Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-09-12
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
BY PAUL Y. COLLINS.

pressions. to the drink and bad COM
pany" which had brought them there.
X y X +
President Hoover is seeking to find
some method for stimulating sentiment
for law enforcement. He does not ap-
pear to be working along the lines
advocated some years ago by dlstln-
guished mayor of Toledo, Mr.. Brand
Whitlock-later Minister to Belgium
for Mr.. Whitlock outlined his policy
as one that did not undertake to en-
force all statutes, but to seek to find the
causes of evils and try to remedy them
which is not generally thought to be
the peculiar duty Of an executive sworn
to enforce laws adopted by the legis-
lative branch Of Government.
X X X
Today we murder nearly 1000 Amer
leans q month. It is not believed
to rest upon the President nor gov
ernor to investigate the provocations
officers of the police to apprehend the
criminals and for the courts to exc.
cute the statutes made and provided
against their offenses; there are other
influences better adapted to carrying
on uplift and reform-moStly private
citizens, such as teachers, parents,
church workers and neighbors. Private
citizens cannot shirk their individual
responsibility in that sort OF influences,
nor assume that police and executive
officials will undertake, or can under
take, the medication Of good citizen
ship ideals.
The shame of America Is its crime
record-the most shameful of any race
in the world. In proportion to popu-
Iation, we murder twice as many as
does italy, yet we taunt Italy with its
Mafia. We kill eight times as many
as are murdered in turbulent Ireland,
and nine times as many as are slain
in England and Wales. We murdered 30
per cent more in 1924 than we did in
lawlessness by attributing it to the effect
of the World War is demonStrably false,
since the same does not seem to apply
to our allies, and. the farther we get
away from the bloody war, the bloodier
do we become in peace. There was
no such orgy Of violence following
our Civil War, nor during the World
War.
France has population, roughly
compared, about a quarter Of ours. In
1912 France counted 674 murders, and
in 1919-immediately on the heels of
her war tragedy-she had only 399 muir
ders, while we scored some 1000.
A statistician has pointed out that
in 1885 there was execution to each
1877 murders in the United States, while
in 1904 there was / out Of 70 murders,
and in 1918 / execution out of each 80
murders. In 1920 the district attorney
of New York City investigated 679 homi-
cides and found that, of the total, there
was only one convicted Of murder in the
first degree.
Another writer found that for each
In New York City; Tendon hanged z
Of her 10, while in New York only
Of the 100 was executed.
In Chicago six policemen are muir
dered in line Of duty to one murderer
hanged.
The more horrifying the crime, the
greater the tendency in America to-
ward mawkish heroizing of the GRIM
ina1. Americans have been supposed
to lack ideals and sentimentality, and
to be selfish and cold. On the contrary,
Americans are soft" toward the Grim
inal who can show he Is "hardboiled."
If England finds leniency lessening
crime, the same is reversed here, for
in 1919, $40 per cent Of all sentences
pdSSeu III rev 4OIk Oh CIlIItlIldlS vert
suspended, although 81 per cent Of the
prisoners In jail were there for second
or third offenses.
+ y + y
Not only In murders do Americans
excel all the world, but also In other
crimes. France has III robberies In
year, while in the same period, New
York City alone has LAS and Chi
cago 2,417.
In England 113 burglars were put on
trial and los convicted, while the same
year. in New York, there were 1880
.burglaxiss xepoCted SIS indictments