After all, what we want is protection for society. We cannot have innocent people killed in accordance with the whim of the irresponsible. These imbeciles have killed innocent members of society. What shall the living do to prevent these particular persons from repeating the crime and to prevent other imbeciles from ever committing such a crime? This, of course, involves the whole problem of punishment or the treatment of the wrongdoer. Upon one thing everybody is agreed--we must make it impossible for these persons ever to do such a deed again. The surest way to accomplish this is to destroy them. Dead men commit no crimes. Society feels safe when a desperado is killed. If we can agree upon this solution, the problem is easily solved and further discussion is unnecessary. But society is not at one on this question. We are already seriously debating the question whether any wrongdoer should ever be officially executed. Indeed, many States have already decided that they should not be, and imprisonment for life has replaced capital punishment. It is somewhat difficult to draw a line of distinction between the persons involved in these crimes and the so-called responsible murderers. It certainly is no great loss to society if Tronson is put out of the way. The same is true in varying degrees of Gianini and Pennington. It may be very successfully argued that the matter of responsibility is a fiction and that all persons should be treated alike, either all executed or none executed. Nevertheless, at the present time, we do draw the distinction, and many feel that the person who has full power over his action, who knows the nature and quality and wrongfulness of his act, should be executed, while those who do not know should not be executed.