It is not an unusual thing for justice to miscarry in the courts of the land. The Free Press is inclined to believe, however, that society is more often cheated of justice against malefactors than is the case of unwarranted and unjustified punishment being meted out to the innocent.
Occasionally, however, there is an outstanding exception. One such has just come to light in the experience of Charner Tidwell, a half-breed Cherokee Indian of Oklahoma, who as recorded in Wednesday’s Free Press, had been pardoned by President Harding after spending nearly 25 years of a life sentence in the Atlanta penitentiary for a crime of which he was innocent. Perjured testimony and perhaps racial prejudice had to do with the injustice done this ward of the nation.
What of it? Happily in this man’s case, he comes out to find his land back in the territory greatly enhanced in value and he is independently wealthy. What if that had not been the case? Supposed he had emerged from the grim “burial alive” with no means of support, out of touch with the progress of the times, and therefore, incompetent and incapable of making a livelihood, would society not have been indebted to him to the extent that some recompense for his false imprisonment be made?
From the editorial page of the Kinston Free Press, March 28, 1923, H. Galt Braxton editor and manager.
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