An Excellent Editorial.—Score one for the Boston (Mass.) Transcript, which says:
“There may have been valid reasons for pardoning a man who has served four years in our state prison for forging checks and since then has been in the Springfield jail for another offense, but it is hardly treating our neighbors well that one of the conditions of his pardon is that he shall leave the state. If he is entitled to pardon at all he is entitled to a chance to prove that he is worthy of it in the jurisdiction where his offenses were committed. It looks too much like passing our burdens on to others. We have criticised the Italian government on the alleged charge that, instead of being at the expense and trouble of punishing its own criminals it has frequently connived at their emigration to this country. There is ethically not much difference between that and our own practices. Every state should be responsible for its own offenders. We do not want the ‘undesirable citizens’ from other countries or commonwealths passed upon us and doubtless other states feel the same way about it.”
“Easy Money.”—Attention has been called by a Boston newspaper to the vitality which the so-called “Spanish prisoner” swindle exhibits, despite the repeated exposures to which the game has been subjected, by the press of the country. Communities in New England, equally with other sections of the country, continue to report the receipt of fake appeals, along with the extravagant promises of rewards if money is sent on, by which the languishing prisoner may be released from prison, and thus enabled to enter upon possession of his gigantic fortune. The appeals, it is easy to perceive, would not be sent to individuals where the swindle has been laid bare, time and again, if out of the batch of people thus addressed, gullibles were not found in number sufficient to render the game a profitable one to the swindlers.
How Many Prisoners Are Innocent?—In a report read at the Omaha annual meeting of the American prison association, Frank L. Randall, chairman of the committee on reformatory work and parole, reported that the committee devoted an entire year to its search for a case of capital punishment wherein there was a reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the victim, and so far has discovered not a single definite case of the kind. This search was carried on in every prison in the United States and in Canada, a personal letter having been written to the warden of every state prison in both countries, and each official was asked the following questions:
1. Have you personal knowledge of the execution of any person, on conviction of murder, whom you believe, from subsequent developments, to have been innocent?
2. Have you personal knowledge of the imprisonment, on conviction of heinous crime, of any person whom you believe, from subsequent developments, to have been innocent?
3. If either of the last two questions is answered in the affirmative, was the victim a worthy person?
To the first question every warden in the United States and Canada answered “No” unequivocally, with the exception of R. W. McClaughry, warden of the government prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Colonel McClaughry was not sure, but said: “I know of one or two who may, in my opinion, have been executed wrongly.”