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5423968_4_0951.xml
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5423968_4_0951.xml
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<title>
<bibl><title>Dziennik Związkowy</title>,
<date when="1911-11-27">Nov. 27, 1911</date>.
<title level="a">Crime and Capital Punishment</title><title level="a" type="sub">(Editorial)</title></bibl>
</title>
</titleStmt>
<publicationStmt>
<publisher>The Newberry Library</publisher>
<pubPlace>Chicago, Illinois</pubPlace>
<address>
<addrLine>60 West Walton</addrLine>
<addrLine>Chicago, IL 60610</addrLine>
<addrLine>USA</addrLine>
<addrLine>http://www.newberry.org</addrLine>
</address>
<idno>5423968_4_0951</idno>
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<notesStmt>
<note>Transcribed from digital images contributed to the Internet
Archive by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.</note>
</notesStmt>
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<bibl><title>Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey</title>, <date>1936-1941</date>,
<sponsor>Works Projects Administration</sponsor>,
<sponsor>Chicago Public Library Omnibus Project</sponsor></bibl>
<bibl>
<title>Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey [microform]</title>
<sponsor>University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign</sponsor>
<sponsor>Internet Archive</sponsor>
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<catRef target="#grp-polish"/>
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<change when="2010-02-10">Automated conversion to expanded header.</change>
<change when="2010-01-27">Initial TEI transcription from PanGeo Partners, Inc.</change>
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<front>
<pb facs="5423968_4_0951.jpg" n="1"/>
<div type="group">
<list>
<item>POLISH</item>
</list>
</div>
<div type="codes">
<list>
<item>I H</item>
<item>II E 3</item>
<item>I K</item>
</list>
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<div type="citation">
<bibl><title>Dziennik Zwiazkowy</title>,
<date when="1911-11-27">Nov. 27, 1911</date>.
<title level="a">CRIME AND CAPITAL PUNISHMENT</title><title level="a" type="sub">(Editorial)</title></bibl>
</div>
</front>
<body>
<p>The criminal mania that leads men to murder their wives, and women to murder their husbands, is spreading horribly in this country. The fear of death on the scaffold or in the electric chair does not help; the fear of lynching by an angry mob of citizens does not help; the fear of a life sentence in prison does not help. The bloody murder dramas are performed everywhere, and one reads about them almost daily.</p>
<p>Last Friday, Henry Clay Beattie, the young, handsome scion of a wealthy and prominent family, died in the electric chair at Richmond, Virginia. He was convicted of having murdered his wife....</p>
<p>[Translator's note: A summary of the case is omitted in translation.]</p>
<pb facs="5423968_4_0952.jpg" n="2"/>
<p>Seeing that nothing could save him from the death penalty, he [Beattie] submitted a written confession, admitting that he had murdered his wife, and then went to his death with a cynical smile on his lips, ridiculing the implement which was to, and did, put him to death.</p>
<p>The death penalty, in principle, fills us with horror. The very thought that people, by law, murder other people, even the worst criminals, in cold blood, is loathsome. For a criminal like Beattie, death was too light a punishment. It released him from everything quickly. He did not even have time to think about the crime which he had committed. A long prison term, or even imprisonment for life, is a more appropriate punishment for criminals, and civilized society would not be soiling its hands with blood just because common criminals had soiled theirs.</p>
<p>Besides, the death penalty does not in the least lessen the number of murders, since each year there is an increase in their number; especially <pb facs="5423968_4_0953.jpg" n="3"/>do the states that have capital punishment abound in them. Statistics disclose that in the states which do not punish with death, but with imprisonment, the number of murders is relatively smaller than in the states where criminals are put to death by means of the scaffold or the electric chair.</p>
<p>This alone suggests that capital punishment should be repealed in all the states, as it has been repealed in some, and that the decision on so grave a problem should rest with the Federal Government and the Supreme Court, and not with the state legislatures. A question of such importance concerns the entire United States, and not specific parts of it.</p>
<p>In respect to the number of murders committed, women are almost the equals of men, especially in badly-matched marriages. At present there are several cases pending in which women are accused of having brutally murdered their <pb facs="5423968_4_0954.jpg" n="4"/>husbands; the most notorious is the case of Gertrude Patterson, who is on trial in Denver, Colorado,charged with the fatal shooting of her husband; in Chicago a certain Quinn and Vermylia are being tried for poisoning husbands and lovers.</p>
<p>The evidence against the accused women is so strong that it will be very difficult for them to escape punishment, but who knows whether the jury, taking into consideration that the accused are women, will not acquit them, or at most give them a prison sentence, as has already happened in many cases. Even here the law is not the same for all, since men are usually condemned to death, even on inconclusive evidence of guilt, whereas women are either freed or imprisoned, although their guilt is definitely proven.</p>
<p>Crime is crime, regardless of who commits it, and the law must be the same for all. We repeat again that we are decidedly opposed to capital punishment in a civilized country, and that it should be repealed, but on the <pb facs="5423968_4_0955.jpg" n="5"/>other hand the law should make no exceptions, and every murderer or murderess should be meted out the same punishment. The indulgence of the law in respect to women only encourages perverted female individuals to commit crimes, because they are certain that the courts will not punish them severely, and sometimes will even let them go absolutely free.</p>
<p>This is the reason why women murderers are found only in this country. On the one hand, bad bringing-up at home, and a lack of care at school, develop the criminal instincts. On the other hand, insufficient and incompetent laws, which severely punish petty offenses, and allow greater crimes to go without punishment, foster these instincts.</p>
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