The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, January 7, 1906, Page 10

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. — g » who shall com- 1 It and battery up- his wife, skall, in s of the court be- pviction is had, | 4 sentenced to whipped exceeding (weuly lashes, { 7 (I S imprisonment or fine a% 4 o provided. 1f under the order or by whipp! \/IFE BEATI “Any per wit an as on or b the discrets fore which « be not or by above | whan, | TS K % N 00, RS S be ¢S S g et shall Sheriff of rebal orporated ein judgment xi be ren- and the said Sheriff, o shall ad- minister the W within the walls of the juil of the county, eity or town where said crime shall have been committed.”— Provision in Oregon's statutes for the pumishment of wife beaters that bas proved most effective. or any of amy town or b wh dered, Marshal or pol PUNISH- MENT ? politically, if not a slave, at least a serf or a child. Her opinion is mot treated as being of any valwe to the state. It is not counted at the ballot- box. Is it to be wondered at if the jgnorant man, and also often the man who is not ignorant, acts accordingly and treats his wife, not as his eq but as, under the law, his inferior? Let men call upon the intelligent women of the state to help frame the laws concerning marriage and tha do- mestic relations, and they will human- ize legislation, as they have methods of education. Look at the brutalities In vogue in English and American sch?ol! before the advent of the school ma'am. ‘ If not quite extinct they are vastly lessened and exist omly in Institutions where Instruction is given by mea alone. And even there hazingand foot- ball are only recreations! Women can protect themselves much better if they are given the vote as a weapon of defemnse. The granting of woman suffrage will raise the status of womanhood. AIl the talk of being on a pedestal with the pauper, the crim- inal and the. insane, who share the pedestal with her—the pedestal of dis- . franchisement—is senseless. The un- derlying cause of much of the bad treatment” of women by ignerant and brutal men is classifying them in law with incompetents and Irrational be- ings. The California Equal - Suffrage Association demands not only a “square Qeal” for every man, but a “square deal” for every woman, and when we get that we can manage the wife-beat- ers without the whipping-post. TR Y R iy ally that “cruel that the whipping-post c ory of the above- ishment. theory that the tes are not antagonistic the oldtime method of kinds of offenders, is city and several interested in the e obnoxious and brutal abated, entered into a cor- a number of the of California asd es with a view of se- s of opinion as to the 1is method of punish- few of those who re- Callan’s communica- n favor of adopt- ., many others, as stated, regard the ugnant for different give in the inter- ed below prop reasons, w est ng s | GEORGE C. PARDEE, Gover- 1 mor of Califormia. I not bel I have any very express in regard whipping-post as a wife aters. We can »pos at wife-beaters od for this punishment public whipping or ex- stocks is very fit treat- n who beats his wife, man, for that matter. enactment of a penal stat- essary to think as much way in which it will work abstract justice. I confess my present information, I ve a ve great degree of establifpme of the would 4o much to deter er, except, perh , the i degraded specimens of nd then not in all cases. The uble would be that most wives 1 preter to suffer in sllence rather to subject themselves and fami- notoriety and disgrace in- from sending a husband and the public whipping-post. weakness of the present tively few wives drag 0 court to answer although the pun- is nothing more nment, and it is ewer would ) band would being tashed upon his public re or in a squ: what is called good society, do descend to the almost incredible meanness of offering physical violence to their wives is made manifest in the divorce complaints which are filed from time to time in our courts. The wife who !s a woman of fine feelings will sue her husband for di- vorce on account of his brutal mis- treatment when she will not have him brought into court for gssault and bat- tery under the present law, and I think still fewer wives would cause their husband’s arrest if to do so would be to doom them to the shame of the whipping-post. The hane of all penal enactments is that they do not secure the punishment of the offenders themselves so much as that of unfortunate wives, mothers, fathers and children. Public disgrace is harder to bear than imprisonment, and the wife or mother who is pointed at as a woman having a husband or son in prisop suffers keener agonies, tenfold, than the man who is shut within prison walls. These things are facts of which everybody is conscious in a general way, but a Governor, called upon daily to read the piteous appeals from the families of prisoners, is made conscious as no one else can be ¢f the terrible but inevitable injus- tice of all punishments—that they fall more heavily on the innocent than on the guilty. Therefore, when a proposition is made to impose punishments which will in- volve more publicity, more notoriety, more disgrace, it'is proper to stop and ask the question on whom will the penalties fall most heavily—on the brutal wife-beaters or on their inno- cent vietims and their equally innocent children? If on the former, the pro- posed law is presumptively all right; but §f on the iatter, then there is good ,reason to doubt whether such legislation will be Along the lines of enlightened prbgress. And if it is net, it will be largely futile. After all, the best way is not to have any wife-beaters, and the only means of doing that is doubtless to rear a generation of men who are too civil- ized to be gullty of such barbarity. It will take time to accomplish that, but soclety will reach the point after a time. ‘ J. ¥. DINAN, Chief oY Police of i San Franeisco. .1—__—._.__—_.1. Concerning the advisability of adopt- ing a ngw section to the codes of this State, eFeating a whipping-post for the punishggent of certain offenses, I would say thit the crime of wife-beating is such thatithe whipping-post could and should be used for the punishment of such offenders, for as a rule this class of offenses are committed by some big, lazy brute who will not work for the support of his wife and family. And if he does do any labor the proceeds from such employment are usually spent for liguor, and when the brute is remonstrated with by his wife for his actions he will beat her and his children to his heart's content, as the punishment, if he is arrested for the offense, is such that if he be convicted and sent to the County Jall he feels that he is cared for while there, and with nothing to do this is just to his liking. - i ‘While he is in jail and being taken care of his wife and family suffer for the little support he should give them, but if he was aware that he might be punished by the whipping-post route it would, in my estimation, have a ten- dency to cause such offenders to think twice before they strike a poor, weak woman once. Such offenders are, as a rule, cowards, and the thought of pun- ishment at the whipoing-post would have a great moral effect upon them. I have no statistics as to the number of States in the United States having this mode of punishment, but if no other State has such a mode I would say that California should be the first to adopt it, for the sake of the poor, helpless woman who suffer by the ac- tlons of the brute who commits this offense. . — MOST REV. GEORGE MONT- GOMERY, Coadjutor Arch- bishop of San Framcisco. Concerning the law in Oregon pun- ishing wife-beaters, personally it is repugnant to me, as it savors too much it seems {1V me of barbarity. I confess it i8 in itself no more barbarous than the act of the man beating his wife, but it does seem to me that some other provision could be devised to effect the reform desired. * 5 1 do not belleve in fines and i rison- ment simply for offenses of the kind either, because many times these fines come from a home sadly in need of help, and if imprisonment is added the man who should be the bread winner is idle, I suppose it is chimerical on my part and impracticable to suggest what I would like in the matter; but if it could be, I should like to see the wife- beater put at hard labor according to the discretion of the court, and the pro- ceeds of his labor devoted to his fam- ily. Of course, there are many ob- stacles in the way, and a sentiment among a large number of our people that prison labor must not come in contact in any way with the labor of men outside, but as you have asked for opinions from many this Is about as _ near to my mind as I can tell you. — 1 JOHN MANNING, District At x . o | . I believe in the efficacy of the “whipping-post” law. Perhaps the most -cogent argument in favor of this law will be to cite this most signifi- cant fact, that we have had but three convictions for wife-beating since that time, whereas under the former regime we would have had several times that many. 1 apprehend conditions would not radicall: elsewhere. Nev. vious to most | in_ Oregon differ from those heless, it was ob- 8 persons thai some radical remedy was needed to cure the growd S ¥ of brutality on the part ed men toward their wives.. The proponents of this law well understand that it does not ‘strike at the primal cause and does not take up the issue at the right point to enable the correct solution of the problem. Parenthetically, let me say that this unfortunate tendency is the outgrowth of loose ideas of marriage ‘and divorce so sadly prevalent in these days. The whipping-post is a power- ful deterrent and the results attafned under its operation, in my opinion, have been salutory. e el W. T. STANFORD, Chiet of Police o Vet | ¢ SRR Sacprgaer i There is no doubt in my mind that the enactment by the State Legislature of a law similar to that in force in the State of Oregon, dealing with wife- beaters and women-beaters, - would have a deterrent effect upon the cow- ards who are disposed to indulge in that practice. Such offenders too fre- quently escape punishment by reason of the fact that the injured wife fears to appear in court as prosecuting wit- ness, knowing that a term in jail for the offender means additional punish- ment for herself and children. Immun- ity from punishment is thus obtained for thie rascal, where a speedy justice should be ready to apply an effective curb on brutish tendencles. The en- deavor to bring this subject to the at- tentlon of the Legislature meets with my sincere approval. ” — . MARY McHENRY KEITH, Vice President Berkeley Po- litieal Equality Soclety. l - The suffrage adsociations are opposed to the establishing of the barbarous 1 ‘Women will be whip- ped next..and gradually other offenses other than wife-beating will be includ- ed in the catalogue. Such punishment will only harden the offéhder, depriving him of any spark of manhood yet re- maining and will cause him to “take it out” on his wife when he returns home. As John Stuart Mill wrote in his “Subjectlon of Women,” the ignorant and b .man has been raised with the idea that his wife is his property. And under the law, as It exists, she is MRS. ELIZA .;- CHAMBERLIN, Past Grand Viee Templar, L 0. G. T., Bureka. ! | . With unfeigned pleasure I mote in thiy State a sentiment in faver of a I similar to that of Oregon for punishment of wife-beaters. It is confidently expected that at the mext session of the Califor- nia Legislature there will be introduced a measure embodying the essential features of that statute. As mankind becomes more highly civilized it also grows more humane. At no other period in the world's his- tory have there been so many princely gifts in the names of charity and ben- evolence; at na other period have there been so many charitable institutions so many homes for the homeléss, so many hospitals for-the sick and friend- less, so.many societies for preveation of h cruelty to tHe childrep and the dumb kingdom. At no other period has so large a pro= portion of the people evinced such pro- found sympathy for the unfortunate of the race, or such intense desive to alle- viate suffering, to relieve poverty and to contribute to the sum of human happiness. There seems, Indeed, only one type of the human family unable to achieve any genulne progress in the acquisition -of humane Instincts, and that is the wife-beater. From such a despicable creature, of course, people of real’ humanity, cule ture and- refinement recoll with horror. It is felt that in this twentieth century, of civilization the wifebeater is out of place; it is felt that he is a disgrace to his species; and since milder means have signally failed to accomplish his elimination or even abatement, there must be measures more herofe. Hence, the demand in California fos the whipping-post for the creature. To the objection that the punishment is cruel and brutal, it may be replied that soclety has no alternative. Every other form of punishment having failed, It is either the lash or acquiescence in & condition of things Tevolte ing and distressing. GEORGE W. WITTMAN, Exe ‘ Chiet of Police of San Frane eiseo. As to the advisability of Ina- stituting in California the whipping- post as a punishment for those men who so debase themselves as to do vie- lence to the persons of their wives, or other women, without giving the mat- ter extended consideration, and simply basing my statement upon my practical experience in dealing with the criminal element of San Francisco, in my capa- city as former Chief of Police, thers is no doubt in my mind that .such punishment would serve as a powerful deterrent to this class of offenders. Usually when a wife-beater comes up before the court for sentemce there i3 the plea that “if you sentence this man to jail you will simply impose grea hardships upon his wife and children,” and the result is that the Judge either imposes a very short sentence or dis- charges the prisoner with a reprimand. No one knows this better than the of- fender and he feels at liberty to renew the offense upon the slightest provoca- tion, for he knows his offense will not be visited with any serious punishment. But if these people know that a crime of this kind would be sure to result in a lashing, and that in public, they would be slow indeed to strike down a’ poor, defenseless woman. Not Qllv‘ ‘would there be the fear of the lash, but the humiliation and disgrace ' ef the world witnessing it. In my mind, there- fore, it is clear that such a measure would have a most salutary effect in doing away with this brutal practice. and I certainly would commend any movement looking to the passage of a law which would effect this result. %