The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1921-06-30
SURETY FIGURES
SHOW DRY LAW
IMPA|RS MORALS
Statistics of 80 Insurance Com
pany's Establish That Fact
MAKES THIEVES OF MEN
President of a Large Concern
ROundIy Scores Prohibition
AS Big Humbug

New York. June 30.-The effect Of
national prohibition laws, in the mot
ropolitan districts at least, has been
to impair rather than to improve the
morals OF the communities Prchibi.
tion has been an important contribu-
ting factor to the nationwide crime
wave. 1t has made criminals of
thousands of men and women and
has cost the surety and bonding com
panies Of the country hundreds of
thousands of dollars since it went in
to effect.
The foregoing are the opinions Of
| William b. Joyce, president of the
National Surety Company. arrived at
after a careful analysis OF claims paid
for burglaries and embezzlement
losses for tho ten years ending 1920,
and survey OF the reasons for the
unprecedented increase in both
classes of crime since 1918.
Crime Wave Increases
Mr. Joyce was not speaking as an
opponent Of prohibition. His remarks
were prompted he said. by belief
that the public was Interested in the
fact that a crime wave does exist,
that many cities are inadequately
policed and that far too little investi-
cation was made by many employers
of the character and habits of men
and women assigned to positions Of
trust
Prohibition, he said, has been very
largely responsible for conditions re-
fiected in a composite report Of thirty
Of the leading bonding and surety
companies in the United States. 1t
has inspired a contempt for the law
Mr.. Joyce said, and apart from the
extremes of law breakers-the indi.
yidual who buys a drink of forbidden
hootch aud the bootlegger who en-.
cages I'm the traffic "a large scale
1t has made thieves OF thousands who
otherwise hew to the straight and
narrow without deviation.
There are many, we have found, ~
Mr. Joyce declared, who think no
more of stealing a bottle or a case OF
booze than "A person does Of pinching
an umbrella on rainy day
"NaN WiHhSN FNl'SNNSSs
Tie effect of the law, Mr.. Joyce
pointed out. has been disastrous upon
weak minded individuals with limited
incomes who have not been able to
curtail their bibulous habits, but try
to maintain the same daily average Of
highballs anu rickeye at rs cents 10
81 apiece as they did when the stuff
sold for what it was worth.
The victim first spends his or her
savings, then runs in debt, then be-
gins a series of minor peculations
that grow and which eventually end
in loss of position or worse very
large proportion Of this class of vic
tins are women, Mr.. Joyce has found
and their plights result directly from
the application Of the liquor laws.
Apart from these cases, prohibition
has hit the surety and burglary insur
ance companies hard in the enormous
quantities of liquors stolen from pri-
yate residences and warehouses. In
scores of cases that have come under
Mr.. Joyces own observation burglar
les have occurred where jewelry,
plate and other yaluables were avail
able, and where cellar stocks were
the only things missing when the in
truders got through,
The total embezzlement claims paid
by thirty of the leading companies
last year was 5,623,S19 and burglary
claims amounting to 1O1S9,s53. The
latter class practically doubled over
the figures for 1919, and are ten times
as great as they were ten years ago,
On the ratio of insured to total
losses these figures indicate total bur
glaries of about 100000, 600 last year
and that figure does not include train
robberies like the recent Toledo and
Council Bluffs cases. where enormous
hauls we're had.