The Futility of the Gallows
One month after Seattle's first judicial execution of a white man, the local press questions whether state-sanctioned violence actually deters crime or simply breeds contempt for the law.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
One short month has not passed since John Thompson suffered the death penalty in this city for the crime of murder—the first white man ever executed in the Territory by judicial authority—under circumstances which impressed a very large majority with the belief that the man suffered the penalty of a crime of which he was not guilty. It was hoped that the death of this man would be compensated by the awful example it furnished to deter others from like offenses. Its example and the warning it was intended to impart has been illustrated during the short period which has since elapsed, by two deliberate attempts at murder—one successful and the other not—in the immediate vicinity of the hanging; a coincidence of crime so rare as to impress upon a superstitious mind the idea that it is a Providential visitation to punish the community for blood-guiltiness. In a practical view, it furnishes a very poor argument in favor of the barbarous death penalty as a means of restraining crime. The experience of the world, in all ages, proves the fact that unjust or unusual punishments beget a contempt for law, and penalties disproportioned to the offenses uniformly increase a disposition to violate the laws. An unjust conviction gives an awful latitude to crime. Such is human nature. Parents recognize it in the treatment of their children; the makers as well as the administrators of the laws should recognize it in the treatment of citizens.
“The experience of the world, in all ages, proves the fact that unjust or unusual punishments beget a contempt for law.”
Writing in 1877, the Seattle Dispatch grapples with the 'deterrence' argument for the death penalty, a debate that remains at the forefront of Washington State law today. The paper's skepticism regarding the efficacy of 'barbarous' punishments highlights a long-standing local skepticism toward state-sanctioned violence, even in the infancy of the city.
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