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About The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 4, 1907)
u u tr 3 CONDEMN AND DEFEND THE UNWRITTEN LAW TWO SIDES OF THE QUESTION Man aid Woman Proni er t in Public Life State Thci Views on Subject at Prcomt of Much Promii e ice The Right to Defend the Integrity cf Family Life Is One of the Pltai Made -Only Pinshment to Fit the Cnmsm BY JOAQUIN MILLER A woman good or bad shot a man good or bad in his hotel in our na tional capital the other day She stands she says intrenched behind k the unwritten law She claims to have chased this man from Utah to Washington and shot him to death in his hotel because he refused to provide for her and her two children that she has twice been made a mother that one of the children bears his name We have up to date been pretty tolerant of the woman who takes a babe on one arm and a pistol in the other hand and pursues a man to his death But when there are two chil dren as in this case one may well ponder a bit before he gives her the tears and tenderness so generously Civen to the guileless misguided girl Like Highwaymans Act A woman cannot well come into court with a family of children and plead seduction and betrayal as a girl too often does and have the sym pathy of both men and women This womans statement is that she asked the man either to marry her or give her money to support her children He said No I will not and with that she shot him to death or at least did her best to kill him on the spot Briefly and bluntly she shot him down in his hotel for refusing to give her money The difference between this act and that of the ordinary burglar or highwayman is not very distinct Her declaration that the world will see the justification of her act is as the declaration of an insane woman And this must be as you will see is her only excuse and it will be pleaded so soon as a lawyer can be found to take care of her her only defense Yet there will be many ready to say served him just right will say it without waiting to hear one single word of the other side Sitting at a table to day some one read the wom ans statement wherein she supple mented the story of the attempted murder with the assertion that she had not one cent Whereupon a beautiful lady of more than ordinary culture and knowledge of the world was moved to tears and sighed Not one cent think of it But a hardened man a husband and father with a family of daughters sighed from the other end of the table Ah my dear there are others who have not a cent If we are to allow all those who have not a cent to set out and chase those down who happen to have a cent or two where will that sort of plea lead us Victims Morals Irrelevant As said before as to whether this man is a good or bad man high or low rich or poor or whether the woman is either neither or all of these does not figure at all in this dismal and pitiful case Can a woman leave her children behind her and chase a man thousands of miles and then when she murders him put as her last excuse the fact that she has not a cent Surely any one not entirely insane should have saved the price of the fare for her children Unwritten law indeed There is a weak and foolish fop in New York who has kept the press busy for half a year guessing whether he will plead in de fense of cowardly murder when he slipped up and shot a brilliant man of brains and achievement in the back this same unwritten law or simply emotional insanity Now have we not had about enough of this unwritten law nonsense Who will be the next man or woman to shoot someone in the back or belly and plead the unwritten law I say and you know that had it not been for the noisy and foolish fop in the Tombs with his plea about the unwritten law this poor woman out of the far west would be at home to day with her children and her victim on his feet about his business - T Count up on your fingers if you can do it on both hands how many cases of this unwritten law idea have been conspicuous since the silly and insolent young idler in the Tombs be gan to exploit his defense for shoot ing a useful and industrious man in the back Why right in the column next to the ugly account of the woman without a cent who left her babes behind to travel for days and nights to kill a man you read of a woman killing a doctor and pleading in justification unwritten law Pity her Yes But put her quietly in some good asylum and above all dont exploit her as you have the young lunatic in the Tombs who so enjoys being exploited For see what comes of it all The most piteous case of this character took place a stones throw from the White House in front of the old house where the assassins tried to kill Soward the night Lincoln was murdered But it took place quite a dozen years before the fateful night at Fords theater A young politician of great promise and too of subse quent great achievement was living with his notably young wife on that same side of the square A great iron fence enclosed the square at that time Had it not been for that fence his retreating victim might have fled and escaped Two Cultured Victims Both the young men in this very first unwritten law tragedy were men of fortune culture and position One the son of a poet who wrote The Star Spangled Banner the other a member of congress from New York and equally conspicuous and respect ed The member of congress seeing the other leave his home and wave a handkerchief back to his young wife leaning out of the window confronted him there by the dron fence in front of his door and telling him of his shame and that he must die followed him up and shot him to death I was reading law at the time of the trial and followed the case closely I re member reading with surprise the plea not of the advocate but the plea of the judge for the prisoner I re call how one of the jurors the oldest of them all going down on his Jcnees in a corner of the jury room prayed long and loud for the divine guidance in holding the hearthstone sacred The man was acquitted partly be cause it was made to appear that he really loved his wife but mainly be cause the victim had by his acts and some foolish admission to a friend made it appear that he had no real heart in the affair but rather gloried in his crime It is to be admitted that the hearts of all both women and men were with the wronged man especially when he again took the frail woman to his heart and lived the life of a good husband till death took her from him Lines By C H Webb As an example of the unexampled pity for both parties to the tragedy let me quote a few lines written at the time by C H Webb of New York Recent Cases Involving the So Called Unwritten Law Mrs Anna Bradley Amasa C Campbell Lucille McLeod Harry K ThaW Nan Patterson Shot and killed former Senator Arthur Brown of Utah in Washington hotel for refusing to marry her Held on murdtr charge Killed Dr Thomas Butter at Monticcllo MrS Angle BirdSOng Miss for boasting of alleged relations with her Found guilty of manslaughter Killed Dr Eenjamin Harris of Chicago in lawyers office because he says victim wrecked his - in Antigo Wis Case pending Tried on charge of murdering William T Nieman of Chicago in Empire hotel Nie man had promised to marry her Was acquitted Kitted Stanford White in New York Rcof Garden Theatre alleging White had ruined his wife Ebelyn Nesbit Thaw Murder trial pending Tried and acquitted of kiling Caesar Young a bookmaker in a cab in New York Had lived with Young who was married son of a prominent politician of the time and our minister to Mexico This for the wronged member of congress Blood on his hands A stain on his bed Pity them all Living and dead And this is for the handsome and dashing betrayer Billows of sod Swell oer his breast Pleading with God There let him rest Sentiment is noble and inspiring I have no use for either man or wom an without deep and sincere sentiment and sympathy in all things But you search the Bible in vain for anything like this unwritten law disease There are those who tell you that you can find anything you want to find in the Bible And true you can find many strange things You can find jr almost anything But I defy you to find anything like this unwritten law in all the lessons laws precepts and examples to be found between the lids of the Book of Books I con fine you let us live by the sacred decalogue There is all the law Ac cept the sermon on the mount the holy lesson of our Savior who prayed Forgive us as we forgive others Unwritten Law Is New It may be well enough for those who care to entertain any sort of pa tience with the unwritten law plea to understand distinctly that it is en tirely of mushroom growth and char acter Think of Draco or Lycurgus entertaining such absurdities You will see nothing of the sort even hinted at in Justinians code Coke upon Littleton no commentator an cient or modern ever mentioned any thing of the sort The law was the law that was all Blackstone was a brave bright poet a sentimentalist as well as mighty expounder of the law But surely he would have laughed in the face of any advocate who might have dared to talk to him of the unwritten law There is literally nothing of the sort outside of America and there is really nothing of the sort here except a sort of sub terfuge for law used by demagogues And the sin of it all is the misleading of silly people who mock at the laws that have cost so much toil and are costing so much to maintain them threatened her life if she had re treated to the wall to elude him it would have been a case of justifiable homicide But his crime against her was a more atrocious one than mur der It took away her good name the love and affections of her friends and relations her future her faith in and respect for herself and her trust in God and man Written in the Mothers Heart And again the man takes under the unrighteous laws of certain states his child away from its mother Which law comes first that written in the statute books or that written in the heart of every mother by the pangs of childbirth So sure as she lives that mother will obey the unwritten law and the child she will have It is only ten years since there was taken from our statute book the law that a man could by will give his unborn child to whom he pleased without reference to the paramount claim by affection and suffering of its mother A member of the bar in the one state in the union where there are no divorce laws once told me that in his state they had no serious trouble as to domestic infelicities If a man abuses my sister he knows whom he has to deal with In this case the unwritten law seemed to be preferred to the statute law which severs the marriage bond on adequate grounds well proven I suggested to the gen tleman that all women were not so 81 iaSS o clfcJ cranks seeking notoriety through the newspapers And oh the pity of it Pity for liv ing and dead But pity most for this deadly disease spreading over the land like a plague which laughs at the decalogue the holy lessons and the life and death of Jesus Christ in voking the hideous and defiant plea of the higher law FOR UNWRITTEN LAW Dean of the Washington College of Law Defines It as the Right to De fend the Integrity of Family Life BY ELLEN SPENCER MUSSEY Dean of the Washington College of Law The unwritten law might be de fined to be right to defend the integ rity of family life against all invasion and invaders While the family has no distinct legal entity apart from the persons who compose it yet in the interest of society the law holds the more intimate family relations as sacred and not to be inquired into by a court of justice It is on this ground that communications between husband and wife are privileged and they can not testify as to confidential communi cations made by one to the other during the marriage Marriage is a civil institution as well as a contract and it should be a religious sacrament Law cannot make or unmake the true marriage relation but so far as the relation concerns society and the state it must control it The Family as a Unit The law regards carefully all prop erty rights It deals promptly with the trespasser and the thief and en forces contracts The murderer the embezzler the perjurer have justice meted out to them as enemies of the commonwealth But t3 law does not deal with the family as a unit Every student of sociology knows that the homes erf the commonwealth are its real corner stones but the law does not so recog nize it It is the one institution still left to the defense of the head of the family In the very nature of things there is always a woman in the case If the crime is against her personally if she be over the age of 1G what remedy does the law give her A young woman went into a city to support herself unwarned inexperi enced her faith and her affections found an unworthy object Too late she found the man was already mar ried and in a wild moment she shot him fatally If the man had boldly fortunate as to have brothers but the reply was that seldom was there a case in which there was no male relative and that he believed that were such a case to arise of gross abuse there was always to be found in the community a man who would protect the woman and her rights Two Noted Tragedies Who that reads the recent trial of Gillette for the murder of his victim can forget the coolness with which he claimed he said Tell your father if you dont I will There comes a mental picture of that father and what swift vengeance he would have meted out to the destroyer of his child Was Gillette such a degen erate that to him the unwritten law had no meaning or was he merely talking for effect The unwritten law which says Ven geance is mine is no excuse for the disgraceful broils of the degenerate man and woman who find their only pleasure in dissipation The man who despoils innocence himself who gives his name and his protection to a wom an whoe life has been like unto his own is not in any sense the defender of what the home stands for His sense of moral obligation for himself is too blunted to fit him to judge of the transgressions of another He is himself an outlaw when judged by the standards of common morality His propensity to shoot is the re sult of a heated brain or the lack of brains No woman no man is safe with such a creature at large Let us add to the unwritten law an other section Let there be no inu endos against the chastity of woman but only straightforward statements with page and verse and the viola lor of this law shall be placarded This person took away the good name of another without cause and walk the streets in shame In the heart of every man there dwells first absolute faith in his moth er That is his birthright and in pro portion to his faith in and affection for his mother will be his faith in and affection for his wife On that loundation is built his attitude to his offspring The true son the true husband the real father in all these relations owes to the home a clean standard of living He should never invite into that home a man who does not himself respect virtue The man who is a despoiler of virtue in one instance is an unsafe guest and friend How much more so when license is his rule of conduct Protect my innocence or I fall into the trap that is laid for me THIS IN NEBRASKA EVENTS OF INTEREST OF MORE OR LESS IMPORTANCE President Reusing Speaks of Chari ties and Corrections Mr Bryan to Speak at Peru OMAHA In his annual address be fore the Corrections and Charities conference in this city President Reu sing paid many tributes to the condi tion of charities and corrections and spoke of the courtesy of Superintend ent Morris o hossAetfteaicBl vOIET ent Morris or the Associated Charities in arranging for the conference He declared that because the political laws of the state were sucn that inexperi enced men and women are too often put in charge of the state institutions only to bo removed in two years and succeeded by other equally inexperi enced men and women it has been found necessary to form a board whose duty it was to inquire into causes of dependents and delinquents and to relieve the needs of unfortu nates He deplored that in the entire organization there were no more than two dozen active workers the rest be ing merely sympathizers and A few enthusiastic workers he said have formed what is known as the Nebraska State Conference of Charities and Corrections Its work and aims may be summed up as fol lows First to disseminate and in tensify interests in charity seeing to it that only those receive charity who deserve it and will do benefited by it Third to rationalize penalty tak ing the idea of retribution or vengence entirely out of it Fourth the reform laws institutions and administration according to the above advanced ideas Fifth so far as we can to give such a healthful system and to mans whole moral and civic life that fewer will tend to poverty and crime than do now Mr Bryan at Commencement PERU President John A Woodard of the senior class of the state normal in reply to a unanimous invitation from the class has received the following letter from Colonel W J Bryan My Dear Mr Woodard I thank you for the very kind invitation which you extend on behalf of the class and I am glad to note that your commence ment comes at a time when I shall be at home and I take great pleasure in accepting Please present my compli ments to the class and assure them that I appreciate the honor which they do me Mr Bryans acceptance has occa sioned mucn gratification not only among the members of the senior class but the other classes as well and among the friends and patrons of the school Colonel Bryans non-partisan address made in chapel during the campaign here was regardeu as one of the best audresses ever given at Peru His coming again will be hsiled with pleasure by patrons and students of the school Petition for Pardon A lengthy petition with many signa tures was presented to Gov Mickey by Attorney L W Billingsley asking for the pardon of diaries D McMillen or Red Cioud Avho has served three years of a sentence of eight years for the crime of manslaughter The gov ernor parolled McMillen some time ago to a harnessmaker at Benedict but he returned voluntarily to the penitentiary claiming that he feared that his surrounaings there were such that his temper might get the better of him and also get him into trouble again Good Prices for Land STERLING Land about Sterling is bringing good prices Last week E Ztilhke bought the 320 acre farm of J R White seven miles north of Sterling for 29000 It is one of the best improved farms in this county The following week George Frey of Hebron Neb bought the H G Fit hain ICO acro farm two miles east of Sterling for 12000 Attempt to Burn Schoolhouse BRADSHAW An attempt was made a few nights since to set fire to the public school building at this place The scheme had been carefully planned by the would be incendiary A box about ten inches square had been filled with excelsior which was well soaked with coal oil while over this had been drawn a sack well soaked with oil Engineer Teal Drops Dead NORFOLK Andrew Teal one of the oldest and best known North western engineers who had been in the service for many years here drop ped dead from heart failure A Woman Falls Dead KEARNEY Apparently in the best of health Mrs Albin Lund wife of a prosperous and prominent farmer east of the city fell dead at her home from heart disease Argument of Tax Case The famous Nebraska railroad tax cases which the railroads have been trying persistently to stave off will be argued before the United States supreme court at Washington Tues day January 22 This date was agreed upon between Attorney General Norris Brown representing the state and Charles J Greene special attorney for the Burlington who was armed with written credentials authorizing him to act for John N Baldwin for the Union Pacific NEBRASKA BRIEF8 The Kearney Realty company has filed its articles of incorporation with the secretary of state The Enevoldson Land company of St Paul lias been incorporated with a paid up capital of 8000 E L McGregor a wealthy farmer of Cedar county suicided last week His dead body was found In his barn Sam Thomas who was arrested at Keokuk la for swindling is wanted in Fremont for the same kind of a job A matrimonial agency In St Joseph got 125 out of a Cass county man but the promised wife was not forth coming The Salvation Army on Christmas day distributed twenty five baskets of food and over 150 garments to the worthy poor of Beatrice The Andrews Dental company of Omaha with a paid up capital stock of 2500 filed its articles of incorpo ration with the secretary of state The 2-year-old son of Mrs O F Willems living near Diller pulled a can of hot lard over and was badly burned about the neck arms and thigh Switchman Mose S Jennings at the McCook yards lost a leg in an acci dent while switching cars It was am putated below the Knee He will re cover Seigle Crossley a farmer living seven miles north of Mason City had his foot crushed in a corn sheller It is thought the limb will have to bo amputated At North Platte after a sensational trial at the preliminary hearing of Miss Mirth Clanc for the murder of John Leonard the county judge dis charged the defendant As showing the tendency of Pawneo county lands to advance F M Col well sold last the forty acre fruit farm of G R Martin one fourth of a mile west of Table Rock for 110 per acre At the annual meeting of the stock holders of the Bruno State bank of Bruno it was unanimously voted to increase the capital stock to 10000 and erect a new modern brick bank building The annual report of the treasurer of the State University Athletic board has been made and it shows the total receipts for the year were 1768950 and the expenditures 1529G27 leav ing a oalance of 239327 Thomas and Robert Halpin the old est 15 years old living with their uncie and guardian in Valley county are said to be the victims ot such cruel neglect that the matter has been In vestigated by the county court Anurew Teal one of the best known locomotive engineers in the state died at Norfolk from valvular heart trouble Mr Teal ha just completed his twenty five years of service for the Chicago Northwestern railway The Tecumseh city council has passed resolutione and placed the same upon record pledging the council to raise annually the 600 required by Andrew Carnegie for the maintenance of the proposed new library building Andrew Arnold an old Gage county resident who was thrown from his horse a few days ago at his farm near Inavale died from his injuries which resulted in concussion of the brain He vas 5G years of age and leaves a widow and six children two daughters and four sons Vernon Bascom cashier of the Na tional bank of rawnee City received a message from Centralia Wash to the effect that his brother Frank A Bascom a conductor on the Northern Pacific running between Portland and Tacoma had been injurod In a wreck and probably would not live A claim for 350 for interest on a claim of 3300 will be filed with the state- auditor by O B PoIk of Cleve land O The company after being in litigation with the state of Neb raska for fifteen months obtained judgment for the 3300 and now wants the interest on its money from the time the contract was completed until the case was decided The requisition of the governor ot Colorado for the return to Fort Col lins of J B Flora has been honored by Governor Mickey Conins who Is now under arrest at Omaha is charged with obtaining money under false pretenses it being alleged that he bor rowed a horse for an hour and se cured from Howard Russel 90 under a chattel mortgage on tne animal Less grain was produced in Nebras ka this year than last according to the estimates made by the state la bor bureau on the acreage and pro duction of the various crops An in crease of about b000000 bushels is noted in winter wheat -but spring wheat fell short about 200000 bushels Corn fell short almost 2500000 bush els of the production of last year Twenty two stacks of hay belonging to Al Tift on land southeast of North Platte near the stock yards vms burned The tonnage destroyed was in the neighborhood of 150 and the total loss will amount to over 1200 J D Brown for fifteen years the leading business man of Burchard has sold nis stock of general merchandise and retires from business with a com fortable fortune Letters written three years ago were last week found in the United States mail boxin the Omaha National bank building where a defective box had prevented their being seen and re moved by the mail gathered since the time tney were dropped in the box Of the remaining 4400 indebted ness on the city electric lighting plant at Tecumseh 2000 will be paid Jan uary 1 It was hoped the council would be able to free the debt at this time but it was not During the part year the city has reduced its total bonded indebtedness 4000
