CLEMENCY OR POLITICSY

Governor "Ma" Ferguson has established a new record for clemency, or so it is called, in the state of Taxas, by granting a total of 3177 pardons during her term of office. Perhaps Governor Ferguson's apparent compassion for those so unfortunate as to have suffered the tyranny of the law is an expression of her true feeling; on the other hand it may be the result of her political method. Her attitude, however, has prompted at least one criminal court of Texas to suspend its criminal calendar until the expiration of Mrs. Ferguson's term, the eighteenth of this month. But whatever the motive, a governor who abuses the pardon power to the extent of forcing courts to withhold their convictions until the expiration of his or her office in order to avoid a reversal of their decisions is in reality menacing the stability of justice in that state.

It is not for us to delve into the irregularities and peculiarities of the situation in Texas. But that such exist we cannot doubt, for wholesale pardoning is an irregularity which nothing but peculiar circumstances can warrant. Perhaps Governor Ferguson hopes to duplicate the success of Governor Len Small of Illinois, who is said to have found such tactics compatible, even necessary, to the building of an efficient political machine. Of course, a good politician must be magnanimous and appeal to every stratum of society, but until Mrs. Ferguson has shown some such lofty motive her position is open to censure.