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“As
regards capital cases, the trouble is that emotional men and women always see
only the individual whose fate is up at the moment, and neither his victim nor
the many millions of unknown individuals who would in the long run be harmed by
what they ask. Moreover, almost any criminal, however brutal, has usually some
person, often a person whom he has greatly wronged, who will plead for him. If
the mother is alive she will always come, and she cannot help feeling that 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 kinfolk 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
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.”
– Teddy Roosevelt, the 26th
President of the United States
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