Since the days of the Doges or of the Spanish Inquisition there has never been anything like the morning inspection or “line up” of arrested suspects at the New York police head-quarters.* (Now abolished.) One by one the unfortunate persons arrested during the previous night (although not charged with any crime) are pointed out to the assembled detective force, who scan them from beneath black velvet masks in order that they themselves may not be recognized when they meet again on Broadway or the darker side streets of the city.  Each prisoner is described and his character and past performances are rehearsed by the inspector or head of the bureau.  He is then measured, “mugged,” and, if lucky, turned loose.  What does his liberty amount to or his much-vaunted legal rights if the city is to be made safe?  Yet why does not some apostle of liberty raise his voice and cry aloud concerning the wrong that has been done?  Are not the rights of a beggar as sacred as those of a bishop?

One of the most sacred rights guaranteed under the law is that of not being compelled to give evidence against ourselves or to testify to anything which might degrade or incriminate us.  Now, this is all very fine for the chap who has his lawyer at his elbow or has had some similar previous experience.  He may wisely shut up like a clam and set at defiance the tortures of the third degree.  But how about the poor fellow arrested on suspicion of having committed a murder, who has never heard of the legal provision in question, or, if he has, is cajoled or threatened into “answering one or two questions”?  Few police officers take the trouble to warn those whom they arrest that what they say may be used against them.  What is the use?  Of course, when they testify later at the trial they inevitably begin their testimony with the stereotyped phrase, “I first warned the defendant that anything which he said might be used against him.”  If they did warn him they probably whispered it or mumbled it so that he didn’t hear what they said, or, in any event, whether they said it or not, half a dozen of them probably took him into a back room and, having set him with his back against the wall, threatened and swore at him until he told them what he knew, or thought he knew, and perhaps confessed his crime.  When the case comes to trial the police give the impression that the accused quietly summoned them to his cell to make a voluntary statement.  The defendant denies this, of course, but the evidence goes in and the harm has been done.  No doubt the methods of the inquisition are in vogue the world over under similar conditions.  Everybody knows that a statement by the accused immediately upon his arrest is usually the most important evidence that can be secured in any case.  It is a police officer’s duty to secure one if he can do so by legitimate means.  It is his custom to secure one by any means in his power.  As his oath, that such a statement was voluntary, makes it ipso facto admissible as evidence, the statutes providing that a defendant cannot be compelled to give evidence against himself are practically nullified.