Evening Journal

EDITORIAL OPINION

Extradition Treaties.
From the Kansas City Star.

The announcement that the State Department cannot ask for the extradition of Ellis Wainwright, charged with bribery in St. Louis, emphasizes the need of a revision and extension of the extradition treaties. It is contrary to good morals and to common sense that a civilized country like France should harbor criminals because the treaty fails to mention bribery as an extraditable offense. The recent cases of Gaynor and Greene in Canada and Gillette in Mexico are still fresh in the public mind. It is remembered, too, that Boss Tweed was secured from Spain only as a matter of courtesy, since at that time the United States had no extradition treaty with Spain.

When notorious criminals can find shelter from the law on the continents of America and Europe it is evident that extradition conventions must still be in an undeveloped and primitive condition. It ought to be impossible for fugitives to live openly in Christendom with this stage of the world's progress. Judicial procedure against them after they have been caught is not so harsh as to warrant protecting them from trial. Under the existing treaties there are altogether too many ways of escape. The United States has never favored refusing asylum to political refugees. But that is no reason why common criminals should be allowed to go scot free, provided they have not committed one of the limited number of crimes mentioned in the present treaties.

The conventions need overhauling for the better protection of society.

Protecting the Weak Races.
From the Indianapolis News.

The lot of the inferior and unprogressive races is hard, but there is no way of protecting them against the march of civilization except when strong powers differ as to the disposition of the land occupied by them. For instance, we can keep European political systems out of South America, but we cannot—or at any rate we have not tried—to keep Europeans from settling in South American countries. And if large numbers of Germans and Englishmen were to make their homes in Venezuela, for example, the country would become German and English, even though there were not a German or English soldier within the country. It will be so in Manchuria. The land will be conquered without the help of soldiers, and no power or combination of powers can prevent it.