Evening star., 1925-08-08
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
BY PAUL y, COLLINS.

In the West the people are growing
desperate over the crime wave and
the inadequacy of the police and
courts to curb the daring activities of
highwaymen, burglars. murderers, em-
bezzlers and crooks in general. In
Chicago and several other Midwest
cities the people have formed vigilance
committees to aid the police in law en-
forcement, and banks have put up
offers of rewards for the capture, dead
or alive. of bank robbers. Here in
Washington. the seat of government,
how serene are we! We have heard of
no crime wave in Washington.
At the Office of the District prose
cutor the statistics indicate a decrease
of cases OF felony in the last fiscal
year, as compared with the year 1924
At police headquarters, the statistics
show decrease in the number of ar
rests. We thank-at least we are glad
that we are not like other Americans.
and we prove it with fgures-for
figures will not lie
In a recent article in the Saturday
Evening Post, Richard Washburn
Child, under the heading The Great
American Scandal" says:
Lacking figures, the average
citizen listens to his mayor, his board
of commissioners and his police chief.
These gentlemen are usually loath to
expose the increase of crime. 1t takes
months to learn, as l have learned, to
take information about our crime rec
ord and then discount and interpret it
in the light of other knowledge
The average law enforcement of
ficer will say for publicati ton, We have
crime under control. OF course, there
was a crime wave. 1t was due to the
war. -
For instance l said to one chief of
police, is this city any dryer than it
was five years ago?'
oh, certainly he said, beaming.
i just told one of our local papers,
yesterday, about that We met the
ooot!egger and we have beaten him
Then how do you account for the
fact that your disorderly conduct ar
rests have nearly doubled in five years
and are going higher?
he looked at me searchingly. and
said, Well, all right. Can l play truth
with you? 49,
" 1t is as silly to judge the amount
OF crime by arrests said one detective
sergeant. as it would be to judge that
there were no rats in the house be-
cause no traps were set"
X X X
In New York daily of last Thurs
day appeared a letter from William B.
Joyce, chairman of surety company,
who for three decades has been a close
student Of criminology. The letter was
addressed to the National Crime Com
mission, headed by Elbert H. Gary of
the United States Steel Corporation
Mr.. Joyce stated that fraud takes
from the American public. annually,
100000 900; burglary about the same
amount, embeZzlement $125, 900
and forgery, together with check rails
ing, 100000, 900. Law enforcement
costs the country $500, ,0o0, 900, even in
the present state of notorious failure
, to enforce.
In Chicago at least one murder is
committed, daily. New York kills even
faster. The whole of England and
Wales kills only half as many as does
New York City; all of Canada fewer
| than does our City of Brotherly Love.
wild and woolly' Western Australia,
with its frontier population Of $50, 900
-three-fourths the population Of
Washington-kills only two year,
while our murder record was 20 in the
fiscal year 1924 and 80 in the fiscal
year 1925, ended June 80.
OF these Washington murders in the
last fiscal year nine were done by
| white and the rest by colored muir
derers. Nearly half the murders land
gerous weapons are done with revol-
! vers-usually due to concealed wea D.
ons and quick anger.
| There Is a growing nationwide de-
| mand for prohibition of the sale of
| revolvers and pistols.
OF violations of the Volstead liquor