The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-04-15

instead of better, although 1t was predicted that after the "baelIwash" of the World war had subsided there would be decrease in crime.
 Murder and robbery getting to be so com mon in America that they are taken almost as a matter of course The motor bandit and the gunman are not only found in every large city, but they are so numerous, so active and seem to enjoy such immunity from punish ment, that no law-abiding citizen is safe from their depredations.
 Addressing the American Bar association in Chicago, former Gov Charles s. Whitman of New York, who is a member of the law en- forcement committee of the association, told his hearers that "crime has progressed; the laws under which we are proceeding against it are those of generations ago."
 Advocating a radical departure in our method of administering justice, the speaker said:
 Our Angio-Saxon system of jurisprudence was based upon the condition of happy and agricultural community, in which crimes committed in the heat of passion and not by a professional criminal class.
 It Is question whether that system is able to cope with conditions today, when murderers be hired and where dishonest criminal lawyers provide bulwarks of defense which the law constituted is unable to break down.
 The criminals chief shelter is in the funda- mental provision that accused of a crime may not be required to testify at his trial.
 In our desire to be fair and to protect the justly accused have got away from the simple and primary idea that the accused is possessed of knowledge that belongs to society," if it is to judge him rightly.
 If the present idea of exemptng the accused from testifyins is changed the professional criminal and his lawyer will be handicapped in evasion of just punishment
 believe it is a fact that life on the island of Manhattan is more dangerous today than 200 years when the first settlers began their residence there in wilderness populated by bowling savages
 Former Governor Whitman points out the weakness in our jurisprudence, the provision which enables a defendant to refuse to tes- tify at his own trial Every lawyer and every court official knows that this protects crim- inal who can place his in the hands of lawyers and let them build up an adroit de- fense. If there were no dishonest criminal lawyers it would not be so easy to escape the just penalty for crime, but unfortunately the professional criminal is never without expert legal advice, which he pays well. The profess sional criminal regards his 'fence," his bonds man and his lawyer as indispensable.
 Some jurists have recommended the revival of the whipping post, deterrent to crime among them Judge W. M. Gemmill of Detroit According to Judge Gemmil's figures, in 1921 St. Louis had 426 murders, Philadelphia 346, New York 261, Chicago 206, Boston 1O2 and Washington 69. These are but few of the larger cities. In Detroit it is claimed that strict law enforcement has reduced the num- Der of criminals, but until some method is devised to insure swift legal punishment that will be far more difficult to evade than under the system now in force, the professional crim- inal will continue to flourish.