The Story of the Outlaw: A Study of the Western DesperadoHough, Emerson
History
The Story of the Outlaw: A Study of the Western Desperado
Hough, Emerson
Crime -- West (U.S.); Criminals -- West (U.S.); Outlaws; West (U.S.) -- History
In one way or another the American people will assert the old vigilante
principle that a man's life, given him by God, and a man's property,
earned by his own labor, are things he is entitled to defend or have
defended. He never wholly delegates this right to any government. He may
rescind his qualified delegation when he finds his chosen servants
unfaithful or inefficient; and so have back again clean his own great
and imperishable human rights. A wise law and one enforced is tolerable.
An unjust and impure law is intolerable, and it is no wrong to cast
off allegiance to it. If so, Magna Charta was wrong, and the American
Revolution earth's greatest example of lynch law!
[Illustration: "AFTERWARD"
Fritz Graveyard, New Mexico. Many victims of the Lincoln County War
buried here]
Conclusions parallel to these are expressed by no less a citizen than
Andrew D. White, long United States Minister to Germany, who, in the
course of an address at a prominent university of America, in the year
1906, made the following bold remarks:
"There is a well-defined criminal class in all of our cities; a class of
men who make crime a profession. Deaths by violence are increasing
rapidly. Our record is now larger than any other country of the world.
The number of homicides that are punished by lynching exceeds the number
punished by due process of law. There is nothing more nonsensical or
ridiculous than the goody-goody talk about lynching. Much may be said in
favor of Goldwin Smith's quotation, that 'there are communities in which
lynch law is better than any other.'
"The pendulum has swung from extreme severity in the last century to
extreme laxity in this century. There has sprung up a certain
sentimental sympathy. In the word of a distinguished jurist, 'the
taking of life for the highest crime after due process of law is the
only taking of life which the American people condemn.'
"In the next year 9,000 people will be murdered. As I stand here to-day
I tell you that 9,000 are doomed to death with all the cruelty of the
criminal heart, and with no regard for home and families; and two-thirds
will be due to the maudlin sentiment sometimes called mercy.
"I have no sympathy for the criminal. My sympathy is for those who will
be murdered; for their families and for their children. This sham
humanitarianism has become a stench. The cry now is for righteousness.
The past generation has abolished human slavery. It is for the present
to deal with the problems of the future, and among them this problem of
crime."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account