State Board of Pardons Should Have Been Created By
Legislature…Anti-Saloon Losing Cast
One sin of omission
for which the recent legislature is answerable consists of its failure to
create a State Board of Pardons. It should have been done years and years ago
and until that duty is attended to the public and press will continue to
unfavorably criticize many actions of the one man who now is invested alone
with the power.
For that reason, if
there were no other, the Governor should be a warm advocate of the change, yet
the subject was not even mentioned. An additional reason for the change is
found in the great proportion of time the Chief Executive taken up in the
consideration and disposal of the numerous applications for executive
clemency—and till further and more potent argument in favor of a pardon board
is the self-evident fact that no one person ought to be vested with this
authority and power—to the exclusion of all the rest of the world.
I am prompted to
make this reference to the subject at this time because of the criticism, made
public in some of the daily papers, of Gov. Bickett’s action in the case of
Mincher, the Lenoir county convict guard, convicted by a jury of cruelly and
inhumanely whipping a convict and sentenced by Judge Bond to a year’s
imprisonment—jail, and who gets off with a $25 fine by the Governor’s
commutation. The recent exposure of wholesale cruelties by this very class of
men, revealed through the legislative investigation committee, left the public
in no mood for “clemency” to such culprits so soon.
As I have just
stated, the subject of a board of pardons was not mentioned during the session
of the legislature just adjourned, either in the Governor’s messages to that
body or by the lawmakers of their own initiative, which is strange, for there
has been considerable discussion of the question in preceding years.
Gov. Craig pardoned
several men who were proven to be innocent of the crimes of which they were
convicted and already Gov. Bickett (in office only two months) has pardoned at
least one innocent man. Thus it is seen how important it is that applications,
however numerous, should always be carefully considered—and they consume too
much of the time of the governor that ought to be devoted to other matters.
I have no word of
censure for any governor who is disposed to be merciful—I commend him for it,
and hope we will never elevate to that office a heartless and unmerciful man.
I take no stock in
the attacks on any governor’s “sentimentality” or kind-heartedness and merciful
disposition—knowing full well that if those virtues were expelled some of their
critics might be petitioning for pardon some day in the future—but the action
of Gov. Bickett in the case under consideration was certainly ill-timed, in the
public mind if not unjustified by the whole evidence. If the commutation of
Mincher’s sentence (not a day of which has he yet served) had been made before
the legislature adjourned, there might have been a board of pardons by this
time. Let us hope the law-makers will be alive to the subject next time.
Double-Barrel Office Holders
According to the
terms of a measure which Senator Person of Franklin got through the
legislature, the State Reference Librarian is charged with the duty of issuing
a “blue book” to the end that the men and women carried on the State’s pay-roll
may be made to appear and the salaries paid each of them.
Senator Person
things and so do a lot of others that there is and has long been too much
double-barrel office holding. For years and years there have been conspicuous
instances of such near graft. Clerks who hold well paid regular jobs in public
offices and draw annual salaries “hogging” legislative clerkships and other
salary-drawing jobs have been a common practice—and much of that sort of thing
that does not appear on the surface is not allowed to reach the public. Other
men and women, some who come here from other sections of the state for the
purpose of securing some of those places, are turned down—although they are
equally well fitted and often more deserving (especially from a political
standpoint) than those who grab the rake-off through the pull of higher up
officials.
If Mr. Librarian
Wilson carries out the intent of the Person blue-book law and closely scans the
paid warrants on the State treasury, the volume will furnish some interesting
reading.
The legislative
halls and offices are this week in the hands of the clean-up squad of the
capitol. Chief Clerk Lassiter of the House has returned to his home and private
business at LaGrange, and Chief Clerk Self of the Senate has gone to
Statesville to resume his regular work in the office of the Collector of
Internal Revenue. Some of the Raleigh employees of the General Assembly are
back at their regular work on Easy Street. The “Fake Bill Artist” remains
incognito.
Keeping History Straight
Supt. R.L. Davis of
the Anti-Saloon League is out in a statement in which he criticizes the friends
of prohibition in the legislature for lethargy and charges up to their
inactivity and lack of interest, coupled with the opposition of Speaker Walter
Murphy, the failure of the several additional prohibitive laws which his
organization presented for passage, including the ouster bill and that to
create the office of prohibition commissioner.
There are a number
of ardent temperance men in the present legislature. If they did not urge the
adoption of the anti-saloon league program as earnestly as that organization
thinks they should have done, what was the reason. The statement of “brother”
Davis is hardly fair to them.
Sometimes a project
of even a great cause is rendered unpopular by bad management and unwise liens
of procedure on the part of those directing it.
Personally I do not
share in a widespread “prejudice” that has existed for some time against
certain gentlemen connected with this class of legislation (for alleged reasons
which is not necessary to detail here) and which during the recent session of
the General Assembly directed much of its effect and influence against the
superintendent of the anti-saloon league. But that it did exist and was a
factor in the conditions which obtained and the results which followed, is well
known to those members of the anti-saloon league committee on legislation as
well as others, who came here in the interest of the bills that failed to go
through. By the way, is it not about time the temperance people changed the
name of their organization?
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