Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-04-25
PEN FOB 5OPdAD COv17C7s3
Copyright. 1905. by John Elfreth watkins.)
YO learn why people go wrong is
the proposed function of labo
ratory which Senator Dolliver
of Iowa wants established in


ratory which Senator Dolliver
of Iowa wants established In
some spare corner of the Inte-
rior Department His bill to this effect
which has been introduced also in the
House. has just been discussed in an in
teresting hearing before the Senate COM
mittee on education and labor, to which
it has been recommended by the import
ant national and state legal and medical
associations
More and more people are going wrong
from year TO year, according TO statistics
read TO the committee. There are now
enough people in our jails $4,000 to pop
ulate city bigger than Nashville or Seat
!: tie In New York alone there are 1900
prisoners, more than enough to fill :. city
of the size of Cairo, ILL.,, or Leadville,
Col.
Stay every soul in Denver today and
You reproduce the $4,000 murders and
.homlcldes which have been committed in
this country in twenty years. And, to put
a finer point on it. there are, per mil
non population. three times as many
murders in the United States today as
g there We're twenty years ago. Criminals
are lnficting the death sting upon twenty
I'VE of our citizens per'day, and this very
gay OF our Lord. beside feeding and shell
ter1ng this Nashvilleful of criminals in
our jails and reformatories. we are board
ing and lodging an equal number of pau
perS tS2.OOO) in our almShOuSes; for oddly
enough. our prison and almshouse popua-
tons are equal. within a few hundreds
combining them We have a total of 1e4,-
VO criminals and paupers. Our task
would be lighter if we boarded, lodged
aud clothed in the same way every living,
kicking soul in Kansas City or ST. Paul
And, worse and more. of it, we have in our
asylums nearly an Idahoful of lunatics
1JooOU; while there are an equal num-
her of feeble minded in the land, although
only II. 3O0-enOugh to fill a second Alex
andria. va.-are in asylums Adding the
deaf and dumb and the Blind we have a
total defective population of 400, OOO equal
70 two municipalities, or more than one
Cleveland. :
Bostonful Of Public Charges.
These Figures are all to the point here
because Senator Delivers proposed labo-
ratory is to study 1.-The criminal pauper
and defective classes" which, all told.
amount to $4,000. or over a Bostonful,
il we include the criminals and paupers
in jails and institutions only. And the
statistics presented the other day during
the hearing on the bill showed that these
classes are increasing from year to year,
In proportion to population.
But why? That is what the American
Bar Association. the American Medical
Association and five other national medi-
cal societies backing the bill would like
TO know. When the boil weevil gets into
the southern cotton or the gypsy moth
gets into the trees of New England the
government is willing to spend thousands
in learning why" The investigation
which Senator Dolliver and the seventy
two societies indorsing his bill want in
augurated will cost the government the
extravagant sum of 5000 per annum-
the amount stated in the bill. And our
criminals alone are estimated to cost us
a billion dollars a year. What the first
Thaw trial alone cost the state Of New
York would support this investigation for
fifteen years.
That our increased immigration is to
blame for this continued swelling of our
wrongward-gOing hOrdes We are almost
certain to learn from our wiseacre who
goes off at half-cock on all public ques-
tions. But this scum of Europe" argu-
ment does not live long in the light of
knowledge lately CLEANED by our careful
statisticians. who find the smallest in
crease of homicides. for instance. in the
states where the most immigrants con-
gest and the greatest increase in the far
west and south. where the fewest aliens
penetrate. In August brahms recent
work, The Criminal" the various pro-