Responsibility for Lynchings.
Type of event: Lynchings
Location: St. Paul; Ramsey County; Minnesota; United States
Citation:
Saint Paul Pioneer Press, June 17, 1920, page 6.
“Responsibility for Lynchings”
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Responsibility for Lynchings
In what it has to say with respect to such lynchings as the recent affair at
Duluth, the Pioneer Press does not wish to be misunderstood. Lynch law is the
purest anarchy. It is the substitution of mob violence for legal processes. It
is absolutely inexcusable under any circumstances, and those who take part in it
ought to be punished as severely as possible. In the Duluth episode it was
especially wanton because the mob was not sure, and could not be sure that it
was executing the guilty men.
And having said this as plainly as it knows
how the Pioneer Press invites the attention of the Minnesota legislature to two
matters which undoubtedly have a share of responsibility for the occurrence that
has disgraced out state. The first of these is the absence from our statute
books of any adequate punishment for the crime against women. We have abolished
the death penalty. Imprisonment neither measures up to society’s demand
for the punishment of this crime nor does it provide sufficient deterrent. The
second matter is that of our present method of dealing with the crime by law.
The unfortunate victim of such an assault if she survives, must undergo
intolerably humiliating examinations before court and jury, and must endure
legal bickering among attorneys over the most abhorrent details. In may
previous instances of lynch law it has been made perfectly clear that a desire
to shield the victim from a legal inquisition little worse than the crime
itself, has been partly responsible for mob vengeance. The constitutional
safeguards to which every man accused of crime is entitled cannot, of course, to
suspended. But some change might be made in the legal status of the crime which
would eliminate the necessity for the present character of proof.
These of
course, are not the principal considerations in connection with outbreaks of
lynch law. Neither capital punishment nor a more tolerable legal investigation
will prevent such manifestations of mob violence. But they will in our
judgment, add something to public confidence in the processes of law, and are
worthy of careful consideration by the next legislature.