WASHINGTON REPORT:Children of Cain?:

...of whether or not legalized public killing is a deterrent This Hughes amendment, after brief argument, was to an infantryman who would desert...

...Theologians, too, whatever their skitterish views society from violence...

...Commonweal: 107 "How soon after...

...Or, as G.B...

...Nor are politicians, as illustrated by the recent judg- . . . 'Thou shalt not kill' is the shortest of the Ten ment of the Senate, strangers to discussions about man's Commandments, uncomplicated by qualification or exdaily violence toward his fellows...

...crime, but the swiftness and certainty of the punishment...

...Their emphasis re- ception...

...SISYPHUS 5 April 1974: 108...

...dispossessed, voted for the bill-those such as Senators Those in authority, that is, the immediate superiors Bayh, Chiles, Church, Haskell, Ribicoff and Schweiker...

...saults against you and me...

...Frightening...

...After her body itself had healed from put to death-executed on January 31, 1945 in France the effects of the childbirth...

...It didn't Representatives for anticipated approval there...

...They seem to be of party nor on the basis of conventional "conservative" saying that there are times when they act in a specific or "liberal" views...

...the Senator was reportedly asked Forty-nine of these 40,000 were found, tried and senin an informal discussion after his amendment was tenced to death...

...In Slovik's tor, it was understood, was not precise...

...Indeed, he refused, under the official Later, Senator Hughes returned to the debate by imprimatur of government, to serve in a capacity that offering an amendment designed to put into practice the might lead to his killing another soldier of a country concept of deterrence, repeatedly said by supporters of with which we were at war...

...As tribal elders dealing with a miscreant, United to a Supreme Court decision in 1972, Furman v. GeorStates Senators, meeting without clothes so to speak, gia...

...After a Division, was one of these 49 and only he was actually few hours' rest...

...Furthermore, it and in the other, the Army...

...Not, of course, the Senator exa deterrent against other Hauptmanns' kidnapping babies plained, did that "mean that no woman may be exeand other Sloviks' refusing combat duty...

...election this year, which could account for their rock Perhaps, they hoped or anticipated that a higher author'em...

...On the same date, but unrelated never more desperately needed in our own troubled by the newspapers, there was a second similar occur- country and in a violence-prone world...

...widest possible exposure of such execution to the public, As Senator Hughes said during the debate, there are and shall carry out such execution at a time most likely statistics and opinions on both sides of the question to provide such exposure...

...His making it an action of the full Senate, by declaring that amendment read: " . . . the United States marshal ultimately a convicted murderer, in stipulated categories charged with the execution of any sentence of death of homicide, shall be himself murdered with official sancshall take such action as may be necessary to cause tion...

...The Senate viding that ultimate punishment...

...sock 'em vote, which sent the bill to the House of ity than theirs would over-rule his sentence...

...gages himself in the religious preparations of the conApproximately ten million Americans were inducted demned prisoner...

...A few hours later, a major television network of- ital punishment was that expressed by Senator Bartlett fered a fictionalized account of the shooting of an of Oklahoma: "Society should be able to express its American soldier convicted of desertion during World moral outrage at the most abominable crimes by proWar II, "The Execution of Private Slovik...

...Ven- as one Justice argued (Mr...

...If enacted happen...

...He justified his case, unlike the Senate action, his conviction was unaniamendment on the grounds of "traditional, common-law mously agreed upon by the general court-martial...

...If we (i.e., the Senate) say known number of others from murder...

...Other assemblies in and freakishly imposed...

...The response of the Sena- by an official firing-squad of a dozen men...

...One may be victimized, as well as by more than 40 nations that have abolished capital enhanced by beliefs of a group-in one case, the Senate, punishment during the last 50 years...

...WASHINGTON REPORT CHILDREN OF CAIN...

...of Slovik, members of his court-martial board and his All except Chiles and Haskell are candidates for re- jailers, saw him as hapless and even well-meaning...

...They place a lesser emphasis Those in the Senate chamber were unusually attentive on, or even disregard of, physical harm by man-made as Hughes continued: "Any qualified penologist will tell institutions, such as that resulting from unsafe coal mines you that it is not the severity of the sentences that deters and poisonous substances in our food and our medicines...

...Late in the afternoon, the Senate by a vote of The Senate, as Hughes phrased it, said "death" when 54 to 33 agreed to reinstate the death penalty as punish- it passed the bill the next day...

...The bill before it was offered ostensibly in reply sentence...

...Yet he enEddie Slovik televised that evening...

...Cultural anthropologists discuss such a (D-Iowa), who opposed the bill...

...tests against the fate of Slovik until the moment of the And the Senate action dovetailed with the story of firing of the rifles by the execution squad...

...into the military service during the Second World War...

...action and the TV program differ in kind, but both During the second, and final, day of debate Senator flowed from an insistence that taking human life by civil Buckley of New York rose to offer an amendment: "In or military authority is not only a justifiable action in no event shall a sentence of death be carried out upon retaliation for a violation of a specific law, but also is a pregnant woman...

...Shaw phrased it: Inouye, Kennedy, McGovern, Proxmire, Tunney and "Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that Weicker...

...It is one of His 40,000 military personnel-were declared deserters...

...The same members of the United States Congress, who .. . Finally, I oppose the death penalty because it is predictably argue that one can not/may not legislate grossly destructive of human hopes for a society more social ills out of existence, also argue, equally predict- amenable to peace and less dependent on violence for ably, that boiling murderers in oil will deter an un- the solution of its problems...

...revert to institutional killings in the name of justice...

...cuted, but, rather, that the authorities would have to The Senate allotted two days to discuss capital punish- await delivery of her child before carrying out the ment...

...The "Organization" demanded his death and into law, the statute would stand in contrast to actions they acquiesced...

...It is as clear and awesomely commanding volves around legislative penalties, sometimes fiendishly as the powerful thrust of chain lightning out of a dark and gleefully described, that would reduce physical as- summer sky...

...death, then, in my judgment we have relinquished our The most recent occasion for these vengeance-seekers responsibility for moral leadership at a time when it was occurred March 13...

...I cannot be brought to beabout "evolution," emphasize the darker side of "human lieve that the way to conquer crime in America is to nature...

...but not to a physically fully developed adult to continue Slovik, of course, did not kill anyone-the topic of his or her life...

...the Senate action...

...cancel one another, but similars that breed their kind...

...I believe more and more," Van Gogh wrote, "that Of these, an estimated four-tenths of one percent-or God must not be judged on this earth...

...Several Senators, customarily re- circumstance because their agents, although knowing sponsive to legislative remedies for the baser and brutal that wrong may be being done, nevertheless believe there side of human life, be it in Vietnam or the domestically is no practical alternative...

...Slovik, an infantryman in the 28th adopted 87 to 0. Immediately upon delivery...

...Hughes, a huge, saturpremise within donnish Common Rooms of universities, nine bear of a man who is leaving the Senate in order in scientific journals and on the hustings where the to become an evangelist, posed a moral question as the Leakeys and Darts search for human beginnings-proto- main speaker against the bill: "Is the morbid trip back hominids such as Australophithecus and Kenyapithecus to the death penalty the right way to go to protect et al...

...rence...

...makes far less likely that the eight-years' absence of Notably, though, it is the chaplain, the Roman Cathexecution for a person convicted of a capital offense in olic priest in military uniform of his country, who prothe United States shall be extended...

...The Army through its court-martial and review such execution to be carried out in public...

...ment for serious offenses designed as crimes by federal Representative of a majority opinion in favor of caplaw...

...The United procedure decided, on the eve of a major invasion of States marshal shall make available to all such com- Nazi Germany, that one man, among others who had munication facilities and media, including radio and tel- acted similarly, shall be murdered, likewise with official evision, opportunities as may be necessary to assure the sanction...

...His rule that an unborn child shall not be made to suffer conviction, accompanied by a sentence of death, was death on account of his or her mother's crime," Senator reviewed right up to General Eisenhower, top comBuckley applied his "Right-to-Life" views toward fetuses mander in the European Theatre...

...The Court's decision did not other times have similarly spoken, Seminal doings at declare the death penalty per se unconstitutional, howthe Olduvai Gorge and east of Lake Rudolf in Africa ever...

...Hughes proposed public executions...

...are not completely understood, or even agreed upon, The debate in the Senate had its grisly moments, stembut they suggest an appetite for both violence and ming from amendments offered, and its humane moweapon development is perhaps man's notable cultural ments, as evidenced by a speech of Senator Hughes attainment...

...Final passage of the capital-punishment bill found Of course, there is a dilemma that civil and military proponents and opponents dividing neither on a basis (and religious) authorities point to...

...The Court by a 5-to-4 vote held that the death recently discussed and rendered a majority verdict in penalty, as then utilized, was unconstitutional because, favor of restoring capital punishment to the land...

...But, Hughes told defeated overwhelmingly-81 against and only 10 in his colleagues, "the death penalty demeans society withfavor (Senators Abourezk, Clark, Hart, Hughes himself, out protecting it...

...sketches that has turned out badly...

...the bill to be a primary reason for sanctioning capital But a similarity exists...

...Stewart), it was "so wantonly geance is mine, sayeth the Senate...

...A majority of the Senate acts, punishment...