The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-09-20
LIBRARIANS UNIQUE IDEA
YOU'LL LIKE TO SEE A NEWSPAPER
WITHOUT MENTION OF CRIME.
He Believes that Most Criminals Are
ImitatOrs and Easily Assimi-
late Suggestions.

The state librarian of Indiana was talking
about the psychology of crime. WHATS
that?' asked an acquaintance. II believe"
the librarian went on to say, that it is
possible for the newspapers to be response
BILE for a great deal of crime that exists,
and l am not sure but that they are respcn-
sible for much of it," The librarian be-
lieves in the theory of Suggestion" His
idea is that men see things in newspapers
stories of crimes committeeman some of
them have an uncomfortable desire to do
likewise. They go out and commit a crime
that they otherwise might not have thought
Of. The librarian believes that a newspaper
might be run without printing a great
many of the stories that happen, but he ad-
mits there is a doubt of people buying such
a paper.
There is a degree Of originality in crime
as in all other lines of human activity the
librarian says. There are g~eniuses In all
lines, but in crime, as elsewhere, the great
majority are imitators and await sugges-
tons. All modern psychologists and all
students of mental phenomena now ac-
knowledge that a very large proportion of
all human action. not only among children.
but quite as much among adults, is institu-
lulSO anu QlTeClSu by SUGGESTION. IL Is
doubtless true, however, that the majority
of imitators who are slaves of suggestion
are wholly unaware of the fact. A great
university teacher in Indiana stepped before
a class OF a dozen or twenty advanced stu
dents one morning and without a remark he
yawned and stretched as though he had not
slept well. Every student in the class did a
similar thing and remained unconscious of
the fact until he called their attention to it.
He was merely trying an experiment in
psychology of suggestion.
"Kentuckians carry on their feuds not be-
cause they are different from the people in
Indiana or Tennessee, but because Ken
lucky has a reputation for feuds. Their
ShootingS and murders on all sorts OF occa-
sions are kept up because the world expects
it of them. Their reputation is TO shoot I'M
up to it. If they could forget the sugges-
ton they would reform. The newspapers
recount these incidents and constantly re-
new the suggestion and crime is multiplied
q hu~ndred-f0ld. A new and what we might
call an original crime is committed. Every
paper in the country heralds it and a thou
sand imaginations are fired with the sug-
gestion, and. as one psychologist has said,
every idea that disturbs a brain cell gives
il the impulse TO reproduce the idea So
numerous similar cases are soon reported.
i doubt not that the crime so prevalent
among the lower grade of negroes mas been
many times multiplied in its most revolving
details by the public reports of similar
crimes. Hangings and burnings, with all
their horror, do not deter these brutes, but
the account of them simply serves as a
mental suggestion.
Religious revivals and church fairs are
as catching as measles and perhaps as
harmful Suggestion and imitation will GER
tainly account for the large proportion of
the happenings among men, and If We could
! find some method of suppressing all publi-
cation of happenings not worthy of being
repeated we should certainly have found the
greatest reforming power society has ever
/ knoWn.'