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5423968_8_0066.xml
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5423968_8_0066.xml
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?oxygen RNGSchema="../schema/flps0.2.rnc" type="compact"?><TEI xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0">
<teiHeader>
<fileDesc>
<titleStmt>
<title>
<bibl><title>Dziennik Związkowy</title>,
<date when="1911-12-02">Dec. 2, 1911</date>.
<title level="a">Crime and 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_8_0066</idno>
</publicationStmt>
<notesStmt>
<note>Transcribed from digital images contributed to the Internet
Archive by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.</note>
</notesStmt>
<sourceDesc>
<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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<profileDesc>
<textClass>
<catRef target="#grp-polish"/>
<catRef target="#grp-polish #code-II.E.2"/>
<catRef target="#grp-polish #code-I.K"/>
</textClass>
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<revisionDesc>
<change when="2010-02-17">Automated conversion to expanded header.</change>
<change when="2010-02-13">Initial TEI transcription from PanGeo Partners, Inc.</change>
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<text>
<front>
<pb facs="5423968_8_0066.jpg" n="1"/>
<div type="group">
<list>
<item>POLISH</item>
</list>
</div>
<div type="codes">
<list>
<item>II E 2</item>
<item>I K</item>
</list>
</div>
<div type="citation">
<bibl><title>Dziennik Zwiazkowy</title>,
<date when="1911-12-02">Dec. 2, 1911</date>.
<title level="a">CRIME AND PUNISHMENT</title><title level="a" type="sub">(Editorial)</title></bibl>
</div>
</front>
<body>
<p>The American courts have just decided two cases--one the case of a woman found guilty of murder; the other the case of six degenerate adolescents, of Polish extraction, unfortunately, also found guilty of the same offense.</p>
<p>This is what happened. A Chicago court has just pronounced sentence of death by hanging on four of six boys found guilty of murder; the other two boys, being minors, were sentenced to life imprisonment. In Denver, Colorado, on the other hand, a court has just acquitted a woman who had shot her tubercular husband.</p>
<p>In the first case, as well as in the second, murder was committed, and the guilty parties should pay the penalty. We have not the slightest intention <pb facs="5423968_8_0067.jpg" n="2"/>of minimizing the guilt of those six boys, who cold-bloodedly murdered an innocent farmer. They deserve punishment. What is hard to understand is that the sentence of death was applicable to every member of the gang, since two were spared only because they were minors.</p>
<p>Surely, it is impossible that in this case there would not be some difference in the guilt of these criminals--that one would have been more guilty and another less. The investigation showed that two members of this gang were the actual murderers. Let them suffer the death penalty, if such a law still exists here, but it is not right to condemn four to death for an offense in which two were less guilty.</p>
<p>In the second place, a woman is acquitted--a woman who shot her husband and who admitted that although she had a husband she was carrying on a love affair with a millionaire. It is true that she claimed that her late husband, whom she had killed, used to sell her and wanted to live comfortably off the proceeds <pb facs="5423968_8_0068.jpg" n="3"/>of her shame, but the dead man, of course, could not defend himself and could not deny these charges. Even if what she said about her husband in court was true, she had no right to shoot him. An honest woman, having such a wretch of a husband as would want to sell her to others, could leave him and live honestly. She could, in fact, seek aid from the police and the courts were he to persecute her, but she did not have the right to take his life.</p>
<p>In both cases a crime was committed, and punishment should be meted out regardless of sex or position. We certainly are not of the opinion that the husband-murderess should receive the death penalty, because such punishment is repugnant to us; but to free her completely means to encourage other women of evil instincts to perpetrate similar crimes.</p>
<p>But this husband-murderess had money; she had behind her a millionaire lover who, though not openly, helped her with money and saved her from misfortune. Had it not been for his money, she would have been punished, even if not too <pb facs="5423968_8_0069.jpg" n="4"/>severely.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the boys sentenced to death had no money for their defense, so they were dealt with summarily.</p>
<p>The crime perpetrated by them was repulsive and brutal. They were animals, not people, and society will be better off for not having them in its midst. Nevertheless, society should not have demanded their wretched lives, condemning wholesale all four, of whom not all were guilty in the same degree. This is not an impartial sentence differentiating between crimes, but one in which, one can actually say, racial hatred played a part.</p>
<p>The criminals deserved punishment, and no one intends to defend them, but to sentence four at once to death is a little too much, and justice has committed a grave error. And it has also committed an even greater error--that of freeing a woman who had soiled her hands with her husband's blood.</p>
<pb facs="5423968_8_0070.jpg" n="5"/>
<p>These sentences show in every way that American justice is still far from being impartial and that it blunders on many occasions. Money often plays a more important part here than justice.</p>
</body>
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