THE JOURNAL STILL WILD.
The wild man of the Atlanta Journal is trying to convince the public that he was not joking in his appeal for a complete pardon for the Rawlings boys. Several articles on the subject last week were followed up by a double-column editorial on Sunday. The Journal wants Governor Terrell and the present pardon board to issue this pardon, but we want to advise the governor to beware of enemies when they come bringing advice. If the Journal wants to defy the best sentiment among saints and sinners in South Georgia, let it induce Mr. Hoke Smith, when he becomes governor, to issue this pardon.
The Journal contends that the state penitentiary, or confinement there, is “living death”cand that it would be better for the Rawlings boys to have been hanged than subjected to such a penalty. If that is so, why does not the Journal advocate hanging as the proper penalty for chicken stealing, instead of sending the offender to the penitentiary? If the penitentiary is too severe a place for midnight assassins, why has the Journal been supine lying on its back all of these years and allowing criminals of far less degree to be sent to that place? Does it argue that there was not enough evidence to convict these boys? Has not the courts, from the superior to the United States supreme court been over the ground carefully and concurred in what was done? Has the Journal forgotten the crime that was committed, with all of its diabolical details?
The people in the rural districts are dependent entirely upon a rigid enforcement of the laws against assassins, as well as burglars, for their protection. Only last week, Governor Terrell offered the largest reward ever offered in Georgia for the arrest of an assassin who fired into the home of a citizen of Chipley and killed him.
A little while ago, a Colquilt citizen was shot down as he sat talking with his wife in the security of his home. Such crimes have all of the elements of malice, as well as cowardice, in them and the law offers no punishment too severe for the perpetrators of such deeds. And yet, the Atlanta Journal advocates the pardon of three men convicted of shooting down innocent children in their own yard, and of following up the shots with an attempt to butcher a whole family!
And the Journal preaches about mercy “like the gentle dew of heaven” the mercy which blesses the giver and receiver alike. We grant that mercy is a beautiful quality, but where was Mercy when the two little Carter children were assassinated? Where was it when the plot for wholesale extermination was fought for during the six or eight hours, when according to the evidence, the assassins were trying to get a shot at other children of the Carter household?
The attitude of the Atlanta Journal in the light of the facts, in this case, is devilish, in the extreme. If the Journal makes more such breaks, thousands of people in this section will believe that a mad man is at its throttle.