The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-08-15

of identifying insanity. The courts
regularly call in all sorts of doctors to
give expert testimony as to the sanity
of persons on trial, and among these
are almost every sort except special
lists in criminal insanity. These doc
tors nearly always disagree.
We have even had the spectacle of
man who Is declared insane and
dangerous in one state and perfectly
sane in another. The attempts of bar
and bench to deal with the problems
of insanity in relation to crime have
simply disguised the public and caused
it to lose faith in the scientific dag
nosis of delinquents.
The law cannot be said to have
progressed in its attitude toward
crime, but 1t has passed thru various
phases. Long ago it generally killed
the offender AT one time there were
on the English statute books 1855
crimes punishable by death, includ-
ing such minor ones as stealing a
pig, or three shillings. But this rig
orous punishment was abandoned,
because, altho it certainly deferred
the immediate offender, it did not
prevent crime. In modern times the
opposite sentimental theory. that the
criminal is a hard-used person and
needs but few kind words, has had
it's innings. Criminals have been put
upon their honor, adopted, wept over
and prayed for. Sobbing juries ac-
quit beautiful ladies who murder
their husbands. Malefactors turn
the public press. But crime still in
The enviroHmentalists are another
modern school. They assert that the
slums with their bad air. their vice
and dirt are what make criminals.
These people can tell you how many
pool-roomS there are to the block in
the East side, and how many bars,
and how many front bedrooms and
how many back. Undoubtedly all
these things have a share in the MAX
ing of criminals; but they are second
airy. The primary thing which makes
man criminal is lesion in his
brain, and he may have inherited that
from an ancestor who was deported
| from Europe in colonial days.
The nub of the trouble is that Meth
er society nor the law has ever asked
| that fundamental question, which
| science has now answered.: Why is
man criminal? Law and society have
| sought to cure a disease without dag.
| nosing it. The process is about as log
zeal as an attempt to cure leprosy
with vaseline, or to heal a man shot
| thru the stomach by sticking a piece
of court plaster over the wound.
Indeed, the ire -1ent of crime Is
passing thru much the same evolution
, as medical science has already passed
| thru. For a long time doctors tried
i to cure all ailments by attacking the
/ symptoms. Then came the theory OF
preventive medicire-of learning the
nature of a disease and preventing its
occurrence-and meF cal science pro
! crossed more in ten years than it had
| in half a century before.
| Now science has set out to learn tbs
nature of crime as it learned the ma
| ture of i5caSe. 1t has asked itself the
| question: 'Wty IS man criminal?'
| In Europe the question ras been an
| swered and the answer proved cor
| rect, There, tho err. CT preventive
| justice (to invent a tcrm) has arrived
/" America the treatment of crime is
still in a state corresponding to thai
| in the evolutiC n of medical science
W -en the lccch and the blood cur
were standard remedies