in the form of legal execution, and he is making ^ 
 very energetic efifort to have the Legislature pass a bill abolishing 
 capital punishment. 
 
 The remarkable feature of his work is that it is purely an in- 
 dividual efifort and does not come from any humane society or 
 other organization after the manner that such movements are 
 usually fostered. Mr. Bowers makes the impression that he is 
 
 — 82 —
 
 very much in earnest, wholly sincere, and there can be no doubt 
 that he is ahogether disinterested. The nature of the effort 
 would hardly permit an interested motive, and the man behind it 
 is so entirely dissociated with politics that no such motive can 
 be imag^ined. It is indeed rare that so determined an endeavor 
 is made in behalf of the supposed public good by an individual of 
 his own initiative, and it is this fact that gives Mr. Bower.-?' ex- 
 ertions in behalf of the bill he has caused to be introduced a 
 peculiar interest. He has at least succeeded in attracting public 
 attention to the measure and has brought about quite a warm 
 discussion of its merits through the daily press and otherwise. 
 
 The sixth commandment of the decalogiie very plainly says, 
 "Thou shalt not kill." This was given, engraved on stone, 
 directly from God to Moses in the thunders of Sinai, and seems 
 both explicit and imperative, but some liberal translators have 
 made it read, "Thou shalt do no murder," and this seems war- 
 ranted by the laws laid down in the next chapter, Exodus 21 :i2, 
 w'hich says, "He that smiteth a man so that he die. shall be surely 
 put to death." and the death penalty is also prescribed for lesser 
 offenses, concluding with the familiar citation, "Eye for eye, 
 tooth for tooth," etc. Still this was under the old dispensation. 
 The language of Jesus, who overthrew the doctrine of ven- 
 geance and taught non-resistance of evil, is used to refute it. 
 
 This is the manner in which the religious argument on the 
 subject has gone, but the position is presented in practical guise 
 and the gist of the whole matter is, can society adequately pro- 
 tect itself against crime if the terror of the death penalty be not 
 before the eyes of the evil-doer? As Sir Roger de Coverley was 
 wont to remark, "Much can be said on both sides." Much has 
 been said both pro and con, and the arguments are all interesting 
 and enlightening, if not wholly convincing. 
 
 This much is certain, the offenses for which capital punish- 
 ment is prescribed by civilized nations have very much diminished 
 in number, and crimes formerly so punished have not increased 
 under a lighter penalty. It was, for instance, once a capital 
 offense to steal a sheep in England, and more sheep were stolen 
 then than now. 
 
 In Tennessee the death penalty is prescribed only for two 
 offenses, murder and rape. Both certainly deserve the utter rigor 
 of the law. It has appeared to many that the law against mur- 
 
 — 83 —
 
 der is now too lightly enforced. At least there have been too 
 many who escaped conviction where the crime was flagrant and 
 the evidence convincing. In England and other countries where 
 justice is surer, murder and all manner of homicides are much 
 more rare. It is arg-ued by those who oppose capital punishment 
 that the certainty of punishment rather than its severity prevents 
 crime. 'However that may be, assuredly nothing should be done 
 that would have any tendency to increase homicides in this state. 
 The record of such crimes here is now disgracefully high com- 
 pared with other parts of the world where the criminal laws are 
 better enforced. 
 
 The proposed abolition of the death penalty for rape presents 
 a problem peculiarly incidental to conditions in this section. If 
 it should be abolished lynchings would likely increase. The 
 same might be true in cases of very heinous murder. 
 
 Capital punishment is very revolting to refined sensibilities. 
 The world today will not permit the horrible spectacle of a pub- 
 lic execution on which in the past gaping crowds made gruesome 
 holiday. The military executions and pohtical death penalties 
 with which history abounds are, it is to be hoped, a barbarism 
 that is entirely past. There can hardly ever be a recurrence of 
 the horrors of the guillotine. Today neither Major Andre, Nathan 
 Hale or Sam Davis would be put to death. The world is advanc- 
 ing to higher thoughts and milder practice in matters of this kind, 
 Init the conclusion is not yet fixed that Tennessee can better its 
 condition by abolishing capital punishment. 
 
 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 
 
 To the Editor of The Banner: 
 
 In your editorial today, entitled "Capital ]\mishment," you 
 refer very kindly to me, but I was extremely disappointed when 
 I read on further and found that you do not concur with me 
 in my tight to abolish the death penalty. 
 
 Mr. Gilbert's bill to substitute life imi)risonment for the death 
 penalty is, to my mind, one of the most important bills before 
 the Legislature. The decision of this body will be to either dis- 
 continue this barbarous practice or else in effect say to the judges, 
 juries and officers of this state, you must continue murdering the 
 state's enemies. 
 
 — 84 —
 
 You state toi^ few escape conviction. If you will take the 
 trouble to look u]) statistics. y(3U will find those states that have 
 abolished the death ix-nalty secure, by far, more convictions than 
 do those states which as yet, luifortunately, have not abolished it. 
 
 If the abolishment of capital punishment would cause us to 
 have an increase in the number of homicides, then there might be 
 some argument in favor of retaining the death penalty. But no 
 one is able to say whether there would be an increase or decrease. 
 We can, however, take as an example those states that have abol- 
 ished the death penalty. In those states homicides have not in- 
 creased. And a fact very much in our favor is that during the 
 year 1909. which is the last one reported by the United States 
 Mortality Statistics, there were more than twice the number of 
 homicides in the states that retain the death penalty than in those 
 states that have abolished it. Now, if such a condition is a mere 
 "happen so," it is certainly a peculiar "happen so." It surely does 
 give us reason to at least 1)C willing to give the life imprisonment 
 proposition a trial. 
 
 As regards "lynchings would likely increase." That is an- 
 other proposition that can only be definitly determined by trying 
 the life imprisonment plan. To my way of thinking, individ- 
 uals will come nearer having respect for human life by precept 
 and example from the state than by the state's committing murder 
 and at the same time saying to its citizens, "Thou shalt not kill." 
 
 If such a thing as the fear of punishment deters rape, it is 
 the fear of the mob and not the fear of the gallows ; but I doubt 
 if the fear of the mob or the fear of the gallow^s, either, ever 
 enters into the heads of those of that vicious class. 
 
 Ex-Warden Rice states "that after having been connected with 
 the Tennessee penitentiary twenty years I feel that any man of 
 whatever vicious or criminal disj^osition can be cured under the 
 rigid discipline observed by the officers of the state." If there is 
 a chance to cure a man. then isn't it a crime to kill him and 
 deprive him of this chance. 
 
 If it is a crime to kill, then do we not. as citizens, almost 
 commit a crime if we neglect to raise our voice or make an effort 
 of some kind to tv}' and put a stop to this legalized murdering 
 of our fellow-citizens. 
 
 We may not win in this fight, but we shall at least be con- 
 soled with the thought that the blood of these pcx)r unfortunate 
 
 — 85 —
 
 liiiman beings would not be on our bands if it was in our power 
 to sotp it. Duke C. Bowers. 
 
 p_ s. — A friend told me tbat Elbert Hubbard says "that so 
 long as the state continues to kill its enemies, individuals are going 
 to continue killing theirs." B. 
 
 Dresden, February 9, 1913. 
 
 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 
 
 (Editorial from The Public. Mr. Louis F. Post, Editor.) 
 
 Five men were strangled at a legalized hanging in Chicago 
 last week. The gallows-trap was s])rung by the peo])le of Illinois ; 
 for it is true, as one protestant writes to his newspaper, that 
 what we as citizens require of the Sheriff, in conformity with 
 the law upon our statute books against which we make no protest, 
 nor any attempt to alter or abolish it. we do ourselves — all of us 
 and each one of us. 
 
 Xot many reasons appear for perpetuating these barbarous 
 laws. One of them is that the hanging of murderers is neces- 
 sary as a deterrent of murder. The weakness of that excuse is 
 well illustrated in this very case. Swift and relentless was the 
 law's execution, and notorious the fact. Yet "hold-ups" with 
 deadly weapons, the very crime in committing which those 
 hanged men had resorted to murder as an incident, were perpe- 
 trated on an ambitious scale (and under circumstances which 
 made murder almost an incident in one and within the intention 
 of the criminals in both) twice within forty-eight hours after 
 these horrible executions and within the sphere of their influence. 
 Lesfal homicides do not prevent tho=e that are illegal. The former 
 foster the latter, if there is any influence. So completely is this 
 indicated bv experience with both, that it is difficult any longer to 
 consider the contrary contention as at once in good faith and 
 intelligent. As an argument it has become only an excuse for 
 that real motive for capital punishment which is rooted in the 
 spirit of revenee — an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. If 
 the vicious spirit of revenge were exercised, and love for morbid 
 excitement were given vent through some less brutal sport, all 
 arguments for capital punishment as a preventive of crime would 
 be abandoned. 
 
 The sentimentality which pities the murderer on a gallows re- 
 
 — S6 —
 
 gardless of his crime, is bad enough to be sure ; but the senti- 
 mentality which hangs him out of pity for his victim is worse. 
 If the one is spineless, the other is revengeful. Xever should it 
 be forgotten that the great fact which tells against capital punish- 
 ment is not that it is a disagreeable experience for the murderer, 
 but that where tolerated it is degrading to the community lx)th in- 
 dividuallv and collectivelv. 
 
 STATES OBJECTION TO DEATH PENALTY. 
 
 J. E. McCulloch. General Secretary of the Southern Sociologi- 
 cal Congress, has written the following reply to a query by Duke 
 C. Bowers as to his stand on the question of capital punishment : 
 
 "Dear Mr. Bowers : I hasten to reply to your query in re- 
 gard to my ideas on capital punishment, and state that I am 
 opposed to the death penalty ; first, because it is unworthy and 
 barbarous for a civilized state to practice revenge; second, because 
 statistics do not justify the conclusion that capital punishment de- 
 ters crime; third, because the state has no moral right to destroy 
 human life — only God. who gives life, has the right to take it; 
 fourth, because the chief function of the state is to save and im- 
 prove life — whereas capital punishment arbitrarily cuts off all 
 possibility of reform ; fifth, because crime at worst is a symptom 
 of social disease rather than simply the result of individual wrong- 
 doing — the real crime is in our social conditions that make it pos- 
 sible for a murderer to be reared at all." — Nashi'tllc Tcnncsscan 
 and Atnerican. 
 
 EDITORIAL FROM THE MARTIN MAIL. 
 
 All honor to Duke C. Bowers, the man that is not afraid to 
 do things. If the bill to abolish capital punishment in Tennessee 
 does not become a law he has not failed, for the work he has 
 done will be as bread cast upon the waters to return many days 
 hence. He has attracted the attention of the L'nion in his fight 
 for the uplift of humanity — the abolishing of capital punishment. 
 It has caused men to put on their thinking caps, and dig deep 
 into the history of capital punishment. It is true that there 
 are man that are opposed to the abolition, but there are more, 
 yea, hundreds to one. that favor the abolishing of capital punish- 
 ment. It is just and right. The old law. "an eye for an eye and 
 a tooth for a tooth," is of prehistoric days — the old Mosaic laws. 
 
 — 87 —
 
 and none of those hold good today. Why take life — it is murder 
 — whether done by the law or the individual. It is better to for- 
 give them ninety and nine times. Men that in the heat of passion 
 have slain their fellow-man can and will become great and good 
 citizens if given a chance, but with a hangman's noose there is 
 no chance. Man's humanity to man cries out for the abolition of 
 the law. Will the gentlemen from Weakley County and every 
 other county in the state take notice? 
 
 During 1909 the average number oi homicides committed to 
 the one hundred population was : 
 
 Maine i.i No capital punishment. 
 
 Massachusetts 2.4 Capital punishment obtains. 
 
 Xew Hampshire 1.4 Capital punishment obtains. 
 
 Rhode Island . .' 2.6 No capital punishment. 
 
 Connecticut 3.9 Capital punishment obtains. 
 
 New York 3.8 Capital punishment obtains. 
 
 Michigan 2.2 No capital punishment. 
 
 Ohio 5.1 'Capital punishment obtains. 
 
 Indiana 5.3 Capital punishment obtains. 
 
 Wisconsin 1.8 No capital punishment. 
 
 South Dakota 4.7 Capital punishment obtains. 
 
 Colorado 10.7 Capital punishment obtains. 
 
 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 
 
 EDITORIAL FROM LAFALI.ETT S MACAZINP:. 
 
 "Do you believe in capital punishment?" asked a L'nited Press 
 reporter over the telephone a few days ago. The occasion for 
 the "interview" was that seven men were to meet death in the 
 electric chair at Sing Sing and that two prisoners were con- 
 demned to be hanged here in the District of Columbia. 
 
 Some way I cannot get accustomed to the fact that the law 
 and practice that prevails in the District of Columbia are so apt 
 to be an example of unenlightenment. They are subject to the 
 revision of Congress, and if there is a place where capital pun- 
 ishment should not exist, it is here in sight of the capital dome. 
 
 I do not object to the death penalty because I think it such 
 a terrible thing for the individuals to whom it is administered, 
 provided they are guilty of deliberate murder. Thousands of 
 
 — 88 —
 
 innocent people die daily from wrecks, drowning, and catas- 
 trophes of all kinds, who snffer more, ilistory i^ives many ex- 
 amples of men and women wh(j-liave met the headsman with a 
 jest. And observers say that the average man. when he goes to 
 his execution usually keeps his nerve, even to eating a good break- 
 fast. Nature prepares us all for the inevitable end. 
 
 Rut capital punishment is a survival of barbarism and its 
 existence is contrary to the l)est thought and practice of modern 
 civilization. The old idea was that it was humanly possible to 
 retaliate a crime, and to mete out justice to the criminal; that 
 penalties of great severity served as a warning and were a 
 preventative of crime. 
 
 It is said we need go back only one hundred years to find 
 two hundred offenses punishable by death under the English 
 law. \\'ithin twenty years there were seventeen offenses sub- 
 ject to death i)enalty under the civil code of the I'nited States. 
 The extreme penalty did not obviate these lesser crimes nor 
 does it deter murder. Tn our country today the extremely small 
 number — something like two per cent 1 think il is — of executions, 
 as compared with the number of nuu-ders, must give the hard- 
 ened criminal great confidence in his chances of escape. .Vnd 
 as for those who commit murder in the heat of passion, they 
 take no thought of consequences ; the large number of those who 
 thus kill, who turn and commit suicide, or give themselves over 
 to the law, shows how little the fear of death influences their 
 acts. 
 
 If cai)ital punishment is to deter crime it should be admin- 
 istered in its most revolting form and given the widest possible 
 publicity. ( )nly a few vears ago. hangings were witnessed by 
 thousands of spectators. The practice no longer prevails. The 
 public is excluded. .Vnd whatever deterrent effect there is from 
 execution, is produced by the filtered newspaper accounts, rhere 
 is a growing sentiment against these news features. It is well 
 recognized that these recitals suggest many crimes where one is 
 prevented. The substitution of the electric chair for the gallows 
 was to lesson the horror of capital punishment. In that degree 
 it diminishes its deterrent effect. 
 
 In view of the change in sentiment which demands that execu- 
 tions shall be as i)rivate and free from terror as possible, the 
 only argument that remains for the death sentence, is that it 
 
 — 89 —
 
 relieves society of the burden of support of the criminal and, per- 
 haps, that it is easier for one who has committed murder not to 
 have his life prolonged. But this reasoning applies equally to 
 many crimes, for which capital punishment has been abolished — 
 rape, for instance. 
 
 Some wardens say that life prisoners, particularly those who 
 have committed murder under extenuating circumstances, who 
 perhaps might never again violate the law, are much less a men- 
 ace than those habituated to lesser crimes — professionals so to 
 speak. 
 
 Broader understanding of the cause of crime and responsi- 
 bility for it, is tending slowly to revolutionize the plan of dealing 
 with it. The higher authorities recognize that the struggle is 
 social, not individual; that retaliation and retributive justice is 
 impossible and the attempt to administer it, does not lessen the 
 evil-doing. Anyone who stops to think, must realize that a 
 definite amount of punishment cannot be measured out for a speci- 
 fic ofifence and that there are many long sentences, even life 
 sentences that might be more safely suspended than to permit 
 the habitual ofifenders — the incurables— to go free at the ex- 
 piration of terms as fixed by inflexible statutes. 
 
 Investigation and experience have proved, what common sense 
 ought always to have told us, that solitary confinement, or worse, 
 promiscuous herding of criminals in idleness and under harsh 
 conditions, makes the savage more savage, and destroys the hope 
 of improving those not wholly degraded. 
 
 Humane and scientific conditions in places of detention — sun- 
 light, air, cleanliness, and methods of reformation — regular em- 
 ployment in healthful and varied and useful occupations, with 
 a degree of compensation as an incentive together with inde- 
 terminate sentences, boards for pardon, probation, are all indica- 
 tions of the changed attitude of society toward those convicted 
 of violations of the law. Society is beginning to recognize its 
 responsibility for crime and its obligation to at least administer 
 the law so that its operation will not further degrade the of- 
 fenders. It is wise economy — even though the first cost be 
 somewhat greater — to direct the effort formerly expended in 
 "punishment" of those imprisoned to fitting them to live and 
 to earn a living, so they may return to the world better prepared 
 to cope with temptation and with less likelihood of being a 
 further menace to society. 
 
 — 90 —
 
 CAPITAL PUXISHMENT. 
 
 Editor Tennessean and American : 
 
 In The Tennessean and American of January 29 I see my old 
 friend McKinney and others have introduced a bill in the Senate 
 to abolish ca])ital punishment in Tennessee. I am sure this is a 
 step in the rig^ht direction, and will be encourajj^ed, and doubtless 
 will receive the full ajjproval of a majority of the best people 
 of the state. When a child at my mother's knee, beinij instructed 
 in the cardinal principles that enter into this life, the obedience or 
 the disobedience of which brinj^s lii(ht, joy and sunshine, or dark- 
 ness and shadow in our path, she pointed me to the law of which, 
 which says : "Thou shalt not kill." 
 
 Under her guidance I made u]) my mind in early life that 
 capital punishment was wrong, for if I did not have the right to 
 kill under God's law and also under the laws of my state, then 
 the state did not have the right to deliberately and coolly murder 
 one of her citizens. 
 
 Under the law of Moses it was "an eye for an eye and a tooth 
 for a tooth." but we are living in the light of the Christian era, 
 and God says, "vengeance is mine ; I will repay, sayeth the Lord 
 God."' Under the Jewish law a man was stoned to death for 
 picking up sticks on the seventh day of the week. Xow, in the 
 noonday splendor of the Christian dispensation, we tnay gather 
 all the brush on the Lord's day that we wish to, and we have done 
 no harm and have violated no principle. We are living under 
 the law of love, and should do unto others as we would have 
 them do unto us. 
 
 I shall be glad if Mr. McKinney gets his bill through the Leg- 
 islature and our dear old state will quit murdering her citizens, 
 and let those who commit first degree murder, repent all the rest 
 of their days. 
 
 J. C. Humphreys. 
 
 Bells. Tenn. 
 
 — 91 —
 
 COPY OF A CIRCULAR I DELIVERED TO THE HOUSE 
 
 OF REPRESENTATRES THE MORNING OF 
 
 THE DAY THE BILL TO ABOLISH CAPITAL 
 
 PUNISHMENT WAS VOTED ON. 
 
 ADDRESS BY D. C. BOWERS. 
 
 To the Honorable Members of the Senate and House of Repre- 
 sentatives of the Fifty-eighth General Assembly of Ten- 
 nessee : 
 
 In your hands today is placed the Hfe and death of the future 
 unfortunates accused of capital offenses in this state. 
 
 If you keep the death penalty on the statute books, the judge, 
 the jury and the executioner, if they keep sacred their oaths, 
 have got to follow your edicts. 
 
 An ex-sheriff told me he had to hang two men while he was 
 in office ; that he was opposed to capital punishment, yet he hanged 
 those men because it was the law. 
 
 A present attorney-general of this state, who believes in the 
 enforcement of all the laws made by you gentlemen and your 
 predecessors, says that he prosecutes capital offenses because 
 it is his duty, but he wishes that the death penalty was done 
 away with. 
 
 Gentlemen, there would be mighty little chance of any of us 
 getting to heaven if merit was the only route. 
 
 If we get there, there will have to be some mercy shown us. 
 
 We cannot afford to be merciful to only those who are guilty 
 of the same things we have been guilty of. God Almighty has 
 not been guilty of any of our sins, yet it is to be hoped that He 
 is going to be merciful unto us. . 
 
 Our sins are as horrible to Him as the criminal's are to us. 
 
 Don't you believe as we spare others He will spare us? 
 
 l^lease give this Anti-Capital Punishment Bill your most care- 
 ful consideration, and ask yourself if you can afford to take the 
 responsibility of voting to retain a law that means the taking of 
 a human life. 
 
 You don't want the stain of human blood on your hands, do 
 you ? 
 
 Most respectfully, 
 
 Duke C. Bowers. 
 
 — 92 —
 
 PENALTY OF DEATH STANDS. 
 
 By a vote of 56 to 36 the House of Representatives yesterday 
 afternoon rejected the Gilbert bill to abolish the death penalt> 
 in Tennessee, and tabled a motion to reconsider their action. The 
 defeat of the bill in the House means, beyond doubt, that so far 
 as the present Legislature is concerned the death penalty will re- 
 main in force, in spite of the vigorous light waged against it by 
 Duke C. Bowers and others. 
 
 The decision of the House was reached after the longest de- 
 bate of the session, extending through both the morning and after- 
 noon sessions of the House. 
 
 The bill was taken up as a special order at 1 1 o'clock in the 
 morning, and a vote was not taken until nearly 4 o'clock in the 
 afternoon. 
 
 Mr. Gilbert, in moving the adoption of the bill, said crime had 
 been on the increase in Tennessee because of lack of law enforce- 
 ment. 
 
 Mr. Raulston declared that the advocates of the bill ap])eale(l 
 for sympathy for the criminals. 
 
 Dr. Boyer, who as sheriff of Cocke County hung two men, and 
 the only two men ever legally hung in that county, spoke for the 
 abolition of capital punishment. 
 
 "Those two men were, like ninety-nine out of every hundred 
 men, poor and without money. That is why I am opposed to 
 capital punishment — the law is not enforced, as it stands, equally 
 upon all classes alike, if there was equal enforcement of the law 
 I would support it. There is a law for the rich and one for the 
 poor." 
 
 Mr. Winchester spoke for the bill as a progressive measure. 
 
 Mr. Stone, of Lincoln, closed the argument for the bill. His 
 argument was general, covering the entire subject. He attacked 
 the theories in support of the practice, and cited the statistics, 
 showing that one innocent man is known to have been hanged 
 in the United States each three years. 
 
 At the afternoon session the discussion of the bill was re- 
 sumed. Mr. Mullens argued against the bill, and was followed 
 by Mr. Todd, also against the bill. 
 
 Mr. Todd declared that the fact that it was difficult to enforce 
 the law was no reason for abolishing it. He attacked Mr. Stone's 
 argument. Pie argued especially along the line of protection 
 from rapists. 
 
 — 93 —
 
 j\Ir. Wilson, declaring that Mr. Todd had been appealing to 
 prejudice and passion and nothing else, strongly supported the 
 
 bill. i =i; 
 
 Mr. Spears made a powerful appeal against the bill. He de- 
 clared that sympathy for the criminal was obscuring the interests 
 of the state. 
 
 Mr. Rickman spoke against the bill, declaring for law en- 
 forcement. Doing away with the gallows would add ten-fold to 
 crime, he said. 
 
 The previous question was called for and carried. 
 The bill was defeated — 56 to 36. A motion to reconsider was 
 tabled. 
 
 The detailed vote on tlie i)ill follows : 
 
 Aye — Abernathy, Bejach. Royer, Byroni, Chamlee, Childs. 
 Collier, of Sumner, Dannel. Dorsey, Emert, Fleeman, Fox. Gil- 
 bert, Hill, Kirkpatrick, LeFever, Link, Love, Malone, McCormick, 
 IMcFarland, ^filler, of Lauderdale, Mitchell, O'Brien, Park, 
 Parkes, Pierce. Royston, Shaw. Stephenson, Stone, of Lincoln, 
 Taylor, of Jefferson. Walker, Weldon, W^illiamson, Winchester. 
 Total, 36. 
 
 No — Acree, Albright, Argo, Ausmus. Babb, Barnett, Bryant, 
 Bullard, Campbell, Cardwell, Cochran, Collier, of Humphreys, 
 Cox, Creswell, Davis, Denton, Drane, Duncan, Dunn, Fisher, 
 Fuller, Gallagher, Green, Harpole, Henderson, Hughes, Hunt, 
 Johnson, of Madison, Johnson, of Shelby, Long, Matthews, 
 Alayes, Miller, of Marshall, Moore, Morris, Mullens, Murphy, 
 Myers, Nichols, Ouenichet, Raulston, Rickman, Riggins. Roberts, 
 Robinson, Scott, Schmittou, Smith, Spears, Taylor, of Madison, 
 Testerman, Thompson, Todd, West, Wilson, Stanton. Total, 56. 
 — Nashville Tenncssean and American. 
 
 KILLING OF \.\\\ FROWNED UPON. 
 
 The Duke Bower's bill, which he worked so faithfully and so 
 hard for was killed in the House Wednesday, by a vote of 56 to 
 36, showing conclusively that Tennessee is not ready to join the 
 progressive states of the union. The Senate Judiciary Committee 
 recommended the rejection of the bill in the Senate. Thus flies 
 the hopes of good and true men, who worked indefatigably for 
 the abolition of capital punishment in Tennessee. — Editoral, 
 Mar tin Mail. 
 
 — 94 —
 
 REJECTED. 
 
 After an arduous and expensive campaign covering the whole 
 time the Legislature was in session from the first Monday in 
 January until the 226. of February, Mr. Duke C. Bowers, of 
 Memphis and Dresden, saw his bill to abolish capital punishment 
 in Tennessee defeated by much larger odds than he was prepared 
 to expect. 
 
 Prompted by humanity alone, Mr. Bowers spent several weeks 
 in Nashv41e working to pursuade members of the Legislature that 
 legal murder is not good for the country, and at one time he 
 seemed considerably encouraged that our law-makers would abol- 
 ish what he considers but a relic of barbarism and substitute what 
 he considers a more effective means toward the redemption of 
 ihe bodies and souls of men. All honor to Mr. Bowers who has 
 done as noble and deserving work as though he had carried his 
 point in more legislatures than one. Unselfishly he spent his time 
 and his money laboring for that which he deeply believed would 
 meet the approval of Him who tempers justice with mercy, notes 
 the sparrow's fall and doeth all things well. In view of the fact 
 that the states having capital punishment show the greater num- 
 ber of homicides it seemed to us that a trial of Mr. Bowers' plan 
 might safely be tried in Tennessee. — Editorial, Lexington (Tcnn.) 
 Progress. 
 
 FIGHT NOT ENDED. SAYS DUKE C. BOWERS. 
 
 Duke C. Bowers, who was behind the bill to abolish capital 
 punishment in Tennessee, which failed in the present General 
 Assembly, sends the Democrat the following letter : 
 
 To the Editor of The Democrat : 
 
 It seems a pity to me that presumably good men construe the 
 Scriptures in such a way as to cause them to believe that the 
 state is justifiable in taking a human life. The horribleness 
 of the thing itself is enough to condemn it, regardless of the 
 doctrine of the law of mercy and love as taught by Jesus. 
 
 As to whether the world is growing better or worse has noth- 
 ing to do with the awfulness of hanging or electrocuting a man. 
 He is some mother's boy ; he has sinned, that is true, yet to hang 
 him is only doing the worst thing the state can do to him. The 
 crime can't be undone by taking the offender's life; nothing that 
 
 — 95 —
 
 society can do can heal the wounds of the hijured one ; hence 
 where is the common sense in making^ other wounds, in bring- 
 ing double disgrace on the parents, brothers, sister and possibly 
 wife and children of the offender? 
 
 Any man that reads the New Testament knows "for whoso- 
 ever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he 
 is guilty in all." How such a man can feel that he is able to sit 
 in judgment and cast the first stone is something beyond my un- 
 derstanding. 
 
 "There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and destroy : who 
 art thou that judgest another?" 
 
 Surely you are too enlightened to feel "God, I thank Thee 
 that I am not' as other men." 
 
 "Let not him which eateth not, judge him that eateth." 
 
 "Love worketh not ill to his neighbor, therefore love is the 
 fulfilling of the law." 
 
 "If we love one another God dwelleth in us." 
 
 "He that loveth not his brother whom he has seen, how can 
 he love God whom he hath not seen?" 
 
 To my mind the following scripture sums up nearly the whole 
 of Christianity, and there is no capital punishment taught in it. 
 Read carefully. "And as ye would that men should do to you, 
 do ye also to them likewise. For if ye love them which love you, 
 what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. 
 And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank 
 have ye? for sinners also do even the same. And if ye lend to 
 them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sin- 
 ners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love ye 
 your enemies and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again ; 
 and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be children of the 
 Highest ; for He is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be 
 ye therefore merciful, as your Father is also merciful. Judge not, 
 and ye shall not be judged; condenm not, and ye shall not be 
 condemned ; forgive and ye shall be forgiven : Give it and it shall 
 be given unto you ; good measure, pressed down, and shaken to- 
 gether, and running over, shall men give unto your bosom. For 
 with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured 
 to you again." 
 
 If I am wrong in my fight to abolish the death penalty, then 
 
 — 96 —
 
 it is wronc; to be merciful. It my fiijht to save the criniiii:ir> life 
 is wronj^, then the law of love is wrous^. 
 
 If I myself was without sin then maybe I could see this ihiui,'- 
 differently, but I am weak; I try to be ^i>o(\. but it kxjks like the 
 harder I try the worse 1 fail. Hence my only hope for life eternal 
 is doino; good for others, helpino" the unfortunate and trying to 
 .save the lives of misguided men. Therefore my fight to al)olish 
 the death penalty is not ended, and the abusive language heajK-d 
 upon me by some of the opponents to the measure is not going 
 to stop me. "I am not bound to win. but I am bound to be true. 
 I am not bound to succeed, but 1 am bound to live up to what 
 light T have." 
 
 Di'Ki-: C. IJowi'.Ks. 
 
 Dresden. Tcnn., February 28. 
 
 — i)!
 
 
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