Evening Post. TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 1924. LYNCH LAW?

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 136, 10 June 1924, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 1924. LYNCH LAW?

It is\the role of America to "whip creation" in whatever she undertakes, and all that pertains to crime—the commission of it, the investigation of it, the punishment of iti and the non-punish-ment of it—constitutes one of the departments in which her allround supremacy is most difficult, to dispute. The crimes with which Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb stand charged entitle them tr a high place in the Chamber ot Horrors. If a due allowance be made of weight for age these prentice hands in crime need not shrink from a competition with the greatest names in the Newgate or any other calendar. How few of the world's great criminals had made a name for themselves at the age of fifteen or even eighteen! How many would have gone to ■ their graves unknown, untried, and unhung if there had been nothing worse to their credit than the trivial escapades ol their teens! To their tender age these precocious products of what has been called the wickedest " city on earth add the qualities of callousness, a dispassionate intellectual interest in .their work, -an obliging readiness to talk about it, and the possession of millionaire parents— a combination which has not failed foi the present to supersede, even the colossal oil scandals in the great heart of America. |

But great and fascinating as the wickedness of these young millionaire murderers of Chicago may be, the way in.which their fellowcountrymen are taking it is for an outside observer a much more interesting subject for study. Other countries may be able to produce murderers as young, as callous, as well educated, and as wealthy, though the last qualification will greatly narrow the field; but what other country could Handle a case as America is handling this one? Before the youngsters had been committed for trial we knew all about them—what they looked like, how much they had confessed, what else they had to say, what other crimes they had probably committed, what wealthy parents they had, what desperate efforts would be made to get them off, how deeply the honour of; America was concerned in getting them hanged. There is not a newspaper in Britain or in New Zealand, and probably not one in any part of the Empire, that would have dared to. say or even to hint bz so much as an infinitesimal portion of the things that are being fieely published all over the United States, with full details of times and places and names, and given all the publicity that reports and editorials and scare headlines in the Yellow Press, and even in the non-Yellow Press, could give it. It is not merely the fear of the law that in a British community excludes comment on the merits of a case that is pending in the Courts and especially in the criminal Courts. There is also at work the same sense of fair-play upon which the law forbidding comment at such a time is based, and without which it could not be maintained—the fealing that even if a man is obviously guilty hjs guilt is not to be assumed until it has been proved according to law, and that in the meantime nothing must be said or done publicly that would prejudice his right to a fair trial. At heart the Americans have doubtless just as strong' a sense of justice as ourselves, but the manner in which they allow its dictates to be overruled in this matter by their passion for liberty is very hard to Understand. The lynch law which prevails in the Southern States is much move easily intelligible. It is an open rebellion against the law in districts where there are large numbers of negroes, and often a majority of negroes, and irhers the mm& ftgesata. at o** euaaiaal

law are so slow, so corrupt,-and so uncertain that the chances are all in favour of the accused. It is afc any rate arguable that where the criminal law has become something like a dead letter, the swift and certain sentences of an irregular tribunal may provide a check on certain grave crimes to which the negro is prone and which would otherwise go unpunished. The case for lynch law under these conditions may be arguable, but what can be said for the irregular tribunal which is now trying, these young Chicago criminals 1 It is a jury of about 100,000,000 people, or of so many of them as are able to read a. newspaper It has been empanelled by the newspapers without any process of sifting or challenge. It is fed by sensational ex parte statements and appeals which have not been subjected to cross-examination or any other test. Headlines and interviews ant articles and anonymous letters takethe place of arguments, and there is no Judge to protect the accused, to exclude irrelevancy,- to explain the law, and to sum up the evidence. Is such a process any better than a kind of lynch law—a lynch law free from the horrors with which the process is usually associated, but just as deeply steeped in injustice and just as disgraceful to a great nation? The ' message from New York which informed us on Saturday that the Grand Jury had found true bilJs I against the accused concluded as follows :—

■The case .-will probably resolve itself mto a legal. battle between three of the wealthiest families in America. The Press continues its campaign, favouring the infliction of the death penalty as best for all concerned.

As some of those most deeply" concerned in this disgraceful business are the men who are writing it up in the Press, the wholesale applies tion of the prescription which they recommend would certainly promote the ends of justice.