The Washington times., 1924-04-19
GIVES
NEW REASONS
FOR SUICIDE
Noted Psychiatrists Says Fear
to Kill Those They Hate
lmpeIIsl Many.
By JULIA MCCARTHY,
Cosmopolitan News Service.


NEW YORK, April 19.-Lots of
people commit suicide because they
cannot commit homicide.
These people can't commit homi-
eide because they are unable to
bring themselves to kill another.
So they end by killing themselves.
This is the comment of an emf
nent psychiatrist upon the suicide
statistics in the United States for
the year 1923 in which 12,948 per-
sons took their own lives.
Among them are more men than
women.
And among them, so H. M. War
rem, president of the Save-A-Life
League, which presents the stats.
tics believes, are women victims OF
their own freedom of fast" habits
and the liberties Of late hours.
Reasons Trivial.
The reasons?
Trivial ones for the most part,
says the leagues report.
Yet far from trivial are the rea-
sons which prompted 12,94S self
distractions last year, says DIR.
Edward Kempf, one of the most
noted psychiatrists in this country.
eff these cases were analysed,
you would find" begins DIR. Kempf,
"that most of them killed them
selves because they couldn't bear
to kill another person. This other
person was some one who had a
profound dominating effect.
Because it becomes matter OF
the life or death of one or the
other, a suicide results"
Immediately one thinks of the
recluse who kills himself and then
wonders how the wish to escape
q dominating person applies to him.
To this objection DR.. Kempf re-
plies:
1.-THE recluse is the person who
has withdrawn from his family
FAMILY particularly!
Victims of Bad Starts.
"Particularly-becau all suicides
are victims of bad starts in life.
They have had a hard time at
home. The wish to live, and love
of life, introverted by parental
domination, then becomes the wish
to die, or love for death. The urge
to die is originally designed in its
first stages to arouse fear and re-
gret in the parents. And to make
them yield.
'It takes many years to work out.
1.-The things they really loved
have been suppressed and lost. Only
through analysis or accident,
through the help of associates or
friends are the emotions of the po-
tential' suicide released SO as to
make life worth living. When they
cannot be released, life becomes
burdensome.
"If only these people could find
something to do for which they
have natural aptitude. Something
they love to do. Usually suicides
are persons who in childhood showed
q spontaneous fascination and apti.
tude for something which, the pa
rents resisted as if it led to evil"
People Must Let Go.
So, as DIR. Kempf points out, PEG.
pie must let go when they have
nothing to hang Onto
Think of a beautiful young girl
like Margaret Harding, of Boston,
committing suicide. Or of the at
tempt of Mrs. William Brown, of
Chicago, to die by slashing her
throat with a razor. Or of Mrs.
Louise Hartshorne Leeds, of New
York, plunging to death from the
window of her home. Or of pretty
Vallie Belasco Martin, whose friends
said when she killed herself a few
months ago that it was due to fail
ure to become a great actress.
prominent or not, it is all the
same thing" DR.. Kempf replies.
''The poor man out of work, in
debt, overshadowed with obligations.
Is dominated and can't break
through.
1.-THE wealthy person with all the
material resources he needs, with
apparent access to every liberty,
may be internally bound up in his
emotional life because his affections
are fixed on unattainable things.
Sexual taboos, jealousies and ad-
diction to their ancestors, by which
I mean family tradition, these are
the things that have dominated the
-