Los Angeles herald., 1909-06-20
VIOLENCE SHOWS
STEADY GROWTH.
PUNITIVE MEASURES PROVE
WORSE THAN USELESS
Increase Of Homicide and Suicide,
Noted by Leading Writers on
crlminology, Threatens Ex-
istence of Nation

The last letter issued by the Prison
Reform league dealt, of necessity, IN
fragmentary way with torture infiict-
ed in our jails, penitentiaries and
southern convict camps, unveiling a
picture of brutality that would have
disgraced the dark ages. It described
b,utal beatings, the application or the
straitiacket and other medieval forms
of cruelty, the solitary cell ana IN
a word, the prisoner helpless IN tue
hands of irresponsible Jallers' Fur-
tI,arnsore # showed-and this is one
of the blackest features of the entire
svstam-that there are large classes OF
7nan whose incomes depend exclusively
On the number Of arrests they can
make. often without the slightest war
rant either in law or natural rlgnL II
nointed out the part played by politics
in the creation Of these monstrous con-
ditions. .4,o,,4,,
Pack of all this welter Of bestiality
and injustice lie the antique ueluslohs
that society must exact Its pound OF
aasb and that the fiercer the punish
Ynen+ the greater will be the deterrent
snauence. Opposed to these primitive
6octrinea stands modern scientlnc
thoughf teaching that every effect has
de cause and that crime, like the
,oosnuito. will breed indefinitely so long
as the swamps that are its birthplace
remain undrained.
In an article on capital punishment
that appeared in the Los Angeles Her
aid of June s. 1903, care1ul anaiy :,sIs sls
~ the action taken by congress on tnat
subject in 1895 was given, and 1t was
nointed out that In January or that
wear the judiciary committee OF the
lower house reported In favor OF apol-
tshing the death penalty. 1t was SHOWN
that the committee referred TO list
oT 41s publications as authorities ana
that of that list only II Favored tne
retention Of the death sentence. sur
+hermore. 1t was pointed out tnat OF
+hese twenty-seven nearly one-halt
.a,oe either from the pens of professed
Yninisters of the gospel or had appeared
IN neriodicals issued by religious organ
s1ations. On the other hand, those VINO
had declared themselves IN favor OF the
constitution of imprisonment Tor oeath
sncIuded the most famous names In
nnodern literature and scientific inVes-
+igation. The distinction is clear ana
broad. The modern school ao1ures the
principle Of revenge; the antique schooi
relIes on 1t exclusively. Prove that re-
venge is an unworkable prlnclpie anu
the old school has no case.
T.ono- ago It was remarked that fear
fuI crime and fearful punishment went
hand in hand; and conditions as we
1enow them in the case of the roman
a,,,n,ra nrior to its fall and as they
exist under Asiatic despotism today
were cited in illustration. The atrocl-
ties in which Nero INDUCED 10 stay
the onward march or Cnrlstiahlty
failed ignominiously to bring about
their cherished effect. just as the fires
of the inuuisition failed to consume
protestantism. We know that only
ninety years ago in England no less
than 223 offenses were punishable with
daatb and that under that regime
crine' and especially crimes OF violence,
dourished to an unprecedented extent
Feeding on savagery, the pupllc mag
ination grew more savage; horror was
added to horror and darkness to dark
ness. -.
This is supposedly a business nation.
and.as such it should call, always ana
incessantly. for results. It should re-
iect unhesitatingly any line OF national
nolicv that. after full trial, fails 10
WELD results. And in the matter OF
The suppression and prevention or crime
unouestionably the American nation Is
getting anything but the results ex-
DeEIeus Lei Us llANCShA5sNN~f
course only to the most reliable au-
thorities. -,
such specialists as Professor Bush
nell of Washington and DR.. g. Frank
I,ydston tell US that we are spending
anywhere from $5,000000,oO0 to S6,OOO,-
100000 a year in the attempt to sup
nress crime and that 1t is growing all
the time. Here is the gist of an article
by DR.. George Allan England in the
Arena for October, 1908, in which he
brings forward a full array of figures
to show that from 5000 to 10000 homi-
cides take place in the United States
annually, and that in this undesirable
rivalry we lead all countries with the
exception of Russian Poland where
violence is largely due to political dis
turbances, and the Calabrian and ST.
Gillian districts of the italian kingdom.
Chicago murders six times as many
annually as does the far larger me-
tropolis Of London and eight times
more than does Paris. In Georgia alone
more killings take place than In the
entire British empire.
No less than 1914 murders were COM
mitted in the south during the year
1906, while in the central division of the
country the murders numbered only
2s43 and in New England, a densely
populated manufacturing district, the
total was only 254. In our last letter
with which that which processes to call
itself the "law'' is being administered
in the south. Does it not look as If
here again we have an illustration of
the truth that brutality begets bru
tality? And 1t may be remarked in
cidentally that those whom 1t has been
the fashion to speak Of as "low, ignor-
ant foreigners" and whom we glibly
charge with being answerable for the
swelling tide of crime, are fewest in
the south and most numerous in New
England.
Shoot to XIII
Let us switch the glass north. From
the Chicago Daily News we have
clipped the following: mot only are
robberies increasing in number in Chi
cago, but the highwaymen are more
bold and more desperate than formerly,
when they rarely resorted to violence.
To-Day the robbers weapon is used to
figures in our possession show that in
1901 the burglars who committed muir
der numbered 1913, whereas in the fol-
lowing year the total had grown to
33S. Well may Judge Mckenzie Gle
land Of the municipal court of Chicago
remark that human life is the cheap
est thing in Chicago" Seeing which,
as president of the criminal department
in the toughest district in Chicago, he
inaugurated a system Of probation in
lieu, Of punishment, with results that
have secured the attention Of the world
and have led to the formation of the
National Probation league.
Comparison of the records of New
York and Chicago in the matter Of
crimes of violence was the subject Of
an exhaustive study in the Review NJ