the case in which she is so concerned is peculiar, that in this case a pardon should be granted.  It was really heartrending to have to see the kinsfolk and friends of murderers who were condemned to death, and among the very rare occasions when anything governmental or official caused me to lose sleep were the times when I had to listen to some poor mother making a plea for a criminal so wicked, so utterly brutal and depraved, that it would have been a crime on my part to remit his punishment.

On the other hand, there were certain crimes where requests for leniency merely made me angry.  Such crimes were, for instance, rape, or the circulation of indecent literature, or anything connected with what would now be called the “white slave” traffic, or wife murder, or gross cruelty to women and children, or seduction and abandonment, or the action of some man in getting a girl whom he had seduced to commit abortion.  I am speaking in each instance of cases that actually came before me, either while I was Governor or while I was President.  In an astonishing number of these cases men of high standing signed petitions or wrote letters asking me to show leniency to the criminal.  In two or three of the cases—­one where some young roughs had committed rape on a helpless immigrant girl, and another in which a physician of wealth and high standing had seduced a girl and then induced her to commit abortion—­I rather lost my temper, and wrote to the individuals who had asked for the pardon, saying that I extremely regretted that it was not in my power to increase the sentence.  I then let the facts be made public, for I thought that my petitioners deserved public censure.  Whether they received this public censure or not I did not know, but that my action made them very angry I do know, and their anger gave me real satisfaction.  The list of these petitioners was a fairly long one, and included two United States Senators, a Governor of a State, two judges, an editor, and some eminent lawyers and business men.

In the class of cases where the offense was one involving the misuse of large sums of money the reason for the pressure was different.  Cases of this kind more frequently came before me when I was President, but they also came before me when I was Governor, chiefly in the cases of county treasurers who had embezzled funds.  A big bank president, a railway magnate, an official connected with some big corporation, or a Government official in a responsible fiduciary position, necessarily belongs among the men who have succeeded in life.  This means that his family are living in comfort, and perhaps luxury and refinement, and that his sons and daughters have been well educated.  In such a case the misdeed of the father comes as a crushing disaster to the wife and children, and the people of the community, however bitter originally against the man, grow to feel the most intense sympathy for the bowed-down women and children who suffer for