penitentiary official, or other public official should apply for a pardon on behalf of any convict.

5. It should further be provided that no person applying for a pardon in favor of a convict should receive a greater fee than one hundred dollars; and in every case the person applying should be required to file an affidavit of the amount of his fee.

6. The findings of said board should be filed with the governor and should afford the basis of his action in extending the pardon, though, under the constitution, he might not be circumscribed by the reasons furnished. In all cases he should be required to file a copy of the pardon with the Secretary of State, and this should be published in the county of the residence of the convict.

7. While under the law as it now exists it seems the executive may grant conditional pardons, I believe there should be a definite statute on the subject, giving the governor authority, on the recommendation of the board, either to grant paroles or conditional pardons based on certain regulations prescribed by law. In regard to this latter proposition I would remark that a parole system has been found to work well in a number of other states where it has been tried. And it occurs to me, inasmuch as by our system of pardons and discharging convicts whose terms have expired, we are annually turning loose a population on the body politic more or less viciously inclined, it would be a better policy, so far as the welfare of the state is concerned, to hold some restraining power upon this population. For instance, where a party is sent to the penitentiary for some felony and his punishment fixed at five years, on a record of good behavior the board might be permitted to recommend his conditional pardon at the expiration of two or three years. He could thus be turned loose on his good behavior, with power on the part of the governor, under certain rules, to restore him to the penitentiary if he violated his parole. This at least would tend to make a good citizen of him, whereas, under our present system, there is no such guaranty, and as a result many convicts who have served out their terms or been pardoned are being convicted for other crimes and returned to the penitentiary.

If the above rules are adopted and enforced, there will be more equality before the law. The poor man will then have as good a chance at a pardon as the rich and influential. There will be more certainty in results reached, and consequently more respect for law. The governor will be protected against the invasions of the pardon broker, while the courts will be conserved against executive encroachments. At the same time, under the parole system, a premium will be placed on the good conduct of the convict when he has been turned loose, which will operate as a safeguard to the community; and it will follow inevitably that there will be a betterment in the administration of the criminal law through the courts, and a general uplifting of society throughout the length and breadth of the state.

THE ENFORCEMENT OF LAW1

BY GOVERNOR J. W. FOLK

In the state of Missouri we have now in operation what is called the Missouri idea, the idea that public officials should answer at the bar of public opinion for all official acts; that the man who, in his official life, betrays his people is a criminal; and that laws are put upon the statute books to be observed, not to be ignored.

In proportion as the average morality in a state is strong, just to that extent is the state great, and good government reigns. Laws that are put on the statute book must be put there for some reason. Laws that are not enforced add just so much to good government as sores do to the strength of the human body.

Many men observe those laws which they like and disregard those laws that are obnoxious to them. The trust magnate looks with abhorrence on the pickpocket who violates the larceny statutes, but thinks that he himself has a perfect right to break the laws against combinations and monopolies. The burglar detests the lawbreaking of the trusts, but thinks the law against housebreaking unjust and unfair. The boodler considers the law against bribery as an interference with his personal rights, but he demands the rigid enforcement of the law against the man who steals his property. The dramshop keeper thinks the law against murder is a good law, but the law requiring his dramshop to close on Sunday is Puritanical and tyrannical and a "blue" law. It has been my experience that any law looks "blue" to a man who wants to break it. So it goes. Men obey the laws that restrict the other fellow, but laws regulating their own conduct they regard as interfering with their rights. If every man were allowed to judge for himself and to like those laws which are good and disregard those which are bad, as he sees them, we would have anarchy. There would be no laws at all. That is the spirit of the mob which hangs a man because it thinks he is a bad man. Yet if each individual were given the right to put out of the way every person that he thinks is not a good citizen, no man's life would be safe. The only safe test is to enforce every law upon the statute books. If the law is a bad law, the remedy is to repeal it, not to ignore it.

No official has a right to ignore any law. It is not for him to say whether the law is good or bad, but it is for him to enforce it as he finds it on the books.

A great deal has been said in Missouri in the last few weeks about what is commonly called the "lid." The "land of the lid" means the "land of the law." When people talk about taking off the "lid" on Sunday, they mean to let the law be violated with impunity. They mean for officials to violate their oaths of office and to cast away the obligations

1 From an address to the Kentucky Bar Association, 1905.

that they took when they entered office. If we take the "lid" off of the Sunday law, can we not with equal propriety take the "lid" off of the larceny statute and off the murder statute? Then we would have anarchy.

The greatest danger to any government lies in the fact that laws that are made are not enforced as they are made. There has been entirely too much making of laws to please the moral element and then allowing the laws to be ignored to please the immoral element.

My convictions may be termed idealistic, but ideas and ideals are the life of a free people. We are made and governed by the things we cherish. The public life of a nation is but the reflection of its private life. No government was ever better than the people made it, nor worse than they suffered it to become. Without moral vigor material strength counts for nothing, resources count for nothing. The Empire of Rome built highways and constructed splendid cities, while her civilization was declining. She erected barriers against the barbarous hordes who surged over them, while the strength of Roman character ebbed away, and when that was gone there was nothing to defend, there was nothing to conquer. There is an old tale of an Eastern king who caused a magnificent palace to be erected as the abode of his majesty and power. Stone by stone the structure grew and the heart of the king swelled with pride. One morning the palace was found in ruins, — not one stone stood upon another. "What great treason has been accomplished here?" the king exclaimed; and a price was set upon the head of the traitor who had destroyed the abode of majesty. But a wise man of the court said to the king: "Great master, there was no treason here. Your house that was great and mighty has fallen down because the builders used mortar without sand, and the work that they did has come to ruin."

So with the state. External grandeur counts for nothing if we ignore those vital principles of morality and of law that give life to a state. We may count our wealth as the sands of the sea; the domes of our capitols and the spires of our churches may pierce the sky and glitter among the stars, yet all must fall, all must crumble away like the palace of the ancient king, unless it be welded together and strengthened by those moral principles that are the foundation of an enlightened citizenship. When corrupt principles are allowed to influence public acts, and selfish considerations deter the people from upholding the laws and from giving their best interests to the public good, we are making mortar without sand.

LAW ENFORCEMENT IN KENTUCKY1

BY GOVERNOR AUGUSTUS E. WILLSON, OF KENTUCKY

The real test of strength of the law-and-order sentiment of a community is not in the acquiescence of a mild-mannered race, but it is when strong, hard-headed, determined people, with their feelings and passions excited so that disorders result, finally put down their revolt and restore order and safety. From the earliest times our race has never been either timid or easy-going. It has always been strong, determined, earnest, hard-headed, and fearless, and it has been the rule and not the exception for every man to fight against what he believed to be wrong. There are many common instances of what any typical American will resent with violence, regardless of law. He rarely sues out a peace warrant against a man who calls him a liar. Generally our people have continued an even, steady march, holding strongly to the law; but it is inevitable that such a people, from time to time, should have storms of excitement and passion, local outbreaks, and times of lawlessness.

The Ku-Klux had a large membership in Kentucky, and for a time established a reign of terror, making many afraid, and it deprived people of their liberty and of the protection of the law; but Kentucky soon made it a felony for any two or more men to band or confederate together to threaten or intimidate any person or injure his property. Later the organized tollgate raiders stopped the collection of tolls and destroyed large investments in turnpikes. The feuds in some counties are not strange in a race which for generations kept up the feuds of the Orangemen and Catholics, and the Scotch and English. But there is strong evidence of the Kentuckian's devotion to law and order in the frequency of the verdicts of mountain juries, inflicting punishment for taking life whenever they have a chance.

The tobacco war in Kentucky was one of the most dangerous disorders that Kentucky has known. I shall review briefly some of its principal incidents.

In a message to the legislature in January, 1908, I said:

Throughout most of the year law and order, peace and good will, have prevailed throughout the commonwealth. . . . The pleasure which this peaceful and prosperous condition brings to the hearts of all good Kentuckians makes it all the more painful for the governor to speak of the renewal of serious lawlessness and disorder in parts of the commonwealth, which have lately broken our record of peace and order, alarmed and distressed our people, destroyed millions of dollars of values of property, . . . injured the good name of our commonwealth, and caused alarm for the security of life and property and the protection of our liberties, dearer than life or property, the news of which, carried to the ends of the earth, will drive customers from our markets, 1 From an address to the American Bar Association, 1909.

turn desirable immigration to other states, and plant anew in the breasts of thousands of law-abiding men and women, who love peace and dread lawlessness and disorder, the wish to move to states where the law protects all alike. We have severe laws against trusts, ample to suppress and punish all combinations against the farmer; and we have a statute which makes it lawful for farmers to pool and combine against the buyers, when it is unlawful for them to combine against the farmer. Our courts are in operation to protect the rights of all and punish infractions of the antitrust laws. This great conflict of interest between the parties interested in millions of dollars' worth of tobacco has excited a great deal of hard feeling, angry controversy, and personal threats of parties on either side against the other; . . . and finally these proceedings have culminated in raids of large armed bands going around by night and destroying the peace and security of the commonwealth, and the partisanship in these matters has paralyzed some of the courts and officers, and the grand juries and petit juries, so that the grossest violations of the law go unpunished and the people's liberties are destroyed, with little hope of redress. . .

In December, 1905, in Todd County, in the circuit-court room, packed by excited men, a lawyer declared that if they did violate the law, they ought not to be punished, and would not be prosecuted while he was commonwealth's attorney; and the very next night one tobacco factory was burned and another set on fire, and the following Monday night a large band of armed and masked men held up a railroad train and searched it for tobacco and dynamited a snuff factory, and although the circuit court was in session, with a grand jury impaneled, no one was indicted or punished.

Early in 1907 men behind these schemes formed, for the first time, a general organization in sufficient numbers to intimidate all not similarly organized, and early in the year a large armed band of masked night riders made a very ugly sample of the old country's border raids on the town of Princeton. Later there were other disturbances, and finally it culminated in the raid on Hopkinsville, about two o'clock on the morning of December 7, by a small army of several hundred mounted men, armed and masked, who, under the cover of darkness, without warning, fell upon the city and overwhelmed and intimidated the people of a whole city. Their deeds in Hopkinsville are known of all men and have done incalculable harm and brought great shame upon, the commonwealth, but not one has yet been punished, and for the time there was almost paralysis in business.

A similar raid of armed and masked men was made on the large town of Russellville, and it was seized, much valuable property burned, and people shot and wounded, and a whole region again intimidated. In Bracken County there has been a state of terror, oppression, and intimidation for weeks.

In large districts the people are deprived of the protection of the law. Lawless men have been constantly ready to break out in several counties, and the people of Kentucky are brought suddenly and squarely to face the question, whether the laws of more than two million or the violence of a few hundred shall prevail.

There can be no doubt of the final result. Anglo-Saxon common sense and law always win in time. Our people had better lose not only part of the value of their tobacco, but even their farms, than their liberties, and presently there will be a great reaction in public opinion. Judges and prosecuting attorneys,