Omaha daily bee., 1920-02-29
Brigandage Replaces
Burglar1es
(From the New York Times

NAAShA rsaAS ANS" Va n LahASSsJ
A good many New Workers are
viewing with an approach to serious
apprehension what at least seems to
them a marked and continuous in.
crease in their city Of robberies
committed by armed men, usually
masked, manifesting as little fear Of
the police as of the victims they Sc.
lect. There is, Of course, nothing
entirely new in these exploits. They
have been perpetrated,-now and
then, all through the past. even here.
but they were rare, until recently
and the careers of the men who en-
gagged in them were invariably, or
next to invariably, short.
AS yet these holder robbers have
confined their attention to groups of
men gathered in places more or less
public. though technically private,
like district political cubs and the
humber organizations nomina!iy
social. For reasons not hard to
guess, the bandits have chosen to ex.
act their tribute from those little in.
clined to talk much about what they
were doing when their amusements
were thus cruelty interrupted, and
for that reason they have excited
less fear and indignation than other
wise would have been theirs, and
comment on their misfortune has
often taken a somewhat humorous
turn.
But If the holding up Of these
specializing "clubmen" remains a
safe source Of revenue, it will not
be long before the use of the same
| nvtA -
houses, and the occupants Of them,
instead of guarding as we'll as they
can against burglars Of the old
fashioned sort, will live In we'll
founded dread Of finding themselves
confronted any evening by despoil.
ers, who make their presence
promptly known, instead Of trying
to hide it. and who trust to the
coercion of the pointed pistol, in
stead of to stealthy skill exercised in
the dark.
This Isl an alarming prospect for
the good citizen, thanks to the Sulli
van law, usually is unarmed, and
even If he has strained his ron.
science to the extent of having a re.
volver or one Of the newer auto
mates, he carries it in a bureau
drawer, where the children cannot
get it, and in such an emergency as
these gentry could create for him it
might as we'll be loaded with choco.
late caramels as with cartridges.
Why ordinary burglary should
have given place in considerable
part to the fiercer sort of brigandage
behooves the police promptly to
solve. The easy explanation is the
war and its familiarizing of men by
the hundreds OF thousands with the
attainment OF ends by the infliction
or the threat Of death. The theory
may serve with the pacifists, and
there is no doubt that in other days
It often happened that disbanded
soldiers turned to robbery as the
only means of livelihood that was
open to them.
But no such alternative confronts
the returned American soldier, and
of such few captures as have been
made of holdup men almost all have
disclosed, not somebody who has
been fighting for his country, but
somebody who has managed to
evade that and every other form of
civic obligation. In every one of
the few cases that can be remem-
bered, when the robber turned out
to have been a member of our ex-
peditionary forces. it also has been
shown that he was a criminal be-
fore he entered the army.
Not the war. but the spread of
evil heresies as to the rights of prop
erty, is the probable cause Of the
new departure. For anybody i'm
bued with bolshevist ideas, for him
who has not to take from him VINO
has seems logical and even right.