'"
It is no easy matter to balance the claims of justice and mercy in such
cases. In these three cases, of all of which I had personal cognizance,
I disagreed radically with the views my successors took, and with the
views which many respectable men took who in these and similar cases,
both while I was in office and afterward, urged me to show, or to ask
others to show, clemency. It then seemed to me, and it now seems to me,
that such clemency is from the larger standpoint a gross wrong to the
men and women of the country.
One of the former special assistants of the district-attorney, Mr. W.
Cleveland Runyon, in commenting bitterly on the release of Heike
and Morse on account of their health, pointed out that their health
apparently became good when once they themselves became free men, and
added:
"The commutation of these sentences amounts to a direct interference
with the administration of justice by the courts. Heike got a $25,000
salary and has escaped his imprisonment, but what about the six $18 a
week checkers, who were sent to jail, one of them a man of more than
sixty? It is cases like this that create discontent and anarchy. They
make it seem plain that there is one law for the rich and another for
the poor man, and I for one will protest.
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