THE HEROES OF MURDER

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 13, 1880

THE HEROES OF MURDER.

In the name of decency and for the sake of society, is it not about time check were put upon this semi-hero-worship of murderers? It is one of the curiosities of our civilization that the moment a man becomes a capital offender, or otherwise a criminal of sufficiently high degree, he is set up on a sort of pedestal and made the object of flattering care, attention, and almost admiration on the part of many persons, as if he had somehow earned a high place in the general esteem and regard. The upshot of this business, which is a reflection upon the moral sense of the community, is a morbid sentimentalism that serves to weaken character and ennoble crime.

The case of Chastine Cox is in point. This worthless negro entered a house with intent to rob it, and ended by murdering its defenceless mistress in her bed. A strange title this to public favor. Yet when he had been caught, and had confessed his crime with the calmness of an inhuman beast, treating it more like a joke than the terrible thing, the God-accursed thing it was, there was an expression of admiration at his courage, as it was termed. Then the well-nigh incomprehensible folly began to show itself. Flowers sent in by ladies decked out the dastardly murderer's cell; letters of condolence poured in upon him; visitors cheered and comforted him; and the negro himself admitted that he enjoyed his position as a height of fame and popularity he had never expected to reach.

This sort of thing continued up to and during the trial. Then curiosity and sentimentality waned for a time as the case went to the higher courts. Now the decision that the murderer must die revives his claim on the general interest and solicitude. The daily papers tell us that the visitors are again numerous, and detail minutely the mockery going on within the prison walls. The minister who attends the justly condemned criminal gives the press his conviction that the negro is not morally guilty of murder at all, and has good claims to push for a commutation of his sentence. Is this a proper part of the clergyman's duty as spiritual consoler? Ought the law thus to be pronounced harsh and unjust in the penalties which it inflicts upon criminals in the hope thereby of preventing other men from becoming like criminals?

Society has grave interest in this matter, for it is subversive of society itself. Such courses as these will hardly compel respect for the law, and the records of our societies for the prevention of crime, of our State prisons, and of the police courts, prove that there is disrespect enough for it already. Besides, there is too little genuine, vastly too much sham, sentiment in the world now. We can ill afford to have what true feeling there is vitiated by such exhibitions of the false. The common sense of the community, once awakened, should put a stop to one-half of this adulation of criminals, and the law should see to the rest. When the murderer is made to die as a martyr, let the State give close heed to its morals.—Ex. and Chronicle.