Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 April 1885 — Wartner’s Sentence. [ARTICLE]

Wartner’s Sentence.

Highmore Vox Populi: Dakota will take her position in the demoo atic column in four years hence.

The Highmore (Dakota) Vox Popul i, Charley Price’s paper, says that Bismarck, Yankton and Fargo, heretofore strongly repulican, elected democratic Mayors at the 1 e election.

T'v'dirrprl TT«» M: Pena tor Hoo- . r ret erned to Remington Wedno iday morning. He came via the ( eat Southern and remained in ('■ odland over night. One of the 1 t acts of the legislature was to p ; s a bill introduced by Mr. Hoover to incorporate the Cameron S -ings Co., at Kickapoo.

Hew York World: Postmaster General Vilas has sloughed off v vother batch of useless Inspecto *s, and Secretary Whitney has lengthened the hours of clerks in his department under certain cont‘agencies. Thus the good work o* rßform goes on.

We all remember the crisp new $2 bills that flooded Indiana just about the time of the October election 1880. They were visible' in this locality immediately on the heels of Gov. Porter’s meeting in Renssselaer. They were brought to the State by the Dorsey Republica n gang to defeat the Democratic Stats and Congressional ticket of that canvass, and pave the way for radical success the following November. The Washington correspondent of the New York World intimates where these periodical floods of newly-made bills came from. In a recent dispatch he states that' thej’e has been recently in City rumors of startling discoveries in the' Treasury Department of a sensational character. It is alleged that Secretary Manning h: s discovered evidence leading to the proof of a fraudulent overissue of greenbacks amounting Ito manv millions of dollars. The charg is not a new one. It been frequently asserted that this was a favorite method of the Republicans of raising campaign funds during the loose period following the war. If there had been any such over-issue there would be no obtainable evidence now to prove or disprove the charge. The only way it would be possible to obtain evidence of an overissue would be in calling in the outstanding issues of greenbacks and national notes. Even that might indicate nothing, as large quantities of the paper currency are lost or destroyed every year and could not be reached in a call If such rascality was indulged in, it will be very difficult to ever fathom it. The rascals who perpetrated it have had too much time, to •destroy every vestige of evidence that might lead to detection.

The Republican correspondents and epitors continue to insist that Secretary Bayard always treated the colored man Bruce unkindly. A Washington special of the 20th says: “The statement recently published to the effect that Secretary Bayard held no intercourse while in the Senate with Senator Bruce, the colored Sonator from Missis, sippi, now Register of the Treasury, and which Mr. Bayard indignantly denied, is also controverted by Mr. Bruce. The latter has telegraphed J. A. Emerson, a colored journalist in New York: ‘There was no issue between Mr. Bayard and myself, nor has he ever treated me with unkindness.’” This should settte the matter, and we suggc .t that the ‘hi;!’ mr.k?nate of

Editor Sentinel: Whoever is convicted of murder in the first degree “shall suffer death or be imprisoned in the State’s prison during life in the discretion of the jury.”—Sec. 1904, R.S. 1881. On a plea of guilty couldjthe Court exercise that discretion and impose the death penalty, without the intervention of a jury? If an accused person plead guilty “he shall be sentenced.”—-Sec. 1767, R.S. 1881. In the contemptuous language of our prosecuting attorney, referring in last week’s Republican to a decision of the Supreme Court, wo’d not the exercise of a discretion by the Court, reposed alone in the jury, be such a “merest quibble and flimsiest pretext” as would, on appeal, reverse the case? In the language of our own Constitution :

“The penal code shall be based on the principles of reformation and not be vindictive justice.’” — Art 1, Sec. 18.

When Weibren Wartner came into court he plead “guilty,” and the duty of the Court was to sentence him. In all crimes, except murder in the first degree, the Court can exercise full discretion within the maximum and minimum punishment prescribed as the sanction of the law. The words “in the discretion of the jury,” occur only in the definition of the four capital crimes defined by our statutes. The legislative wisdom lodged the exercise of this awful discretionary power in a jury, and I wish the Court had chosen civil rather than physical death as the sentence.

It would be better for Wartner, his family, and the people of the great State of Indiana, that he should be a life slave to the State whose laws he so outrageously transgressed, rather than be hanged in our midst, that, too, not strictly in accord with the customs 'of the country, for severe penalties like this usually attaches to the verdict of a jury of twelve honest, good and lawful men, and hence this most awful and solemn discretion between prison-life and death seems to have been referred to the jury.

It is ‘very probable, also, that Wartner is or was non compas mentis, and is consequently unfit to become a subject of lawful execution.

Men should in such matters of moment as this be actuated wholly by reason, and not passion as was “M” in the Republican of last week. Such reasoners had better let their pens rust than to write upon matters of such magnitude with so little reason. X.

S. O. Duvall, of Chicago, visited friends in Rensselaer the present week.

James Porter, of this place, is attending the Central Indiana Normal School and Business College, at Ladoga.

C. W. Clifton, of tliis place, who last fall went to Colorado as General Agent of the Portland, Maine, Mutual Life Insurance Company, left his boarding house, near Fort Collins, rifle in hand to take a hunt, April 6th, since which time nothing has been seen or heard of him. It is feared that he has been foully dealt with, or may have taken his own life.

A summary of the laws enacted by the Legislature recently adjourned will be found on another page in this Sentinei* James H. Honan, of Delphi, is visiting his brother Ed., at this place. John Kohler and Ed. Parcels are happy over the addition of a son to their respective families.

Services at the Church of God next Sunday morning. Kid. D. T. tUfeteed till offickts.