home and families; and two-thirds
will be due to the maudlin sentiment sometimes called mercy.

"I have no sympathy for the criminal. My sympathy is for those who will
be murdered; for their families and for their children. This sham
humanitarianism has become a stench. The cry now is for righteousness.
The past generation has abolished human slavery. It is for the present
to deal with the problems of the future, and among them this problem of
crime."

Against doctrine of this sort none will protest but the politicians in
power, under whose lax administration of a great trust there has arisen
one of the saddest spectacles of human history, the decay of the great
American principles of liberty and fair play. The criminals of our city
are bold, because they, if not ourselves, know of this decay. They, if
not ourselves, know the weakness of that political system to which we
have, in carelessness equaling that of the California miners of old--a
carelessness based upon a madness of money equal to or surpassing that
of the gold stampedes--delegated our sacred personal rights to live
freely, to own property, and to protect each for himself his home.

THE END

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