Morris tribune., 1904-12-03
ALARM JUSTIFIED.

9azlne the great alarm1St, but the alarms
with fact and reason to back it's warning Ger
tainly no one who looks the article or
"Lawlessness in the United States in the Dec
ember number, aud who studies the statistic:
and weighs the argument, can deny that there
as great reason and this the high time for call
ing the attention of the American people t(
conditions of lawlessness which prevail every
where, to the fact that there is no nation among
the so-called civilized which excels us in the
number of murders and homicdes. There is
no corner Of the United States which is free
from such crime, and where such crime, does
not increasingly go unpublished. There are
Breathitt county and Georgian there Chic
ago and New York and San Francisco there
are the Missouri Pacific and the General Slocum
but there also Minneapolis and New Uln.
According to the Mcclure statistics (which
are based on those of the Chicago Tribune there
are four and half times many murders and
homicides per million population there were
in 1881. There has been steady increase since
then: altho the climax reached in 1895
during the depth OF financial depression, yet
the tide is now on the increase, and the atti-
tude of the people is apathetiC. We cannot lay
it to the discredit of foreign born popula-
ton, that convenient deposit for all nation
al ills in the past. We had 1O356,644 foreign
born citizens according to the of 1900.
About five hundred thousand of these come
from Russia, where the percentage of murder
slightly exceeds own, (And in the
habit of calling Russia semi-civilized) The
other millions come from countries which have
only half as many murders and homicides per
anilion population we do, and three million
come from the British isles where the record
is one-tenth of ours. We can no longer lay the
crime the foreign born. It is directly of
making, and result of conditions. |
increasingly does the crime go unpublished. |
Take instances near home. murder pre-
petrated in New Ulm the first day of this
month. It is now the last day, and has
been apprehended: there does not appear to be
any probabilities of any one being apprehended.
And, in the last twenty years, the gossip
surrounding this murder in the early stages
confessed, there has been more than one similar
crime in New Ulm with similar failure to ap-
prehend. Crime becomes safe pastime in
New Ulm, as safe as in South Carolina, where
222 murders were committed in 1908, with tho
smallest percentage of arrest and convictions.
Minneapolis supports very criminal atmos-
pnere Inc past ten years nave seen CfldC CITY l.,
distinguished for celebrated murder cases. like 7
the Hayward and the Hamilton: but also for
host of murders among persons of lesser degree. !
The recent and almost unprecedently brutal -
murder at Columbia Heights, altho out of the J.
city limits, is certainly within the atmosphere. T
There seems to be adequate degree of activity
i'll experimenting murderers, but, nevertheless,
the city is making for itself as unenviable a
name in murder and homicide as in graft l,
The chain of reasoning proceeds directly =
along that line There is increasing crime in =
this country increasing murder because there y
As increasing graft, 1t poisons American life -
everywhere Laws a"e broken by corporations \
Or evaded--hJ' railroads. by asphalt companies, q
bYs-s'ool book companies, by baking powder =
companies. by all the trusts, and by the officials
whom the people place in charge of their 9
government. Why then expect any better T
conduct from individuals, who defy the law =
aud evade it, who protected even before :
Jury because they are wrapped i'll this atmos- :
phere of general awlessness, from millionaires to
boxcar tramps? few years ago an Illinois jury
was so affected by murderer tramp's confess
ion that he killed a he supposed had c
money, because he had never had any, that the f
murderer sent up for life, instead of being c
hanged When every American is not after t
his brothers money, even if he has to kill for I