LAW ENFORCEMENT. ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT, OF SAVANNAH. The State of Georgia at present faces a crisis more severe than any that it has had to deal with since the days immediately preceding the War of Secession. At that time the minds of its citizens were inflamed with the thoughts of the wrongs which were threatened the State by outsiders, and they rose en masse to defend themselves and maintain what they deemed their rights. At present the good name and fame of the State are threatened by its own citizens, who by acts of lawlessness have made the State the target for not undeserved censure. From having been a law abiding State, and one whose record was second to none in America, we have become the object of such adverse criticism that we are regarded as being in a condition of almost semi-barbarism. Outrageous murders, in the form of lynchings are of frequent occurrence, and the perpetrators of these crimes, never punished, pride themselves in their misdeeds, and deem their infamy a glory to their manhood and chivalry. The laws of the State are set at naught, and the personal judgment of the riotous mob, becomes the final arbiter of the guilt of the accused. It behooves us, members of this Association, to see that our laws are enforced, to ascertain, if possible, why there is such general disregard of law. Our statutes for the punishment of crime are ample. Is then the fault in the enforcement of the law, are the courts inefficient, or are the officers of the law lacking in their duty in applying the law? The disregard of one law soon brings the average citizen to the belief that no law should be strictly enforced; that where a misdemeanor remains unpunished, a felony should have the same fate. Of late years a wave of hysteria has gone over the State, and extremists have passed laws, sumptuary in character, but disguised under the veil of police regulation, which have not and never will have the undivided and genuine support of the masses of the people; private rights have been invaded, and resentment against the law engendered; the natural result has been that the laws mentioned have been generally disregarded, and it was but a step forward, from refusing to obey that law, to put at defiance the more important laws bearing on the well being, good order and dignity of the State. The gravest infraction of law is that of lynching, which has unfortunately become most frequent; this form of speedy justice against a criminal, which was applied almost exclusively in cases of outrage on women, has now become so common, that a person charged with trivial crime, frequently suffers the extreme penalty for an act, of which had he been convicted by due course of law, an imprisonment of short duration would have been the appropriate punishment. How shall the perpetrators of this crime of murder be brought to justice? It is useless to attempt to indict them in the county where the act has been committed; though they are known, the grand jury will not indict, for frequently men composing that body have been either parties to the crime or are in such sympathy with the perpetrators that they disregard their oaths of office. In a most flagrant case of lynching, which occurred some years since, in open daylight, where the perpetrators were well known, and some of them seen by the officers of the law; when an indictment was presented to the grand jury, the sheriff of the county, who was allowed to select the witnesses to be subpoenaed, had a large number of witnesses brought before the grand jury, who on the day in question, were in a different part of the county, which he knew, and failed to subpoena witnesses who had seen the crime committed, with the natural result that no indictment was found. A most notorious case, lately happened, and which has brought the most obloquy on the State, in which the perpetrators went from the county of their residence to a distant county, seized the convict in the penitentiary,-the officers of the law who had him in charge, making no effort to perform their duty to protect and defend their prisoner; he was carried by the mob to another county, not that in which the offense was committed for which he had been convicted, and there lynched; the grand jury failed to find an indictment against the perpetrators of this gross outrage, because of lack of evidence, though it was currently reported that well known and prominent citizens of the county had composed the mob, and had been present at the final tragedy. The present law requires that the indictment shall be preferred and trial had in the county where the crime has been - committed. This law should be amended, so as to allow an indictment to be found in any county in the State and trial had in the county where the indictment is found. In addition, a law should be passed providing that the fact of lynching should be conclusive evidence of the right to recover damages and holding the sheriff and the sureties on his bond liable in damages to the heirs of the party lynched; the trial of the suit to be had in a county other than in which the offense has been committed. Another cause of the lax enforcement of law, is the present method of electing the judiciary and solicitors general, by popular vote. This method has been twice tried before, and found unsatisfactory. Neither a judge nor a prosecuting officer should be dependent for his office on the votes of the people, who must appear before one of them for trial, or who may have to be prosecuted by the other. However upright the officer, he is but human, and must, though unconsciously, be swayed by the bias which is naturally engendered by the knowledge of the fact of who was his friend or opponent in the canvass for his office. The farther away the officers of the law are from the popular vote, the better it is for the administration of law. Another cause which has induced the mob to take the law into its hands, rather than have crime punished by due course of procedure, is the long delay, incident to the execution of the sentence of the law, and the frequent commutation of the sentence of death, by the Pardon Board and the Executive. Juries are not prone to inflicting the sentence of death, and when they have done so, the cases are rare, in which that finding should be set aside after final adjudication by the courts of last resort. A virile Pardon Board and an equally virile Governor of the State, refusing consistently to interfere with the mandate of the law, would by their conduct, shortly restore to the people their confidence that crime would be sternly dealt with, and that the criminal would not again be put at liberty in the community, as a continuing example of the failure of justice. The recent prohibition law, so drastic in its regulations, unpopular with the people, will be productive of many infractions of law, for people resent any restrictions on their personal liberties. It is questionable whether it will produce more law breakers than hypocrites. The history of prohibition is that it does not prohibit, but causes increased illicit traffic in the contraband article. The improper use of liquor is vicious, its proper use is neither wrong nor harmful, but on the contrary, beneficial and salutary. Local option, high license and a limited number of places where liquor may be dispensed, in proportion to population, and strict supervision, are far better than an attempt to actually prohibit its use, which invariably fails. But the law has been passed, and it becomes our duty to assist in seeing to its being carried out and obeyed. Let it be so strictly enforced that the hypocritical prohibitionists will be unable to obtain their supply of liquor, and a revulsion of feeling in their ranks will soon bring about a sane and salutary law beneficial to the public, and which no one will oppose. On the members of this Association, more particularly than other citizens of this State, devolves the duty of seeing |