Mower County transcript., 1907-03-13
THE COST OF CRIME

THE COST OF CRIME.
Harper's Weekly prints an article in
which the total cost of crime, to the.
people of the United States annually
is placed at the staggering sum Of 81
076, ,327, ,6O5.99. This peculiar aggregate,
figured down even to cents, might
awaken suspicion were it not shown to
result from adding the exact results Of
some bookkeeping in New York to es-:
Inmates necessarily in round figures.
Among the chief items are the cost Of
all the criminal courts, criminal losses
by fire which totalled 100000, 900, gov
ernment losses by postal frauds and
smuggling, the lost wages of prisoners
and the support of criminals.
That very large part of the crime
which is thus costing the nation over a
billion dollars annually is the fruit of q
lax administration of the laws, and the
failure ofGour courts to stand for sub.
stantial justice as against the technic.
alities by which lawyers protect crim-
inals, is certain. But probably still
larger portion is due to a defective
educational system.
In the first place, we have felt com
PEELED to drive from our schools any
teaching of mans accountability to
God-any direct moral teaching what.
ever. In pursuit of the idea of com.
pletely secular school as the only school
which could properly be supported by
the state, we have unwittingly starved
the spiritual nature of our youth. We
have assumed that the home and the
Sunday school would attend to that ma
ture; while in the former there has
been such declension in, or absolute
ignoring of, moral and religious train
ing especially after children haye
reached their teens-as to destroy near
ly all ground for the assumption; and
in the Sunday schools not twentieth
part OF our youth are gathered. The
consequence is that there is really less
religious and moral instruction given
our youth than in the schools of Japan.
There, by the way, the amount of crime
bears no such proportion to the popula.
tion that it does in America, Probably,
with half the population, Japan does
not present one-tenth the amount of
crime for which America foots the
bills. To throw open the doors Of our
schools even to oanon.sectarianr religious
training would be almost impossible;
but that not enough attention is given
to moral training is social fact of un.
deniable consequence.
A second defect in our educational
system lies in,its failure to equip more
than a small fraction of our youth
with means of earning a living other
wise than as common laborer or an
attendant on an automatic machine.
Instead of learning trade under the
tutelage Of refined, high minded teach.
ers, the youth when he leaves school is
thrown, at the most impressionable
age, into the companionship of men
large number of whom take delight in
leading him into habits which beget
crime. Such influences fill, first the
saloons, gambling resorts and dives
then the jails.
Against over a billion for crime, we
are spending only one-fifth as much
for education If we would spend
few millions upon teachers Of funda-
mental morality and religion, and
few millions more in the establishment
OF trade schools, we might, in few
years, cut down the cost of crime ma.
terially.-Pioneer Press.