The Guiteau Trial

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 2, 1882

The Guiteau Trial.

THE Guiteau trial is now over, the verdict of guilty has been rendered, and there is no doubt but that the villain will suffer the punishment which he so richly deserves. So much latitude has been given to the prisoner, that no ground seems to remain upon which to base a new trial. The verdict gives general satisfaction, and the country will feel relieved when the assassin has expiated his crime on the gallows. And this feeling does not arise from vindictiveness to the prisoner. The safety of society demands that justice be done. There are some who think that it is a manifestation of charity to save the life of a criminal. Such should remember that charity "rejoices not in iniquity." These persons' charity, seldom takes in the victims of the assassin, or considers those who are liable to become victims. One important part of charity is to secure the rights of the innocent, by punishing the guilty. Had Guiteau been cleared, every individual's life would hereafter be at the mercy of any evil-disposed wretch who might have a grudge against him.

This protection can only be insured by making crime seem as hideous as it really is. The criminal is too often, as is the case of Guiteau, allowed to pose as a hero or a martyr, and a glamour is thrown around his crime, which even the execution of the sentence cannot counteract. There are silly women and crack-brained men, whose highest honor consists in having received the autograph or shaken the hand of a murderer. Until this is reversed, until the criminal can have a fair and impartial trial, without being the object of false sympathy or a maudlin sentimentality, crime need not be expected to diminish.