The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-04-13
AS Plain Matter of Human Experience There Is No
Degree of Theft Which Will Pay One Mill on the
Dolar-Example of Mott Haven Red Alonzo
Whitman, Ellen Peck and Other Notabes

who Is now a nickel CRATER after
thirty years Of dishonest plotting. Ask
Pat Gallagher. swell till Taper" and
now a cadger in East Side gin mills.
Ask Jimmy Farrell. clever forger and
counterfeiter for thirty years, but now
down and out. Ask a hundred such,
and you would get one answer:
There's nothing in it,"
The Living Example.
Their testimony is more important
than that presented by the police, for
they are living examples of the futility
o. theft. Their whole lives are shock
ing illustrations of the fact that of all
the ways Of wasting time crime is the
least profitable and the most ruinous.
There may be some methods of squan-
dering the years by which men and
women can get fairly even trade
with the devil, either mentally or phys
ically, but in the crime trade Sir Sa-
tan takes principal and interest and
tLen most usuriously seizes body and
soul. There are no exceptions to it.
II is of no consequence to point out
that here and there in the world are
men who drive about in costly motor
cars, live in mansions and rent pews
in churches who made their fortunes
evilly. But what goes on inside these
men? Who knows what blackmail
they pay? Who can guess their Sc
cret humiliations? Who can estimate
their fear of the hereafter? And every
so often one Of these rotten trees falls
with a crash and throws up a dust in
the world.
At Police Headquarters there Is an
angled room approached through a
wicket OF steel. 1t is a graveyard of
human lives. The careers of men and
women are to be found there, all
tucked away neatly in steel boxes,
leum of fallen humanity; vault
wherein the dead souls of living per-
sons are already buried. Novelists
would do well to enter this vault and
read the inscriptions. There is moth
ing on the dark side of life which may
not be found there. This room is off,
cially entitled 1.-THE Bureau of Grim
inal Identification" Therefore it Is
a morgue, in which may be identified
the personality of individuals with
aliases as scars, prison sentences as
distinguishing marks. 1t Is not a
cheerful place, though there are few
rooms more interesting. In addition
to being a morgue II Is laboratory
for the study of crime. There are peo-
pie who visit it regularly to perfect
their knowledge of how best to pro-
tect society from marauders. None
know better than these students that
crime offers no reward. 1t is time
thrown away, lives squandered TO nc
end.
AIonzo whitman's Record.
One of the steel boxes containing
dead souls Is marked with the name
"Alonzo ]. whitman" Here was-is-
an individual who schemed for gen.
Grafton to make crime pay, equipped
as he was with about every physical
and mental asset necessary to the
trade. Tall, handsome. scholarly look
ing. splendidly educated. he worked al
forgery for twenty years Not so long
ago he was sitting upon the curb al
Canal street and the Bowery regarding
the toes Of his right foot protruding
through the ruin Of shoe. A little
later a Judge In Cincinnati was giving
him two years in the penitentiary
There is scarcely q better example OF
| the utter foolishness of crime thar
! whitman.
1 He IL the son Of Minnesota mine
owner and lumber man who was rated
| as a millionaire In the '70s. Young
| whitman went to Hamilton College
and subsequently to the Columbia Uni.
yersity Law School. Not one boy ir
| 100 had as good a chance to wrest for.
tune honestly from fate. He wen'
back to Minnesota, got into politics