The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1910-04-23
ON LAWLESSNESS.

1t is estimated that nearly 100000 farmers in
the western and northwestern states have gone into
Canada during the past year to take up land and
engage in their favorite pursuit. From Utah many
have emigrated, and from states bordering the
dominion line thousands have sold out their land
and gone into the newer country. Towns have
grown up, and prosperity smiles upon them This
emigration has been the subject of much specula-
ton to the cause or causes which led up to it.
The cheapness of the land beyond the boundary
and its bounteous returns have been pointed to as
the animating cause. In the early days of our
northwest, the virgin land of Minnesota and the
Dakotas would produce from forty to sixty bushels
of wheat to the acre. and this land cost the settler
anywhere from nothing to S. an acre. By repeated
cropping the yield has dwindled in many instances
to as low ten bushels to the acre. The Cana
dian northwest is just such country as was our
own northwest twenty-five years ago. What more
natural, therefore, for farmers to sell out their
wornout land at $50 to 800 an acre and go to the
newer land?
But another reason is furnished by farmer
who has settled in the Saskatchewan country, in
letter published in an eastern newspaper
'Tll tell you what it boils down to-" he saws.
it has been understood and recognized that the man
who breaks the law is going to be Jailed 1t don't
matter if he is spry as gopher nor as husky as
buffalo. It don't make any odds if he can crawl
into prairie dogs hole. If he breaks the law he is
going to be jailed, good and sure! He can have
fifty guns and $4,000, he can have any sort of
blame pull you ike-but he is going to be Jailed.
1t may take day, week, or year; but he'll be
jailed, sure. Maybe he'll kill Northwest police
man-maybe he will. Well, then, he'll hang. for
dead sure thingi He'll never buy Northwest
policeman, nor he'll never escape jail if he breaks
the law. All Canada knows it, and that's why this
country is a good. country to live in."
Certainly this crude letter is as strong an indict
ment of the lax criminal law enforcement in the
United States any learned lawyer or Judge could
write Between the lines it tells of the condopinp
of lawlessness, of misplaced sympathy for MIR
derers, of political chicanery in the granting NJ
pardons and combinations of sentence, which have
become so important part in American criminal
Jurisprudence. Statistics show that in the United
States less than per cent of homicides arraioned
are convicted, while in Germany the figures show
30 per cent, the other European countries showing
gradual decrease in the number of convictions
until Scotland is reached with "a per cent. Two
murderers in hundred in America are convicted
IN Canada, the murderer, according to this letter
from Saskatchewan farmer, will chang. for
dead sure thing"
This may not furnish the reason for the enigra-
ton OF the 100000 farmers into Canada, but there
can not be surer way of attracting good citizens
than by fearless enforcement of the laws: and
there can not be better way of inviting the GRIM
lnal element than lax enforcement of those laws
The honest and upright man has no fear of strict
enforcement OF penal statutes, but the thug will
give such state or country wide berth.