The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1917-01-19
A WILD CARNIVAL OF CRIME
Continued from page ~

opened the door for a flood of law
lessness.
These strained conditions ar,
greatly increased in the cities. Re
liable statistics show that nineteenth;
of the crimes of the nations are com
mitted in the cities. Here capita
and labor stand face to face. Here
are found the organized gangs OF
criminals, the %corrupting dens of sin
Here gathered the masses of the
people, and to these centers of pop
ulation drift the great armies of the
unemployed. Haunted by the cries
of starving children; excited by in
fammatory speeches; desperate, per-
haps, from the gnawing of hunger
and frenzied by zeal or fancied in
juries, these mammoth thronrs of hu-
mainly break out in reckless defiance
Of AUTHORITY.
Mob violence is growing in serious
ness. Oftentimes a declaration of
marital law becomes imperative to
prevent general carnage and anarchy.
Unpublished lawlessness, l~ynching,
rioting and such like, a easily be-
come one of the greatest problems
confronting the nation. And TIL
present conditions of society are pro-
ductive of anarchy, with its knife
for universal bloodletting and its
bomb for universal explosion"
The fearful increase of crime
among women and children is appal-
ling. Boys and girls are becoming
expert criminals. Train wrecks, as
saults. murders. poisoning of parents
to obtain property, and every variety
and species of lawlessness. are grow
ing common. 1t seems that the di.
viding line between right and wrong
has been obliterated among tens of
thousands of the rising generation.
Crime is increasing at an alarming
rate among children, and the juvenile
court judges of the country agree
that the orime-creative m~oving-pic-
ture films. dime novels and detective
stories II largely responsible for this
condition. Almost without an ex-
ception, the youthful delinquents are
Of the movies" And
not only boys but girls in their ten
der teens, gangs of them in every
city, + the partners in crime of the
abandoned of characters.
The violence of the present war
stands without a parallel in the an
nails of history. The inventive gen.
us of this age of invention has been
appropriated for the devising of the
most diabolical weapons for the
ilaughtering of human beings.
We stand upon the threshold of
times. Civilization has
'een unconsciously preparing for a
reign of terror, that will
the scenes of the French Rev
tuition into the realms of insignif-
ance. The tremendous enginry of
destruction that is being invented viii!
used. The elimination of this
arth's history will be accomplished
With all the crime and reckless vio-
ence of the days before the Flood.
"As it was in the days of Noah, so
hall it be also in the days of the Son
f MAN.; Luke 1926. For the d.
inc record of the utter abandon of
hose day.. read Genesis G:5-13.
we are told that the earth
as corrupt before God, and the
arth was filled with violence" And
the wickedness of man" was so t
great in the earth" that every {
of the thoughts of his I
cart was only evil continually" I
This thought is brought out, too,
the history of Sodom. Read
uke ~17:2S-30 and Genesis 19:4-9.
ne has but to read, in the daily !,
ress, of the periodic waves of vio- +
nee that roll over the earth, to see i
lie unmistakable twentieth century ]
u
Those need not be called alarmists :
T. pessimists who present these v
.artling facts. If a twentieth cen p
Try limited" filled with passengers, =.
as speeding on toward a washOut in y
lie track, or ar open draw in the c
ridge, would the person who waved F
changer signal in an effort to save .
lie lives of the passengers be con- =
dered an alarmist? {
Humanity is rushing on down the n
ack of twentieth century civiliza- I
on; but sin has caused a washout, u
as opened the draw. If humanity
reeds on at its present reckless pace, is
will be hopelessly wrecked, and the
nqunechable fires Of the last day II
break out to consume the wreck =,
ge. The wild, goddess sins of the
~ will .pl IN III. I1oI. -