The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1914-01-01
TO CURE OUR
MORAL CRIPpLES
A Timely and Logical Treatise Concern
ing the Proper Care Of Society's FALL
en- Brothers, by One Who has Made a
Study Of CriminoIogy.
EMBRACES OUR WAY

In the Christmas issue of Reedy's
Mirror, est. Louis) appears an in
teresting article by K. Stillman
Doubleday, chief clerk OF the de-
partment of criminal trials OF the
supreme court of New York state;
and as the writer covers many OF
the methods of treatment already
adopted in this institution, we take
the liberty Of reproducing his the
sis in full
Let me be understood. In the
use of the word cripple" | mean
one who is partly Or wholly dis
abled in body. mind or morals; and
such condition / call decreptitude,
Noah Webster concurring or other
wise.
Progress of the English speak
ing people toward humane civili-
zation has been slow but perceptl-
BILE. We do not now hang people
for debt-but We did; nor for steal
ing sheep-but we did and not
long ago. We no longer punish,
torture nor hnprison the idiotic and
the insane, nor do we put to death
the physically deformed. as humane
society at one time did, in the name
of expediency aud "eugenics.'
But our modern society with its
customs and its laws still continues
to revenge it's real or supposed
wrongs upon the criminal alone, as
if crime were entirely of the Grim
inal's initiative and society not at
all responsible cause for crime.
While we are indulgine this spirit
of vengeance upon our moral Grip
pies, is it not worth while to pause
and look back from the crippled
effect, we are so impatient with, to
it's cause? And to find, if we can,
what cause bumped the back,
dubbed the foot, destroyed eye or
limb or deformed the mind or the
morals?
Oh, we have progressed! we
take fairly intelligent care of the
insane and the idiOtic, and as we
slowly learn how, we help them to
live better and happier lives-and
try to cure them. We have asylums
for these mental cripples and hos
pitals helpful aids for our physical
cripples: but we have little thought
or care for our criminals for the
moral cripples that our modern
gold commercial society is
evolving.
Criminal a Moral Cripple
The criminal is certainly moral
cripple, weak and disabled in his
moral perception; and there is a
cause for his decreptitude. Moral
states, as truly as mental and physi-
cal conditions, are the effects Of
discoverable causes.
A moral cripple is the natural
product of two principal, funda-
mental causes;-heredity and en-
virOnment.
Neither sinner nor saint has ever
had choice in selection of ances-
tors. The criminal is entirely ire
sponsible for the tendencies he has
inherited. The criminal, in some
instances, has had no choice and in
all cases has had very little choice,
IN the selection of his environment.
In free America" we have but few
free men.
My reader will, of course, prompt
ly respond:-" But he has been CIV
en- free will,' with which to Sc
lect and determine his own course. :"
But has he? Ia not the will itself a
product of hereditary tendencies
and of surrounding influences of
environment? Have not those ten
denotes and impressions much to do
or all to do in determining the
course to pursue: the bending OF
the twig in the way the tree shall
grow?