| Show WHO BREEDS disrespect CT FOR LAW 7 whenever a newspaper ridicules a law plays up a policy of contempt tor or law and its enforcement and in its news and editorial columns fosters lawbreaking law aw breaking that newspaper is doing more to destroy american institutions than a federal judge can do to maintain them declared attorney general daugherty in a recent speech no one will disagree with him but there will be many who disagree ee with w ith the implication some may find in this pronouncement that disrespect for law is bred in the american pret prep without trying to place any blame where it belongs attention ton of the thoughtful is dhawn to two recent instances in which those who administer the law taught people to disrespect it in wilkes barre pa a man charged will wih wife beating was being tried before a magistrate becoming intensely incensed with the prisoner because of the character of the evidence given against him the magistrate jumped over his desk gave him a black eye had him stand up and blacked the other eye after which he fined him ten dollars there is here no sympathy for the wife beater doubtless he deserved more than he got but he deserve in a court of law anything but a calm dispassionate and judicial hearing the law does not provide for magistrates doing their own eye blacking the governor of a middle western state commuted a death sentence to life imprisonment first getting the convict in question to sign a paper agreeing that should he or his friends attempt to gain turner furher clemency for him the commutation will cease and he again face the death penalty poetic justice perhaps but is there a law anywhere which permits an all official cial with commuting power to bargain with convicts and does it make for respect for law to deprive any convict of hope to most of us law is impersonal it is the law officer who lie makes the law live for us its As we respect him we respect that for which he stands as we may laugh at or sneer at or condemn him so unconsciously do W we wrongly but very humanly condemn the law |
