The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-07-16
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFORMATION
BUREAU,
FREDERIC J. RAsKIN, Dirscs0s.
Waah1ngtan, .. @
BOMB-THROWERS DIAGNOSED
AS INSANE.

BOMB-THROWERS DIAGNOSED
AS INSANE.
CHICAGO, July 13.-The bomb-throw-
ers and assassins who recently have
been destroying property and menac-
ing valuable lives are without excep-
ton insane, in the opinion of DR.. VIII
liam j. Hickson, director of the Psy-
chopathic laboratory of the municipal
court of Chicago.
The stupid and unscientific way in
which we handle men-and women with
diseased and defective brains is re-
sponsible, he holds, for what We call
the red menace." 1t is only indirect
ly due to political conditions. If our
criminal courts and our immigration
offices knew how to detect these ir-
responsible persons so that they could
be isolated when native-born, and pre-
vented from entering the country
when they are immigrants. there
would be no bomb outrages or asSas-
sinations. 1t is not mere theory, says
this expert 1t is based upon a care
full study of men and women OF the
| type that has been terrorizing the
country with bombs and bullets. Doc
tor HicksOn has examined oyer fifty
reds for the federal government and
many more for the Chicago police. In
almost every case he has found these
persons to be suffering from specific
The Chicago Psychopathic labora-
tor, founded by Chief Justice Harry
Olson, has become famous for its
scientific and successful methods of
handling criminals. Judge Olson and
Doctor Hickson, and Mrs. Hickson.
who is her husbands chief assistant
have proved conclusively that nearly
all criminals are either insane or OF
defective intelligence. To sentence one
of these irresponsible for a term OF
years, and then turn him loose again.
to commit more crimes and breed
more detectives, is one of the stupid
est things which modern society does.
The criminal insane should be isolated
in colonies where they cannot commit
crimes and cannot breed If this were
done the criminal element could In
time be almost eliminated. and the
, enormous sums which we pay in the
form of taxes for police protection.
and the loss of life and property due
to crime, could be greatly reduced.
This is the message which the Chi
cago crime laboratory has Tor the
country. Already several other cities
have founded laboratories like that at
Chicago, and in Illinois legislation is
being considered providing for a col
ony where the criminal insane can be
| scientifically cared for and perma-
emily isolated.
Now it has been found that the
reds" who have filled the newspa-
pers during recent months. are weak
lings of exactly the same type as those
who commit other crime. Intelligent
radicals do not throw bombs or try to
shoot public officials, because any in
| telligent person can see that such
measure are futile. They do not tend
in the least to change the social order.
They merely outrage public opinion
and make II suspicious of all brands
of radicalism and liberalism. The
leaders of all the intellectual radical
groups in the United States have de-
nounced the bomb-throwers.
The idea that there Is a powerful
national organization which has for
its purpose the killing of public Off
Gals is largely wrong. The men and
women who throw bombs have not
brains enough to perfect an organiza-
ton. On the other hand criminals
and weaklings of all kinds have a
/ strong tendency to band loosely to-
gether. like children and savages. This
giant red" organization. of which we
| have heard so much. II II could be
brought to light and examined, would
| probably be found to contain n mere
handful of idiots, who should be cared
for in institutions. who are drawn to-
/ gether by their common misfortune.
and who have no ineligible political
theory whatever. Their emotional
natures are unbalanced and uncon-
trolled. They catch the fever of po-
litical change and unrest which is in
the air, and it generates in their dis
eased minds an impulse toward futile
| violence.
The very character Of the bomb out
| RACES, it is pointed out, should be suf-
| ficient proof that they are the work
| of weak-minded persons. In series
| OF more than a dozen attempts to blow
| up public officials by bombs sent thru
| the mails and planted in houses, there
| intelligence to use dynamite with skill
| and success, as shown by the fact that
| thousands Of ordinary laborers use IL
constantly in mining, quarrying and
road building. Yet the terrible reds
have no success whatever. and the
most daring of them only succeeds in
blowing himself to atoms.
To the average citizen a ''red" is as
| strange and terrible a creature as the
bloodsweating Behemoth. 1t might
interest him therefore to know some
thing about few of the individuals
suspected of connection with bomb
plots who were examined by Doctor
Hickson. One of them was a man of
low intelligence who was afflicted with
| dementia praecox. This form OF in
sanity does not make him appear
crazy to the superficial observer but
1t prevents him from working with any
success and 1t gives him an irresist-
ible impulse towards acts of violence.
This man made his living BY rubbing
out the figure one on one-dollar bills
and substituting five, doing all the
work with an ordinary lead pencil
He called himself socialist and oc-
casionally made speeches in radical
meetings which showed that he did
not know anything about socialism
| or anything else.
Outwardly very different, but in
wardly very similar, was man OF
some wealth who always carried a red
flag on his automobile. He was re-
tpeatedly arrested for fighting. and
showed in many ways that he was
mentally unbalanced.
A woman who was arrested as a
red suspect always wore a red sweater
to show that she was an anarchist.
She was twenty years old. She was
diagnosed by Doctor Hickson as a
high grade soeiopath. which means
that she had about the intelligence of
an ordinary child of fourteen.