The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1896-05-28
"WAY is CRIME INcReAslNGw

"WAY is CRIME lNCREASlNGp,
The timely article by J. w. Cald-
well, showing the discrepancy between
the teachings of the last census report
and those of President Cleveland's late
missionary address, not only sets forth
in plain light the lamcntable weakness
and sectional shortsightedness of the
president Of the United States, but
closes with two questions, pertinent to
the times, which the writer desires TO
see answered--viz: /. "Why is crime
increasing in the east more rapidly than
in the west?'' 2. "What shall we do to
decrease crime?''
Both of these questions are answered
by answering the first one. II one can
point out the cause of increasing crime,
then the decrease Of crime can be ac-
complished by the removal of that
cause
To take up the first question, the
general cause Of crime ispoverty. From
actual conditions cf poverty and from
conditions which spring from these
such as the fear of poverty and the
false standard Of life which the fear Of
it and corresponding worship Of
wealth sets up-nearly all crime springs.
Crime is greatest in the east because
there is the greatest concentration Of
wealth, and because under our present
system of wealth accumulation the in
crease of poverty regularly accompanies
the concentration Of wealth. If evidence
is needed i'll confirmation of this terrible
fact we might from among many 9TH
ers who have given similar testimony,
select the terse statement in Progress
and Poverty" made by Henry George:
''In the United States squalor and mis-
cry and the vices and crimes that spring
from them everywhere increase as the
village grows to the city and the march
of development brings the advantages of
the improved methods of production and
exchange. 1t is in the older and richer
sections Of the Union that pauperism
and distress among the working classes
are becoming most painfully apparent.
Or if one wished to go farther in evil
dence and to include England, where a
similar concentration Of wealth is tax
ing place, and summon from thence such
a man as Professor Huxley, who says in
regard to his testimony, II have no pre-
tensions to the character of philan-
thropist, and have a special horror of
all sorts of sentimental rhetoric am
merely trying to deal with the facts"
he might hear him saying in his ''Social
Diseases and Worse Remedies:" ANY
one who is acquainted with the state Of
the population of all great industrial
centers, whether in this or other coun-
tries, is aware that amid large and in
creasing body of that population la
misere reigns supreme. And
take it to be mere plain truth that
throughout industrial Europe there is
not a single large manufacturing city
which is free from vast mass of people
whose condition is exactly that de-
scribed, and from a still greater mass
who, living just ON the edge of the So
cial swamp, are liable to be precipitated
into it by any lack of demand for their
produce. And with every addition to
the population the multitude already
sunk in the pit increase. "
These conditions exist because they
are the legitimate and necessary off
spring of system Of business distribu-
tion and social production which has for
its maxim "the survival of the strong
est" and which is even now adding to
that, as if that were not demoniacal
enough, "the survival of the greatest
consultations Of the strongest individ-
uals "
Every step gained in this select sur
vival of the strong throws out certain
number of nonsurvivors to live as they
can, and every step gained in the more
exclusive survival of combinations Of
the strong doubles and quadruples the
number already thus added to the ranks
of poverty and the sources of crime.
The east is increasing in crime more
rapidly than the west because the east
! furnishes freest scope for the social sys-
tenn of selfish individualism. On the
shoulders of this brawny and promising
child-but tyrannical adult-lies the
whole responsibility for the increase in
crime. To destroy crime we must de-
/ stroy the system and put in it's place
some cooperative effort in the produc-
tion and distribution of human necessi-
ties which would be controlled by the
whole people for the public good.
But this we cannot do. Destruction
other than by natures laws Of gradual
modification is dangerous and futile.
Humanity cannot skip any spot in its
development, even though it be beneath
the tyrant's lash and over ground wet
with the tears Of human suffering. The
present system must wear itself out Of
itself, and the perception Of threadbare
garments, while announcing the end,
does not justify nakedness.
In the meantime, however, evil may
be checked. The lover of humanity
must resist at every step the encroach-
ment of the asserted rights Of paltry
gain upon the rights Of human life.
Life is the thing for which life's means
exist. Men are our brothers--all men