The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-12-22
Liberal Viewpoint
by DIR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

DURNG the last week or ten days the air
- has been full Of anti-crirne talk. A confer
ence Of crime experts and public officials met in
Washington and discussed ways and means Of
coping with the crime menace. The President
addressed them and gave them encouragement.
Attorney General Homer Cummings has prom
ised further vigilance on the part Of the De-
partment of Justice. In New York state the
Commercial Crime Commission has been
launched to help along the very important work
of suppressing business sharpers, commercial
fraud and the like
This is certainly all to the good The ma
tional crime bill is certainly staggering 1t runs
each year to something between twelve and
eighteen billion dollars. This means little until
we translate it into certain equivalents. 1t
amounts to about one-fourth of our total ma
tional income at the present time.
1t is nearly three times the present value of
the war debts owed by our foreign debtors.
1t is about fourteen times the total pension bene-
fits paid by the government. 1t is about equal
to all the relief and extraordinary expenses of
the Roosevelt Administration to date. 1t is
sum which, if put into public works in single
year would give us an extraordinary squirt of
temporary industrial prosperity.
1T will profit us little however, to indulge in
l. any ballyhoo about crime repression so long
as it remains relatively safe to steal 100000
and up by clever legalized methods of exploita-
ton. So long the big operator can get by
with what, from every social point of view
amounts to the theft of millions or billions, it is
going to be very difficult to discourage the small
fry criminals from trying to initiate him in their
feeble and modest way.
Only the thorough student of contemporary
crime realizes to how great degree most of
| the menacing crimes of today are based upon
direct imitation Of the ideals and methods of
| the corporate racketeer The average man read
! iyorr Ioi1y
to crime, usually conjures up in his mind the
picture of the house proWler, the pick pocket
the stick-up man and other figures familiar to
| him from his youthful reading about crime and
| criminals
Some Of these criminals of the olden day still
persist, to be sure But their depredations are
relatively slight and constitute no large part
of present day criminality.
The socially dangerous crime of today is
| overwhelmingly organized crime Of some sort or
another. 1t is gangster work, large scale racket
eering organized tI1efts, mercenary or CONNER
cial crime of some type 1t is all too often car
red on in conjunction with the aid and counsel
given by able but INSCRIPTIONS lawyers and is
linked up with political gangs and machines
which make apprehension and conviction ex-
tremely difficult.
Even the Dillingers are not the typical Grim
inals OF time. The latter are far more
clever, obscure their work much more effectively,
and render their apprehension and conviction
much more difficult
! THEY are inspired by the same Something
for-nothing" psychology which motivates the
suave and digni1ed manipulation of holding COM
panieS and paper pyramids. Our present day
criminals likewise, have adopted the slogan that
| only sapS work." Many of them are foreigners
or, more often, children of foreigners whose
parents earned an honest living by pushing fruit
| carts, shining shoes, and operating small shops
and restaurants.
Such an arduous and toilsome career no long
er beguiles their offspring. The latter have
caught something of "the American dream" and
reason that if the big boys can get away with
theirs there ought to be a place for the small
fellow at the bottom.
1t is highly desirable that every effort should
be made to catch all active criminals, and the
public authorities should ever be more alert and
equipped with the best devices for fighting crime.
But, if we wish to end the crime menace the
development of fundamental honesty and integ-
rity in American business and finance will help
more than all this
! In the first place, if such decent ideals perme-
ate those at the top they may gradually sift
| down through the masses in the same way that
the antl-social practices of the fossy racketeers
in American business have of late seeped down
and stirred the under dog to criminal action
In the second place, such business and f1nan-
| clal honesty would do much to restore PROSPER
| ity, provide jobs and remove the sheer economic
| pressure to commit crime