National Affairs: Wickersham & the Cat

Wichersham & the Cat

“In this country we seek to compel obedience to law by . . . death, imprisonment, fines. In England and Canada flogging by birch or by ‘the cat’ also is in-flicted.” Chairman George Woodward Wickersham of the President’s Law Enforcement Commission, now preparing its report at Washington, wrote that in a paper read for him last week before the American Prison Association at Louisville, Ky. He concluded: “A careful inquiry . . . may well be made to determine the desirability of employing [flogging] in the war against banditry and racketeers.”