The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-12-13
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HAsKIN. Director.
washington, d. G.
AMERICA LEADS IN CRIME

ington has about three times as many
homicides as Liverpool. In New York
more people are murdered in a year
than in all of England and Wales put
together. In a typical American city
there are several times as many bur-
glaries every year as there are in Lon
don. in proportion to population.
over 5000 automobiles were stolen in
New York in 1919, while 290 were
stolen in London and 10 in Liverpool.
These are a few typical samples,
chosen at random, of the statistics pre-
4 scented by Raymond B. Fosdick in his
book on American police systems.
They show that the United States leads
the world in crime, not by a small
| margin, but by several hundred per
cent. 1t is perhaps the most lawless
place on earth which pretends to have
a civilized government.
Mr.. Fosdick occupies unique place
in this country as an expert on crime
and police work, who has studied all
the principal police systems of Europe,
as well as that of his own country.
During the war he was placed in con-
Camp Activities. which was certainly
one of the most creditable of our war
time activities. His book is not of a
popular nature, and appeals chiefly to
students and professionals. 1t there
fore seems worth while to give the
gist of his remarkable facts and argu-
ments here.
Far more interesting than proof of
Americas world leadership in the pro-
duction of all kinds of crime is his
acute analysis of the reasons for this.
| His viewpoint here is that of a cosmo-
politan rather than typical Ameri-
can reformer. He does not see the
cause of our crime-ridden state pri-
marily in the fact that we do not all
go to Sunday school, nor in the NOV
les. nor in the dime novels. nor in the
foxtrot, nor in short skirts, homebrew
nor cabarets. He does not believe that
a great wave of moral reform could
| sweep all this crime away, nor that
multiplication of laws would solve the
problem. On the contrary, he makes
out strong case for the view that
what we suffer from is too many laws.
which attempt to regulate personal
conduct instead of to prevent crime,
laws which are fundamentally unen-
forcible, because they are not suffi-
GENTLY supported by opinion, and
which have had the effect of making
| all law ridiculous, and of giving social
sanction to much law-breaking.
Causes of Crime.
True, he sees other causes for our
national criminality. He shows that
lated racial elements presents a unique
police problem. He shows that the
absurdity of our administration of
criminal law is an encouragement to
| crime. He shows that almost any
criminal who can hire a lawyer has
! viction, and that one with plenty OF
money, or with political pull, is sell
dom convicted. This is painfully true,
| and has been pointed out before. But
IT, y rNaY
mind is the most original and arrest
ing thing he has to offer. He
shows that none but the Germans OF
the period before the war were ever
so ridden by laws designed to make
of men aregimented mass, rather than
a group of free individuals.
1.-The willingness with which we un-
| dertake to regulate by law the per-
| sonal habits of private citizens is a
source of perpetual establishment to
| Europeans" he writes. I'm no coun--
try in Europe, with the exception of
Germany, is an attempt ever made to
| enforce standards of conduct which
do not meet with general public ap-
proval, or, at the behest of what may
be a. minority. to bring particular
code of behavior within the scope of
| criminal legislation. With us. how
ever. every year adds its aecretion to
our sumptuary laws. 1t suits the judg-
| ment of some and the temper of others
to convert into crimes practices which
they deem mischievous or unethical.
They resort to law to supply the de-
ficiencies of other agencies of social
control. They attempt to govern by
means of law things which in their
nature do not admit of objective treat
ment and external coercion. .
The views of particular groups of peo-
pie on questions of private conduct
are made the legal requirements of
faA dAd fNxr
penal laws whose only purpose is to
enforce by threat certain standards of
morality.
Moral Laws.
Indeed, this presents one of the
strange anomalies of American life.
with an intolerance for authority and
an emphasis upon individual rights
more pronounced, perhaps than in
any other nation, we are, OF all peo-
/ pie, not even excepting the Germans,
pre-eminently addicted to the habit of
| standardiZing the lives and morals of
our citizens. Nowhere in the world is
there so great an anxiety to place the
regulation of moral affairs in the
hands of the police. and nowhere are
the police so incapable of carrying
| out such regulations
Our concern, moreover, is for ex-
ternals, for results that are formal and
apparent rather than essential. We
are less ANXIOUS ABOUT preventing a
man from doing wrong to others than
in preventing him from doing what we
consider harm to himself We
attack symptoms, rather than causes,
and in doing so we create a species of
moralistic despotism which overrides
the private conscience and destroys
liberty where liberty is most precious"
There is little anyone can add to
that paragraph. but Mr.. Fosdick goes
on to describe some of our laws.
i Unenforcible Laws.
"Often the laws are such as to defy
enforcement even if they had behind
them a substantial body of public
opinion. Thus there are laws against
4 kissing. laws against face powder and
rouge, laws against earrings, laws
regulating the length of womens
skirts, laws fixing the size of hatpins
/. One would have to scan the