iSoaieDs

ee

eath penalty
deter crime ?

— man was executed

in this country the other
day — protesting his innocence
as he died. A second man, con-
victed of the same murder, had
his death sentence commuted
to life imprisonment at the
eleventh hour, on decision of
the federal cabinet.

The case has revived public
debate on capital punishment
in this country, with an in-
ereasing body of opinion in
favor of abolishing the death
penalty.

Nor is this the only country

where capital punishment is”

under public discussion.

In the United States the
issue has been projected into
the headlines because a man
was recently executed in a
gas chamber one minute before
a reprieve order was received.

In Britain heated debate has
resulted in new legislation nar-
rowing down the specific
crimes for which capital pun-
ishment is mandatory.

In the Soviet Union the is-

sue is also under debate.
’ In this country, it is becom-
ing increasingly evident that
public opinion is more and
more swinging behind those
who advocate abolition of the
death penalty. In 1956 only five
persons were executed, the sec-
ond smallest number in 40
years, — the average being
about twice that number.

In 1956 there were 18 con-
victions, but only six were ex-
ecuted. Last year, five of 18
were sent to the gallows.

The report of the joint par-
liamentary committee last year
recommended retention of the
death penalty — though strong
arguments were presented for
its abolition.

This public sentiment is be-

coming stronger. The next
parliament may expect moves
to abolish this ultimate pun-
ishment as so many other coun-
tires have already done.

Elmer Bendiner, writing in
the National Guardian on the
outcry that followed the Calif-
ornia execution — the gas pet-
lets were dropped one minute

The red bogey

SYDNEY
new red bogey, muffled
against the:cold, has been

set to stalking the Antarctic
wastes.

It has been created by in-
genious anti-Sovieteers who,
turning their imaginations
loose, are discovering sinister
implications in the Soviet Ant-
arctic expedition.

The Australian daily press
has been full of wild stories
that the Soviet Union is schem-
ing to build an Antarctic base
for nuclear submarines or, at

the very mildest, for jet bomb-
ers to menace Australia.

The people are -even given
the impression that the Soviet
scientists are trespassing on

Australian hospitality by being
there at all.

The Soviet expedition is in
the Antarctic in conformity
with the International . Geo-
physical Year program drawn
up in 1955 by representatives
of 37 nations at a meeting in
Brussels.

The aim of International
Geophysica] Year (which of-
ficially extends from July next
to December 1958) is to learn,
by international effort, more
about the earth itself and its
environment.

For this, international co-
operation is essential That is
the Soviet approach, and the
approach of sincere cientists
everywhere.

before the stay of execution
order came — has some pertin-
ent information on the issue.
This is what he writes:

When proponents of officially

sanctioned killing do not just-
ify it as a vengeance upon. the
wicked they uphold it as a
necessary evil to deter crim-
inals.

But enough governments
have already abolished capital
punishment to provide statis-
tics which thoroughly debunk
the executioner’s last claim to
social usefulness.

The death penalty has been
abolished or is held in abey-
ance in Austria, Belgium, Den-
mark, Finland, Iceland, Italy,
Luxemburg, the Netherlands,
Norway, Portugal, Rumania,
Sweden, Switzerland, West
Germany, Argentina, Brazil,
Ciolumbia, Costa Rica,
Dominican Republic, Ecuador,
Honduras, Mexico, Peru, Pan-
ama, Uruguay, Venezuela and
New Zealand.

In the U.S. it is outlawed
for state offenses: in Maine,
Michigan, Minnesota and Wis-
consin. In Rhode Island and
North Dakota it is imposed
only for first degree murders
committed while serving a
sentence for first degree mur-
der.

The proponents of capital
punishment for almost a cen-
tury have been insisting that
only the threat of death kept
murders in .check and that
abolition of the death penalty
would provoke a sharp rise in
violent crimes. Here are the
facts:

+ The Netherlands abolished
the death penalty in 1870. For
20 years before then the mur-
der rate had been 9.5 per 10
million population. For 20
years after abolition the rate
was 9.3.

+ In Norway, which execut-
ed its last prisoner in 1875
and abolished capital punish-
ment in 1905, the murder rate
from 1875 to 1904 was 1.22 per
million. From 1905 to 1924 it
was .60 per million.

+ In the. six abolitionist
states of the U.S. the rate for
1931-1940 was 230 murders per
10 million. For the nation as
a whole it was 810.

Nowhere did abolition bring
a rise in crime.

The centuries of officially
sanctioned hangings, burnings,
head choppings and tortures
have never effected a signifi-
cant drop in the crime rate.

Henry VIII had 72,000
thieves hanged. Under Queen’
Elizabeth I» 19,000 more were
hanged amid wide and pre-
sumably frightening publicity.
But the theft rate did not drop.

In modern times criminolo-
gists have noticed frequent
orgies of crime after well pub-
licized executions. Following
one luridly covered execution
in New York in 1922 there
were 44 murders in 33 days.
The death penalty is no even-
handed administrator of jus-
tice. It takes into considera-

tion class, skin color and
pocketbook.
Clintoi T. Duffy, former

warden at San Quentin said:
“Seldom is a person. -of means
executed.” ;

The late warden of Sing
Sing, Lewis E. Lewis, wrote
that in 12 years of his job he
walked. 150 men and one wo-
man to the death chamber
and “in ene respect they were
all alike. All were poor and
most of them friendless.”

Clarance Darrow said:
“There is nothing so unequal
and- unfair as capital punish-
ment. Only the poor are put —
to death.”

In the quarter of a century
from 1930-1954 there were
3,281 executions in the U.S.
More than half, 53.7 percent
of those killed, were Negroes
— at a time when Negroes
represented only 10 percent
of the population.

In Southern states and the
District of Columbia during
that time, 73 percent of those
executed were Negroes.

Political executions — from
the Haymarket martyrs to
Sacco and Vanzetti to the
Rosenbergs — weigh on the
conscience of the U.S. though
the weight is never admitted.

Prisoners are frequently
pardoned in the light of new
evidence but rehabilitation of
the innocent dead comes slow-
ly and grudgingly from law-
yers and judges. They bear
some of the responsibility, but
the public that allows killings
in its name must bear the
greater blame.

in the Antarctic

The daily press speaks of the
Soviet expedition being Aus-
tralia’s “guests” in the Ant-
arctic, as if the Antarctic be-
longed exclusively to Australia.

It is true that Australia has
declared itself the possessor of
a large sector of Antarctica.
Other nations have done like-
wise. These claims have not,
however, been recognised in-
ternationally.

The Soviet scientists are
there not by Australia’s good
graces but as participants in

an internationally - planned

year of scietific research.

As for the snide suggestions
that the Soviet Union is using
its scientific investigations only
as a blind, this was answered

in the Australian House of
Representatives last Septem-
ber.

Faced with a question about
it, External Affairs Minister R.
G. Casey had to admit that the
government had no reason to
believe that the Soviet Union
had established its bases for
other than scientific purposes.

In the Antarctic, Australian
and Soviet scientists had fra-
ternised.

In Adelaide, distinguished
Australian scientists had been
over the Obj and, the Lena, ex-
amining the equipment of the
Soviet scientists.

Sir Douglas Mawson, Aus-
tralia’s foremost geologist,
found his portrait was in an
honor gallery of Antarctic ex-
plorers and his Soviet hosts
presented him with a bound
volume of his researches and
reports in that area. No such
volume has ever been publish-
ed in Australia. :

APRIL 26, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 10