The daily Nome industrial worker., 1916-04-08

mo longer, although to be fr&nk need the $3,3O0 which tEe ohic> pays. am going beck to my pri yate practice.
 One can imagine Judgo Steven son sitting on his municipal benc!. doling out justice" to tic flotsam and jetsam thGt swept up before him from the waves of the police that cast them upon the shores of the courts.
 Day after day he bcheld these victims of social system, just as much Sinned against aS shining, creatures of social environment victims of an heredity over which they had no control, the resultants of economic forces beyond them in- dividually, waiting to hoar His Honor make the punishment fit the crime.
 It is a peculiar thing that it took Stevenson several years to realize his position, but without doubt he realized it fully st lGgt, and he real ized that although his court daily and hourly adjudicated, society die not improve on that account at all, and would not improve were he to throw the book at every prisoner came before him.
 It's a legacy of another day that guilt is regarded especially amon the poor as strictly individual and personal There is no divided res possibility and certainly no socia! responsibility. No ono takes stock of the economic environment that leads directly to crime and would change that environment-least Ct all does legal procedure provide for a consideration of any such fact.
 No stock is taken of the prisoners being victims of an hercdity-of eco homie necessity. They have sinnod and must pay the penalty. It is wholly immaterial that the criminal procedure is out of date and archaic and unscientific. The law lives by precedent and takes no stock of science. It is infallable and insists upon all regarding it as such.
 It ignores the existence of such science an criminology. And foI the same crime regardless of every thing else, it has the same punish ments. It measures with it's ancient yardstick guilt whatever may have been the compelling cause, and it has a right to swerve in no way from the prescribed penalties that must be enforced. It operates by formula.
 It is the same today as yesterday, justice when it should be fully shamed often enough of its inlieX- ible blindness.
 Men are beginning to cast doubts upon the effect of punitive treat ment. Men are instituting prison reform which means that they are no longer penal residences but where each prisoner is a subject for treatment individually. There are honor systems where men are trust ed as human beings, and co-opera- tive plans which help to build up a prisoners confidence in himself and his capacity.
 It was not the removal of capital punishment that diminished sheep stealing or the mitigation in his sentence that reduced the number of horse thieves.
 It is not an acciden. that crimes increase when winter arrives and the opportunities to labor are fewer. It is not chance at all that iL ccun- , tries where life is maintained with difficulty and the fortunes are un- } certain, conditions are often highly criminal and degrading.
 , There is more crime in the slums of New York than in Fifth Avenue that is crime that is subjected tG the prosecution and punishment by ! the officials. The we'll fed man whose |: living is not in doubt Is seldom e burglar and less frequently a hold up man. The man who has access to orderly means of livelihood on : the farm or in the store seldom ventures to flag a train and rob the express car. Theft is not degrading Ito the man who is driven by eco