The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-07-26
Loneliness And Crime
By DIR. FRANK CRANE

It would be interesting, if there were any way of getting at the figures, to know how many crimes could, be traced to sheer lone som&ness. 7s-Nr e t~'
 The young man drifts into an evil current that wrecks his success just because he wants companionship. Too often integrity means isolation.
 The young woman spoils her life not be- cause she is wicked, but because she is lonely Too often virtue locks her up alone, away from laughter and humantide and vice is so friendly!
 How many q wife has brought ruin to her self simply by breaking out of the prison of prudence!
 Think of the innumerable army of youth right now in the great city. held back to being good by the thin chains of moral sense or fear, drawn on toward folly by the strong cables of fellowship the boy in his cheap boarding house, the girl in her hall bedroom young adyenturers in life condemned to the third floor back, pathetic figures sitting on trunks, and, besides eating their hearts, hear ing all around them the roar of the full waves of lush humanity!
 You never walk the crowded streets that you do not feel it, the terrible lonesomeness that turks in multitudes. The physical mass smites you with a spiritual isolation.
 You feel you have q right to know these, people, all of them. They have treasures of friendship that belong to you Each one is hugging to himself a personality made to cheer you, as if you were dying of thirst and every passer-by had jug of water he re- fused to share.
 People do not go to the theatre to hear the play, to church to attend the sermon, nor to the concert to listen to the players; they go to tap the reservoir of humanity, to drink of the crowds soul, to feel in the applause or tears or laughter the electric touch of the common life.
 The sharpest lack of our civilization is it's lack of free intercourse one with another and with all. We have all sorts of groups--we have lodges, clubs, sets and sects-but their effort is to segregate. can know my fellow member in anything only by virtue of agree ing not to know outsiders
 What has become of the old word fellow citizen?" Alas! It has been gobbled by demagoguery.
 Would it not be great fun if we could have a city sociable, where we could meet with no other right and title than that we are human beings; something like the old county fair or old settlers picnic?
 Bar traffic from Broadway and have the street given over on Saturday afternoon to feasting and drinking, games of children and chat of women, and talk of men. Let million aires and smart sets, pushcart vendors and bootblacks barbers actors, preachers, ar- tists, engineers, plasterers. typlsts teachers, newspaper men, college professors and priests -"all sorts and conditions of men"-let them meet, without fear or hope of profit, and realize democracy.
 That we smile at this as absurdly imprac- tical shows how many million miles we have yet to travel to reach q real sense of demOc- racy.
 We are too much afraid of each other. We might make undesirable acquaintances; some one might pick our pocket; we should be spoken to by rude persons; a thousand un- pleasant things might happen; and, besides, we should not want such a festival. As we are consuming our days and nights trying to become more and more exclusive, why should we turn around and become at once in- elusive? le.
 The preachers would doubtless think it sin- ful, the police would think it dangerous, the good would be afraid of 1t, and the bad would take advantage of it. So by all its gains civilization is restrained from fellowship. The old-world carnivals are disappearing. The genial humanities are boxed up. We no more dine in the street. We crawl into bedizensd holes in the wall to drink.
 And yet the child of loneliness is vice. We should be friendly enough and forget our castes and exclusions, if we were ship wrecked together upon a small island.
 We are. The little island is the earth. It is speck in the ocean of stars. We are here g but q while Why not be human2