The Guiteau Farce

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 5, 1882

The Guiteau Farce.

Most of the papers seem disposed to accept the explanation of Judge Cox, that he allowed Guiteau to act so indecorously in order to bring out the evidence in regard to his mental condition. We indorse the view taken of it by the English press. They are far enough removed, both by distance and nationality, to take a calm view of it, and they "point out that Justice Cox's excuse for not interfering with Guiteau's Constitutional rights do not cover what they think are among the most scandalous incidents of the trial." The Spectator observes that Justice Cox's idea of Constitutional rights includes the right to discredit the administration of law by weeks of brutal buffoonery." The Times remarks that the impressions made by Garfield's dying scenes, the pathos and dignity of which fixed the attention of the civilized world, is weakened by the protracted wrangle into which the trial has been allowed to degenerate. American acknowledgements for this humiliation may be divided between Cox and Guiteau.

The N. Y. World London correspondent says: "Some Americans have written to the papers here, saying that the scandal arises through the trial being held in the District of Columbia, but this is a poor excuse. Guiteau's blasphemy, unchecked by the Court, shocks everybody, while the entire proceedings cast great and undeserved reproach upon the American courts of law. Americans here say it would have been better not to have had the murderer tried at all than to have had this lamentable exhibition."

The murderer has shown that he can be restrained by fear, as he is an arrant coward. This fact, long ago established, would justify the Judge in treating him as a common criminal, and restraining his abuse of the Court and of eminent and honorable witnesses. It remains a disgrace to the nation.