The Washington herald., 1914-11-10
A ChapIain On he Wrong Traek.

The so-ealIed socioIogisss have long tried to star
ali criminal tendencies in the saloon but now they ar,
after the moving picture shows Chaplain Tougher
of the Michigan State prison, in a lecture at Anr
Arbor says that fifteen years ago the average age o
a man going into prison to serve sentence was
thirty-three years, and today il is tweny-one years
The cause of this younger average the chaplain find
in the social and amusement side of our life. H.
says there is danger in the cleanest kind of motiol
pictures ever shown for they stimulate the iinagin
ton until the young crave excitement and soon the
wholesome conditions of home life fail to satisfy
these little There IS still greater danger in the
exposition of shady morals and gun play in the NOV
ing pictures. All of which may be more less true,
but it is doubtful if the chaplans warning will sup
press the movies or make them less popular.
The study of crime and criminal statistics IS an
interesting one. but the majority of those who indulge
in this study are too prone to pile up figures without
comparing them with the growth of the country and
the increase in population By taking all the figures
from all the penitentiaries and jas and warehouses
of the United States and adding to them all the ar
rests for violating municipal and village ordinances,
the sociologists make black page in history.
But the criminologsts who have gone into the ques
ton with knowledge have found that real crime has
increased but has decreased and it has decreased
in the great centers of population than in those
sections of the country where population is not so
dense
Police laws necessary to maintain public order
and protect property but the spirit of mischief in the
city which inspires boys to carry away gates Hal
loween, and their indifference to municipal regula-
tons generally are more criminal than the spirit
of fun which inspires the country boys stable the
preachers horse in the pulpit or paint the doctors
cow at which the whole neighborhood laughs as good
jokes
While the sociologists are bewailing the increase
of crime measured by all the arrests for petty in
fractions of the law, they also busy urging an
increase in law-making, and an increase in prison
penalties With moving pictures in the churches and
schools, it is any probable that the warning
of Chaplain Tougher will be needed than that prohi
bition will abolish the of the people in drink
ing beer and other stimulants. 1t was only few
years ago that distinguished member of the Presi-
dents Cabinet said that the Chautauquas the
greatest danger the country because the people who
spouted from the platform and were inspired to seek
more social excitement.
When we bring the cause of crime down to a de-
sire for amusement does the chaplain, open the
gates of the penitentiary to the whole human race
and knock the veneer of civilization of to show the
original man who courted with club and worshiped
With an AK and FIRE. We don't want to discourage
Chaplain Tougher any other sociologist, but they
are on dangerous ground in their study of criminal
statistics and may upset their theories well as
the world as it is. Somebody might start a move
ment to suppress the suppressors. and after all il
looks as though such movement would be popular
as well as beneficial