"If anyone in 1939 had claimed that in six years from then I would be endorsing a bill about the death penalty, with retroactive force no less, I would not have regarded him as sane. But since then, barbary and lawlessness have occurred, the normal state of law has been violated deeply, and I feel then more tied to a deeply violated public conscience than to normal conditions. We must deal with these criminals, not of a lust for revenge, but so that we soon may return to normal conditions."