Honolulu Record, September 27, 1951, vol. 4 no.9, p. 8

Frank-ly Speaking

By Frank Marshal Davis

Let's End Capital Punishment

I sincerely hope that the good people of Hawaii, as a result of the Palakiko-Majors case, will demand that the next session of the legislature destroy that relic of barbarism known as capital punishment.

I was against legal killing long before I learned, through my experiences as a working newspaperman, that too often capital punishment is used as a device to maintain white security. But more on this point later.

It seems to me that the doctrine of an eye for an eye should have passed away with the Middle Ages. I cannot agree that one murder is righted by another murder, even though the second has official sanction.

No Logical Excuse for Capital Punishment

Nobody is a born criminal, according to the best scientific thought. This means that they get that way as they develop. And they develop within the framework of the society which may eventually put them to death. In other words, a civilization which permits the creation of criminals may later kill them for acting the way our civilization permits them to act.

Years ago, before we realized the influence of environment on the individual, capital punishment seemed a logical solution. But in a day and age when we have an understanding of the forces which shape an individual's attitude toward society in general and determine his relationships with other persons, there is no logical excuse for the society-sanctioned murder called capital punishment.

Thus far, psychologists have not been able to determine exactly why, of two individuals reared in decidedly friendly environments, one will become a criminal and the other will develop into what is known as an average citizen. But we do know that delinquency and criminal careers are more prevalent among those boys and girls brought up amidst poverty, crowded slums, broken families, poor health conditions, unsupervised recreation, etc.

Death Is No Solution

Since we also know that crime is expensive, both in terms of money and human ability, it seems to me only elementary to correct the conditions that breed crime by insuring every child adequate housing, food and clothing; sympathetic schooling, intelligently directed recreation and guidance, sufficient medical facilities, mental hygiene and counseling (both for himself and parents), and seeing that each will have a chance not only to develop himself to the full extent of his potentialities but that, when developed, he will have the opportunity to use his ability for the benefit of society as a whole.

Then if, despite receiving friendship instead of hostility from society, he develops into an antisocial creature, then that individual should be institutionalized and given tasks under strict supervision which could aid society. Putting him to death is no solution.

Furthermore, with our present public approaches to delinquency and crime lagging miles behind scientific thought, we quite often invoke capital punishment in a kind of unpatterned, irresponsible fashion. We let one set of people go free after an hour in jail, as in the Massie case, and want to kill others, as with Palakiko and Majors.

Yet when you delve deeper, maybe it is not unpatterned and irresponsible. Many powerful people boast that "America is a white man's country," and insist they are going to keep it that way. To anybody who takes the trouble to dig up the facts, capital punishment is often used as a device to maintain white supremacy.

Law for Whites and Non-Whites

The non-white population of the United States is roughly, one-tenth of the. whole. I have before me a recent report issued by the Bureau of Prisons of the U. S. Department of Justice which shows that of the total of 2,831 persons legally executed during the 19-year period of 1930-48, only 1,253 or less than half were white. The remaining 1,578 were non-white.

All except a very small per cent of American non-whites are Negroes. There were 1,528 Negroes executed. The remaining 50 were members of other non-white groups.

Those who have studied the matter know it is seldom that a white person is executed for a crime against a non-white. In the deep South they may not even be arrested. Remember that quadruple lynching in Georgia five years ago which the FBI still hasn't solved? Or the rape, of a Negro mother by a number of white soldiers mentioned in last week's RECORD? Weapon Aimed Primarily At

Non-Whites

On the other hand, Negroes may be put to death on trumped up charges, or when the evidence is either suppressed or ignored. For instance, seven Negroes were killed by the State of Virginia a few months ago at Martinsville, and in Mississippi, Willie McGee was executed despite evidence that none was actually guilty of the ' charge of rape. But that is the prevailing Dixie pattern and it now and then spills over into other parts of America.

I would be against capital punishment on purely humanitarian grounds. But when this device is used to maintain white supremacy and is a weapon aimed primarily against non-whites, it should be gotten rid of as an enemy of the principles of democracy.