The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-07-14

ble women and helpless children from rapine and slaughter. They slept In marshes with guns in their hands ana risked their lives to assert and defend the rights of American sailors upon the hlgh seas. Thus we see the framers and the defenders of our republic in its early life, exhibiting a self-confident, self-re- specting and self-sacrfclng spirit in war and in peace, in public and in private , life, for the land they loved, for social order and civic betterment, that chal- lenges the admiration of mankind every where.
 The lessons taught us by these noble men who bequeathed to us this republic and her ennobling institutions, are little appreciated in these latter days of greed and graft. The self-confdent spirit is still dominant in our financial and indus trial life. in combinations and trusts, which our wealth and complex economic conditions invite. But the self-sacrific- ing and self-respectlng spirit of our fore fathers is largely wanting. In it's place we find that public opinion countenanccs and condones a selfish. sordid, avaricious spirit that Is a disgrace to American manhood and blot upon American civil ization. Honor, character, high ideals, are too often brushed aside in the mad rush for the almighty dollar. At the altar of the dollar are kneeling, as willing worshipers, too many strong, robust, stalwart Americans with the itching palms for peculation and pelf of Lord Bacon or Warren Hastings; they are con- tamina ting the morals of the nation. The demands for patriotism, love for coun- try, which is synonymous with the love for the welfare of ones neighbor, are as urgent now in times of peace as in times of war. Patriotism drives the foreigner foe from the land we love, so patriotism should drive the domestic foe (crime) from the homes we love- More aggressive patrio tism and less aggressive graft in our social. economic and civic life would add greatly to the force of the moral rev. olution that is now sweeping over the country.
 Again. American civilization is rapidly aping the civi/zation of the older coun- tries. The people are dividing into classes the rich, the wel-to-do and the strug- gling poor. The rich largely control and often corrupt legislation, make laws in the city, state and nation, more to pro- tect their property and personal interest than to protest the struggling class in the pursuit of a livelihood. Until recent years little attention was given to a more hu- mane child labor law, to pure food laws fair weights and measures, discrimina- ton in freight rates, freedom from eX- tortion in prices for money and for the necessaries of life. The most demoraliz- ing citizens in America today are the anarchists in monopoies. The relentless heartless leaders in industrial enterprises who crush out the honorable competition of the well-to-do and the weak The magnates in some of our great life in- surance companies and in some other great corportions too often use their ill., gotten gains to corrupt officials and stif1e justice. Many of the laws that are en- acted to improve social conditions are in advance of the mental and moral train ing of the struggling poor and tend more to oppress than to elevate them; hence from this class comes eighty per cent of the criminals that infest society Some one has facetiously called the leglsla- ture of Massachusetts one of our fore most states in civilization, a veritable manufacturer of laws for increasing mis- demeanors. The same might be said of all our town\ cities and states. The masses are educated in the law in the criminal courts. Hence the horde of of lenders against the ita lex script Is it surprising that under such conditions crime is increasing more rapidly than population? As paradoxical as 1t may sound, it Is nevertheless true: As we grow better, we get worse; as we ascend in civilization, we descend in criminallty.
 The Fee System.
 One of the great obstacles to remedial Legislation for the prevention of crime in most of our states is the fee system. When the sheriff gets his compensation out of the arrest, the feeding in Jail and the conviction of offenders, be he ever so good and fair-minded. he Is op- posed naturally to any measures that cut short his fees. The juvenile court. the probation system and the suspension of sentence of first offenders in force in some of our states and in France would annu1 the payment of many fees. The fee system Is wrong in principle It Is a relic of a barbarous age It has ever caused great speculation, oppression. ne- glect and cruelty, by many sheriffs from the earliest days of Anglo-Saxon his tory. John Howard, the noble humani tartan, once sheriff himself, spent