Getting To Know Judge Parker, and Ourselves

THERE IS MUCH ABOUT HISTORY in general, and the late nineteenth century american western frontier in particular, about which many people, myself included, are misinformed, due to popular culture. The roman empire didn't so much "fall" precipitously, as it slowly declined and evolved into something else, due to shrinking resources and over extension among other factors, into modern Rome, Italy, and Europe. The wild west was not quite as wild as we like to make it out to be, at least in terms of standing, facing, and staring at the enemy prior to a quick draw gun fight. Gunfights in fact were quite rare, and in most western frontier towns guns were forbidden. they had to be turned in at the sheriff's office, or left outside the city limits. And above all, the most popular misconception, that history somehow "repeats itself', though its sounds nice and tidy, is simply not true. No amount of effort can turn Tuesday January second into Monday January first, no matter how similar they seem. I had been given to believe that "hanging judge" Isaac Parker, of frontier fame, who held court in Ft. Smith, Arkansas from 1878 to 1894, was something of a madman, a vindictive, angry lunatic who meted out summary justice and capital punishment at the drop of a hat, the borrowing of a horse. i was dead wrong. It turns out that the hangin' judge was a a compassionate, wise, and highly principled person. although he sentenced over one hundred and sixty people, including four women, to death by hanging, fewer than half of them, including none of the women, met that fate, but were instead resentenced to lesser punishments. The judge himself did not believe in the death penalty, and always reminded condemned criminals: "it is not I who condemns you, it is the law." Parker was also an early and strong advocate for women's suffrage, and believed in improving living conditions for incarcerated criminals, especially those awaiting trial. he believed that it was not the severity of punishment, but the certainty of it, which deterred crime. It turns out that when we more thoroughly scrutinize the lives of people, living and dead, we are often surprised, often pleasantly so, sometimes disappointingly so. often those whom we had held in the highest esteem become more flawed than we want them to be, and the supposed scoundrels turn out to have redeeming qualities after all. It may be that the lesson we should derive from history,and from our own lives, is that no one is worthy of unqualified veneration, and no one is deserving of unrelenting scorn. As with our opinions and emotions, the truth is usually somewhere in the middle.