Los Angeles herald., 1908-03-16
REV. Mr.. HOWARD SAYS AMERI.
GAN FUN is sHIFTLEss
PROBLEM MUST BE LAUGHED AT
BEFORE WIPED OUT
Speaker Affirms That a criminaIoid
Keeps His Hands Sweet and
Boots Clean by Use of
Middlemen


our shiftless American humor instead
of reproach and disgrace. A prob
lem in America has to begin by being
jest, something to laugh at, before we
think of doing anything to wipe 1t off
the slate"
The foregoing were expressions made
by Rev. Burt Estes Howard, pastor of
the First Unitarian church, yesterday
morning, in continuation of his sermon
on 1.-THE Lawless Element" from last
Sunday. He said in part:
Criminal law has not kept pace
with our social development. 1t is
gaining slowly ON modern conditions,
but not yet has our criminal law be-
come abreast of the times. This is
due to various causes not the least of
which is the hardness of the public to
see the social aspect of much of modern
wrongdoing. We are blinded by the
inppersonal, indirect character of the
new sins of society When our GRIM
inal law was formulated in olden times
1t was framed to meet the needs of a
far different social organization from
that of today; a society based upon
agriculture, developing a form of GRIM
inal jurisprudence in which the citizen
required protection from crime of vio-
lence rather from the more modern
times of craft. To meet them police
system has sprung up whose ability
has increased with the growth of
crime itself. The life and immediate
safety of the citizens are tolerably well
provided for by the common law and
statutes.
Form New Types of Crime
"But new relationships have multi
piled the possibility for new breaches
of trust, and the newer forms of busi-
ness and social organizations have in
troduced new types of crime which
strike not SO much at the individual as
at the moral health of the community.
These crimes may be described rough.
ly as crimes of fraud, perpetrated
either upon merchants or upon the gen.
eral public; fraud In obtaining credit
by falsehood; fraud in concealing and
conveying property to avoid the just
demands of creditors; fraud in stealing
trademarks and trade names and
frauds of various other natures.
"Now, while we are all of us pretty
we'll convinced that things of this
sort are wrong. yet the criminal law
has not in many instances taken ac-
count of these matters to an extent
at all equal to the measure of special
turpitude involved. We all know that
in our large cities there is an increas-
ing volume of business done which is
either fundamentally fraudulent or
which depends upon fraudulent means
for the large financial success which
it often obtains.
"There are alluring advertisements
of corporations with enormous capital
izations, whose stock is issued gener-
ally in small denominations to place
1t within the reach of small investors,
tempting gold and copper mines for
the discontented janitress and am
bilious elevator man; corporations with
new processes and machinery. to revo-
Tutionize the manufacture of household
articles or necessities; corporations ex-
plotting startling inventions, on paper.
to reverse the ways of commerce.
San investigation would probably
show that a majority of these COM
panies are created solely for the pur-
pose of selling stock, and without the
slightest intention on the part of the
promoters of doing any legitimate
business with the money acquired.
Are Bats for Gudgeons
"Study the business opportunities
What proportion of them are above the
suspicion of being mere bats for catch
ing gudgeons? AS for the Wall street
advertisements, the market letter peo-
ple,' the pool riggers,' the inevitable
clerks in the office of a large corpo-
ration who will confidentially sell in
IOrmatlOn OIL IL C6fldlit movement
its stock they require no comment
So far as drugs and medicines are con-
cerned, we are so accustomed to quack
nostrums that we consider them with
the utmost liberation and accept good
naturedly the maxim of one of the
most successful of modern nerve in
vigorators' that the value of an ad-
vertised medicine depends on what you
put on the bottle rather than on what
~ 10 rffayaf afV,er 10
make some sort of an advance along
the line of public protection in these
matters but we seem to have much
difficulty in getting the right moral
perspective in viewing wrongdoing
from a social as well as an individual
standpoint.
"The real weakness in the moral
position of Americans is not their at
titude toward the plain criminal but
their attitude toward the quasi-crim-
inal, toward the man whose wrong
doing is of the smokeless variety and
toward the wireless sinner whose con-
nection with criminal practice is out of
sight and indefinite. Often men are
guilty in the eyes of the law, but
since they are not culpable in the
eyes of the public and in their own
eyes their spiritual attitude is not
that of the criminal. The lawmaker
so long as morality stands stock still
in the old track they escape both pun
ishment and ignominy.
"The director who speculates in the
securities of his corporation, the
banker who lends his 'depositors
money to himself under divers corpo-
rate aliases the railroad official who
grants a secret rebate for his private
graft, the builder who hires walking
delegates to harass his rivals with
causeless strikes the labor leader who
instigates a strike in order to be paid
for calling it off, the publisher who
bribes his text books into the schools
these reveal in their faces nothing of
the wolf or vulture. They want moth
ing more than we all want-money,
power. consideration, success-but they
are in a hurry and they are not par
ticular as to the means.
Works Through Middlemen
"The criminaloid prefers to prey on
the anonymous public. He is touchy
about the individual victim, and if
faced down will even make him repara-
tion out of the plunder gathered at
long range. Too squeamish and too
prudent to practice treachery, brutal
itv and violence himself, he takes care
TO work through middlemen. He is
able to keep his hands sweet and his
boots clean. The censurers of the
criminaloid are 'pinheaded disturbers,'
who would initiate him If they had
the chance or the brains.
"But the fault does not lie so much
with the criminal courts as with the
-..~o~a1 continent and anathV of the