Cortland Evening Standard, Thursday, August 27, 1903.
THE LAW AND THE MAN.
To the Editor of The Standard:
Sir—The great number and wide distribution of mobs, riots and lynchings in this country are symptoms either of popular degeneracy or of the dissemination of anarchistic principles and tendencies, sufficient to grieve the judicious and alarm the cautious, unless such outbreaks of lawlessness can be made to yield to the forces of reason and civilization with the result of a speedy change to saner practices.
In a free representative republic like ours there is no reason or even plausible pretext for such lawless events as are constantly taking place. Our government and our laws represent the expressed will of the whole people, no less the law breaking than the law abiding, and the people are for that reason responsible for the faults and defects contained therein, inasmuch as the remedy for every imperfection rests with the very persons who openly defy or complacently acquiesce in the wanton violation and defiance of laws and institutions upon which the safety of every citizen ultimately depends, and upon which society mainly relies to prevent its relapse into barbarism, of which such exhibitions of bloodthirstiness and violence are characteristic manifestations.
Remedies for All That is Amiss.
The primaries, the courts, the ballot box, the jury box and the witness box are among the instrumentalities designated by laws to provide remedies for everything that is amiss in the administration of public affairs and these are equally accessible to all. Yet they are supplanted by the mad counsels and the atrocious acts of infuriated mobs, while the law, which impartially rules and reigns over all like a benignant sovereign, is flouted and dishonored in the presence of those whose duty it is to uphold, obey and enforce it, notwithstanding it is the congenial and crystallized will of the people, administered by their chosen representatives.
Our government is but an organization created and maintained by the people and for the people, the principal purpose of which is to give expression, force, vitality and stability to the law and the institutions provided by it, as instrumentalities to make these institutions and the law effective in their operation. Under such conditions every unlawful attack upon the means of enforcing the law is a defiance and opposition to the popular will and an assault upon the power, dignity and sovereignty of the people. Whatever detracts from the respect due to these instrumentalities diminishes the security by which the liberties and personal rights of each individual—the weak as well as the strong are guarded and protected from encroachment and impairment by unrestrained power, injustice and wrong. The right to life, liberty and proper pursuits of happiness, and the safety of the institutions created for their preservation, are dependent upon respect for the law and the government.
Tyrant or Dictator the Product.
A tyrant or dictator is but the usual product of the development of the successful leader of riots and mobs who, having no authority derived from the people, usually assumes that the right to domineer over a people is derived from God, which relieves him from all obligation to consult the wishes of the people respecting the disposal of their dearest rights. A tyrant or dictator is only tolerated as a relief from the intolerable conditions existing under mob rule and the prevalence of lynch law which result from the cowardice, indolence, indifference, selfishness and want of patriotism existing among the people; and but for which, no boycott or lynching could be successfully perpetrated. If the men who constitute the body politic possessed the virtue to resist such wrongs—whether they were personally affected by them or not they would never be permitted. History and experience demonstrate the truth of this conclusion. Every time the law is successfully defied and made to yield to irresponsible force, the respect due to it, as the expressed will of the people, is diminished and impaired; and successful mobs and lynchings are the object lesson, which serve to complete the education of pupils from the schools of anarchy, which will be found in many of the trade unions, and equip leaders for playing the role of dictator and tyrant; while the courage and independence of the people and their disposition and power to resist such dangerous encroachments upon their peace, dignity and safety, weaken and disappear as such deeds increase in frequency and are suffered to escape punishment.
Need of Sound Public Opinion.
The security of the individual and of the community as a whole imperatively demands the existence of a wholesome public opinion, as a background for the display of all civic virtue. It is useless to expect an efficient enforcement of the law without it. Wherever the law is persistently violated or defiled with impunity, sympathy with its violations will be found to pervade the community in which the violations take place. If not so in the beginning, it will eventually become so. The evil example of crimes committed en mass is worse in its effect upon the community than equivalent crimes committed by single individuals not associated with any popular movement or commotion, because crime committed en mass has the semblance of popular approval as a palliative for the offense. Hence the importance of manifesting an unmistakable popular disapproval of these riotous crimes, of punishing them adequately and preventing their recurrence so as to avoid the consequences of their evil example and influence in the demoralization of society.
Law Enforced the Only Security.
Only the law, rigidly and impartially enforced, provides any uniform and reliable security for the protection of the rights of the vast majority, who have neither the craft nor the strength to protect themselves against the greed and violence of the aggressive and powerful members of society. This the law does without curtailing or jeopardizing the rights of any, while every unauthorized attempt to punish crime or administer justice by unlawful and unwarranted means impairs the forces of civilization, tends to anarchy and works the destruction of liberty and social order, so that tyranny alone survives and eventually predominates. History and experience supply abundant examples to support this conclusion.
A perfunctory obedience and acquiescence in the enforcement of the law is not the full measure of the citizen's duty, which demands an active and zealous participation in its administration as every opportunity therefore is presented.
Sentiment apart, true patriotism consists in the courage, zeal, impartiality and efficiency with which the individual citizen upholds the laws and civil institutions of his country. No one can be truly patriotic who fails to support the law and its rigorous and impartial execution to the utmost of his ability, or who himself violates the law or inspires or suffers others to commit crimes against the persons, property or rights of others, or the peace and good order of the community, or who opposes obstacles or hindrances to the prompt and efficient enforcement of the law, by word or deed, whereby one accused is deprived of such speedy and impartial trial and opportunity for defense as the law provides to ascertain and determine his guilt or innocence before he is subjected to punishment. Whoever attempts to suppress vice or intemperance after the methods of Carrie Nation, or places any illegal restraints upon the freedom of contract, trade or personal conduct respecting any lawful pursuit, not only subverts law and order, annihilates liberty, inaugurates despotism and thwarts civilization, but is guilty of crimes which include extortion and duress, and of trampling upon the dearest rights of humanity.
The Right to Think and Act.
Whoever deprives men of the right to think and act with freedom under the protection of the law, or curtails the privileges and immunities provided by "due process of law" and "the equal protection of the laws," annuls the rights guaranteed by the Magna Carta and the constitution and tramples upon the dearest principles for which our progenitors fought and yielded up their lives, from Runnymede to Yorktown. No man, however innocent, is safe where the instrumentalities of the law are impotent to protect him in the enjoyment of these rights.
Entitled to Protection.
All persons under arrest, or in the custody of a sheriff or other peace officers, are in the custody of the law and are doubly entitled to its protection because deprived of the usual and natural means for protecting themselves. It is the imperative duty of peace officers to protect their prisoners from violence. For this purpose the law invests them with authority to command assistance from bystanders and the military to aid them in the performance of this duty, and they may lawfully employ such means and use such force as may be necessary for this purpose, even to taking the lives of those who threaten the safety of their prisoners.
By the law, the accused has the right to a speedy and impartial trial, and to a fair and impartial preliminary examination, to ascertain if there be probable cause to justify his apprehension, arrest and detention; and where the offense charged is a serious crime, for which the punishment may be confinement in the state's prison, his case must be heard before a disinterested and impartial grand jury, before he can be placed in jeopardy of conviction by a trial. When indicted, he has the right to the assistance of counsel, who may take exception to anything he deems prejudicial to the rights of the prisoner, may cross examine the witnesses for the prosecution, elicit the testimony in behalf of the accused and address the court and jury in his behalf, and if convicted may review his conviction on appeal. All these rights and privileges are denied and trampled under foot when a mob subverts the law and imposes punishment, whether the victim be innocent or guilty of the offense of which he is accused. If, in the suppression of a mob, in vindication of the law, lives are taken by a public official in the proper discharge of his duty, the blame and the responsibility rests alone with those who defied the law.
The Most Flagrant Defiance of Law.
Defiance of law can take no more flagrant or objectionable form than is displayed in lynching, where every step of the proceedings violates some right of the victim and defies the law of the state. If the victim is arrested by lynchers the act is without right or authority to justify it. If he is already under arrest, the sovereignty and the state is assailed and insulted and crimes are committed—such as assaulting and resisting a peace officer, breaking jail and releasing a prisoner—an assault is committed upon the prisoner, as well as upon his custodians and, if it be made with intent to take his life, it is an assault with intent to kill. If the victim is killed, he is denied the right of trial, which is such an infraction of the constitution as contains the material elements of the crime of treason because committed against the sovereignty of the state; and, finally, the crime of murder becomes the climax of a catalogue of crimes attributable to all who have aided or abetted the lynching.
The race of the victim can never serve to mitigate the crimes of his assassins.
Mobs, conspiracies and riots, lately frequently organized to prevent persons from giving or receiving employment, vie closely with lynching as a bad second in point of enormity.
These lawless events are not inspired by a love of justice, charity or humanity; nor by fear that guilt will escape unpunished; but by bloodthirstiness, greed, hatred, revenge and malevolence.
Civilization and the law has made far better provisions for conserving and securing the ends of justice, charity and humanity than can ever be developed or administered by a mob. While the law suppresses and restrains the exercise and exhibition of the evil passions displayed by a mob in its lawless acts; wherein will be found the key to the motive or impulse which inspires the mob, namely, the free and unrestrained exercise and display of all the violent passions which are characteristic of barbarians; so that there is neither necessity nor reasonable pretext for resorting to or upholding lynch law in a republic or in any country possessing free representative institutions. All mob law is a distinct relapse toward barbarism, and as such must be condemned.
Every citizen is afforded an opportunity of participating in the making, amending, developing and administering the law and has no right to discredit or disown his own handiwork. Every one has voluntarily entered into an implied compact with his fellow citizens to employ no other than lawful means for the administration, amendment, or repeal of any law.
There can be but one standard of justice and the embodiment of such standard in the law excludes all others. Whoever endeavors to create or apply a different standard of justice, penalty, judgment or mode of execution is no less a criminal than the guiltiest wretch who is made to suffer for his misdeeds by unlawful means; and the evil example and results of his riotous act are even worse in their effect upon public morals than the crime which is made the pretext for lynching by the mob.
That criminals should assume the monopoly of punishing crime in their own unlawful way, is intolerable; it is like leaving to Satan the duty of rebuking sin. It is a house divided against itself, which can not stand because of conflicting strains.
To punish one crime by the commission of many is to multiply evils instead of providing remedies for them which merits the severest reprobation and most condign punishment.
Irving H. Palmer, Aug. 26, 1903.
[We don’t have a photo of Mr. Palmer in our collection. A comment from the Cortland County Historical Society to this 1903 letter with photo attached would be appreciated. Mr. Palmer was twice elected mayor of the village of Cortland. He was also a trustee of the Erie & Central New York Railroad. In Smith’s 1885 History of Cortland County we find this entry: "Admitted in the same year (1867) as Mr. Mantanye, at the November General Term, was Irving H. Palmer. He was born in Virgil in 1841, and was graduated at the Cortland Academy. His law studies were pursued in the office of Duell & Benedict, after which he began practice in Cortland. In 1882 he was elected district attorney, which office he still retains."—CC ed.]
