Rev. P. J. O'Callaghan, pastor of St. Mary's Church and the priest who saved Herman Billik from the gallows—What is man that he should put himself in judgment on a fellow and say that the culprit is beyond reformation and redemption and slay him? Man is too fallible to condemn another as an habitual criminal and exterminate him. No one knows when a man has passed beyond the pale of reform. As a matter of fact, many and many a criminal branded as 'habitual' has been saved to a useful life. I most heartily disagree with any suggestion to execute any man on the theory that he is irredeemable.
Hope While There Is Life.
Rabbi Tobias Scharfarber—In the first place I am opposed to capital punishment, but, in any event, I should not agree with this suggestion of Mr. Peters. It is much like Osler's plan to kill off men of sixty or more years of age, or Ingersoll's suggestion that when a man believed himself to be a failure and useless to the world he should go and shoot his brains out. While a man lives there is hope for him, and no one has either power or right to say that he will always be a menace to society.
"Christ in His charity taught those who came to Him,
Ill deeds should pardoned be seventy times seven;
Succor the least here and you do the same to Him;
These are his precepts on earth and in heaven.
Oh, then, when laboring hard for humanity,
Never believe that your labor is vain.
Kindness will conquer the criminal insanity;
Speak to him gently and try him again."
Criminal Becomes Minister
[Courier-Journal]
"Do you know who I am?" once said a person in the jail here to the Rev. George L. Herr, prison evangelist. "I will tell you. I am the worst and most treacherous man in this prison." Then the Rev. Mr. Herr says he told him the story of his fearful crimes. "I have been in prison North, South, East and West, I have been in the dismal, solitary cell for one year, have been put in large tanks of ice water, have been punished over and over again, but it has always made me more of a demon. Would you like to know what the officer who last locked me up said about me?"
"'Take him and lock him up like a brute beast, for that is what he is.'"