Capital Punishment

Last Monday the Massachusetts House of Representatives reject a motion to reconsider the bill abolishing capital punishment, probably killing the proposal for at least a year. It is unfortunate that the legislature passed up the opportunity to eliminate this vestige of a less enlightened age.

The policemen's wives who opposed the measure believed that it would endanger their husband's lives. This fear is understandable, but abolition of capital punishment in other states has not increased the number of police officers or other citizens murdered each year. To deter those on whom long imprisonment can no longer have any effect the bill did retain the electric chair for criminals who killed policemen or prison guards while under indictment for murder or serving life prison sentences.

Barbarities probably cannot be completely eliminated from public life, but it is a shame that the legislature could not have taken the comparatively easy step of abolishing an unnecessary and ineffective one.