A Good Bill

     The commission which is at work revising the federal statutes suggests a bill making it a capital offense to kill or attempt to kill an executive officer of the federal government, when the attempt is made for the purpose of obstructing the government. The suggestion is a good one. The qualification avoids the objection which might be urged if the law applied to all kinds of assault, but where the purpose of the assault is not to injure the man as an individual but to injure the government through him, it becomes an offense against all the people.