The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-10-03
Who Are the Real Criminals Behind
The Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping Case
Kidnapping Flourishes
in Social Soil of
Capitalism
By 81 Gerson

" 1867, Une INFANT CnafleS
Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., was
taken from his crib by some
person whose identity to this
day is unknown. From the
Lindbergh home in the Sour
land Mountains, near Hopewell
New jersey, there spread of thread
OF investigation which raveled it
self about thousands Of miles across
the United States, spanned the
ocean and is unwinding itself in
Leipzig, Germany, and the Bronx
County Courthouse.
More ink has poured over the
printing presses on this case than
on any other criminal case in re-
cent history. Whether for good or
bad the Lindbergh case has be-
come Of social significance and
must be discussed from this view
point.
The facts of the case, briefly, and
in chronological order, are:
/. The child was kidnapped on
the night of March l, 1882, from
its bedroom in the Lindbergh house
The nurse discovered that the child
was gone at about 10 that evening.
A ladder near the bedroom window
and a ransom note were the only
clues left by the abductor.
2. Upon notification of the police
man-hunt the like of which the
country had never seen began. The
New Jersey state police, the Fed
eral Department of Justice, the
New York city police and the gen.
darmerie of every state in the union
went on the trail Of the kidnappers.
8. In despair the fruitless efforts
of the police to recover the child,
Lindbergh on March hired two
well-known underworld characters,
Salvy Spitale and Irving BitZ, as
! sociates of the notorious Legs"
Diamond-since fastened to his rest
by rival gangsterS' bullets-to ne
gotiate for the recovery of the child.
Al Capone, emperor of gangland,
offered his aid, by no means in
considerable factor. A seemingly
unbeatable united front was formed.
4. DR.. John F. Condor, known as
"Jafsie,' a retired Catholic teacher,
entered the case at this time, serv-
ing as the go-between, making con-
tact with the kidnappers.
5. On the night Of April 2, Dr..
Condor and Lindbergh went to st.
Rayrnond's cemetery in the Bronx
where DR.. Condor delivered $4,000
to the kidnapper and was informed
that the child was on ship Off
Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.
The baby was, of course, not there.
6. On May II, the body Of the
infant, in an advanced state of de-
composition, was found by local
Negro worker in some trees near the
Lindbergh home.
Z. After months of tracking down
clues and using a veritable army
of police agents, $14,590 Of the ran
som money was found a few days
ago in the home of Bruno Haupt-
mann in the Bronx An investiga
ton, the details of which are now
commonplace, is under way. The
issue has become the most talked
Of of the day. Press, radio and
movie vie with each other in pub
licizing the cause celebre.
WE COMMUNISTS do not pretend
w to be amateur Hawkshaws and
will refrain from offering any solu-
ton to this particular case. Nor
are we condoning the crime of kid
mapping. What is far more i'm
portant to us-and, fundamentally,
to the working class-are the social
roots of the crime of kidnapping,
its social implications and some of
its immediate social and political
effects.
The old Italian criminologist,
Enrico Ferri, one of the first to be-
gin to apply MARKHAM ideas to the
question of crime, once said very
well that
Every social condition which
makes the life of man in society
insincere and imperfect is social
factor contributing toward Grim
inality. The economic factor is
in evidence wherever the law of
free competition establishes the
rule: YOUR DEATH is MY
LIFE"
Here in a nutshell is the funda-
mental root not only of the Lind
bergh kidnapping but of the ire
mendous rise in kidnappings-and
for that matter, of all types of crime
in the last few years. Here it is
not necessary to cite figures. The
great increase in crime, particularly
property crimes involving a larger
percentage of youth than ever be-
fore, are too commonly known to
require elaboration here Kidnap-
ping is simply on of the most lucra-
tive of all the cirnes. Hence its
popularity.
Its social roots run deep in the
present capitalist society, society
divided into two great classes,
owners and propertyless. The grow
ing misery Of great sections of the
population-expressed partly by the
upward curves in insanity, suicides
and prostitution-finds expression
also in crime. A certain section
OF the working class becomes de-
classed. 1t becomes, in the death
less words of the Communist Man
ifesto,
"she dangerous class the social
scum (.urnpenproletariat) - that
passively rotting mass thrown off
by the lowest layers of old So
ciety."
From among this section of the
population, whose conditions Of life