Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1914-10-23
AMERICAN INSTITUTE
DISCUSSES CRIMINALS
Bar Association Settles Color Cues
ton by Requiring Race and
Sex" Statements.

Many of the members of the bench
and bar of the United States who
have been in Washington the past
week attending the convention of the
American Bar Association, which end
ed last night, remained here today to
attend the closing sessions of the
American Institute of Criminal Law
and Criminology, held this morning
and this afternoon at the New Willard
Hotel.
Robert Ralston. Judge of the court of
common pleas of Philadelphia, was to-
day elected president of the institute
for the coming year. The following
other officers were also named:
supreme judicial court of Massa-
chusetts; DR.. William A. White, super
intendent of the Government Hospital
for the Insane, Washington: William
70. Mikell, dean of the Pennsylvania
University Law School; Amos w But
Ter. secretary of the state board of
charities, Indianapolis Ind: Emory s.
Bogardus. professor of sociology. Uni
versity of Southern California, vice
presidents; Walton J. Wood, Los An
geles; C. b. Bird. Wausau, Wis; Prof
| Edwin r. Keedy, Northwestern Uni
| versity; John Lisle, Philadelphia, and
| Edward Lindsay, Warren, Pa, execu-
| tive board.
Recommends Research.
DR.. William A. White, in the absence
of Joel d. Hunter of Illinois, chairman
of the committee on sterilization of
criminals, presented the report of the
committee, which gave a summary of
the laws in force on this subject, and
recommended that research be conduct
ed by the institute to ascertain whether
sterilization is menace to the public.
The first law of this character was
passed in the United States in Indiana
in 1907. Such law, with variations, is
now in force in eleven other states. In
Iowa it was declared unconstitutional,
and in New Jersey unconstitutional so
far as epileptics are concerned. Bills
providing such law have been passed
in four other states and vetoed.
In seven other states such bills were
defeated in the legislatures In one
state, Oregon, such a law was passed and
states in which there is such a law are
| Indiana, Washington, California, Connec-
ticut, Nevada, Iowa, New Jersey. New
York, North Dakota, Michigan, Kansas
and Wisconsin.
The report stated that it is not possible
to state what the physiological and
psychical results on the individual are !;
hence research is recommended.
Much of the morning session of tho
institute was devoted to a discussion
of prisoners. Other subjects taken up
today were the classification and def
milton of crimes, insanity and divorce
insanity and criminal responsibility,
judicial probation and suspended SEN
| tence, proposed draft of a code of
criminal procedure, indeterminate SEN
tence, release on parole and pardon,
crime and immigration, criminal sta
tistics, etc.
The dinner which was to have been
given by the institute tonight was
abandoned because of the desire of
members to return to their duties at
nome as soon as possible, and a lunch
con. instead, was held at the New Will
lard at 1 o'clock
Color Question Settled.
The question of admitting other than
white male persons to membership in
the American Bar Association, which
came up for discussion in the closing
hours of the convention of that organ
ization yesterday, was settled by a
compromise
( Moorfield Storey of Boston, Mass, and
introduced a resolution to rescind the
1912 resolution declaring it had never
been contemplated that negroes should
become members.
AS a substitute Henry ST. George
Tucker of Virginia offered resolu-
ton resembling the 1912 resolution, but
setting forth that whereas it is impor-
tant that full information should be
furnished to the executive committee
as to applications for membership, it
was resolved that all applications for
! membership should state the race and
sex of the applicant, and such other
facts as the committee should re-
quire.
! The Tucker resolution was adopted