Golden Age, April 27, 1921

Download: PDF — Golden Age, April 27, 1921

Apr. 27,1921, VoL II, No. 42

■rag every other

I ft* | week at35 Myrtle Arenite.

VpF Brooklyn, V. T, U. 8. A.

Ten Cents a Copy-«.00 a Year r.n.4. and Foreign Conatries, S2.OT

ft.

VOLC31 3 WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 1921 - NrKBSX 12

CONTENTS of the GOLDEN AGE

SOCIAL UXO EDUCATIONAL

Crime's TM4.........413 Dateedvee and ^21nm 421

- Crime's t* -------419 Urwyars and Crime-__—423 -

Banka fme—418 Ceurts and Crime__422

Bandttzr n-_— US- Punishment far Crime 424 ' '

AnericaB Crism W*ra_— 4I» Inaaranee against Crime—424 ■ Eoretga Crime Warn , ,4fH> AwtomoMlea and Crime—.425 -, Politics and Crime ,,—420 Education and Crime--438- ■

Protection against Crime 421' Clever Boy Criminals.---437

Tbs PoHeo aad_Crtme---' DuHiiesB “d Crty ■■■.......-«37'

A IM mu »<■ Voeatioa,......-422 Galdan Aga She-Baud—427

POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN Vba Iibh QaestSan, Part O--,---------437 ~ .

TRAVEL AND MISCELLANT

' Art in On Roma ..... «M

A Rat Lar OetMak tar Art 488

European latareat In Art 428 Faria tta Cantor at Art-428

Seattle Art In Amertee--414

New Torfa Art Center—422 Tmgedy in Bird UM—4M Color and Oaractar (Con-

ciadad) 418

FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION Fillanting the Next War 434 Cost of Paper Overiookad 488 HOUSEWIFERY AND HYGIENE

Chiropractic and Qdrur- Exo-Toxlna and Endocarp ....................... -487 Toxins

Chiropractors Pmaecuted 417 Conaerviiig Food and

Wonderful Sore [Throat Health------

Remedy --------—418 Scleatlde Feeding

How Vaceinm Work., ,.,.440 Preparedness

What a Vaccina I«—.—...440 Health and Thrift 3ug-Do Vecelnee Tend to Pre- eestiona

vent Disease’-----440 Tbinga to Eat

SpaeUe Anti-Substances—440 Food Economies

AGRICULTURE AND HUSBANDRY

About Apple PHeaa. , ......,

LABOR AND ECONOMICS

AuatraUM Items .......

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

Unconventional RaMgian—448 Juvenile Bible Study

Advanced Bible Study___.44« Ba Steadiest .(Poeml——441

W W00DWI

a Massi

Tan Casts * Corr — M.00 a Yxjui rnunoM yrttms i Mjdtn t M Ckuvan

SmsMo, Ontartet Assfirelastes: 402 CMnna St, Melbourne, Australia, Make renunam, rae Goiuea ApA Parsoaal sboeks r't aoaeptad.

' ■

Golden Age

•■ • r

Volume II Brooklyn, N. Y-, Wednesday, April 27, 1921 Number 41

Crime’s Rising Tide (PartOne)

THE situation is not so bad in America as in Europe, where in some places the authorities give no protection after nine o’clock p. m., ' and where by early evening business automatically stops because everyone is off the streets. ---- In America, however, business keeps on as usual and is not hampered by external crime; but the losses are considerable, and not a few go without things which they had owned until some stranger bolder than Wall Street relieved them of their belongings.

Crime's Appetite

■„ rpHE losses from crime indicate an omnivor-ous criminal appetite. Stories drift through the press telling of one man “giving up” his silk shirts; a woman losing her beaded handbag; etc. Overcoats are gone, among them one £ belonging to a chief of police. Some belle parts with a pearl necklace worth $150,000—after it has disappeared. Charlotte King Palmer reports gems gone worth $767,000. A 400-pound bust of Werner von Siemens walks out of a * Berlin park. A silver-mounted marshal’s baton of an ancient king of Poland is recovered by the gendarmes. One poor fellow tells the authorities that some of his personal property has disappeared—“two $90 suits, a $74 overcoat,-a $14 pair of evening trousers, a (new) $23 boy’s suit, a mink stole, a nickel-plated watch, a’pearl-handled knife, three belts and a n Eversharp pencil”. Money, checks and securities take wings without stock-market speculation, including a haul of $3,500,000 by some hoys \who: became so scared at the huge -amount that; they burned most of it to ashes.

Altogether the takings, and •miscellaneous costs to the public of those that take, without some process of law to hide behind, amount to some $3,500,000 a day the country over.

Banks and Crime

BANKS are among the sufferers. Cashiers throw up their hands; bank employes line up with face to the wall before the watchful muzzle of a gun. Paying tellers never know which gentlemanly face will peer above a weapon of war. Receiving tellers here and there keep supper waiting for fearful merchants who wish to deposit the afternoon receipts. The contents of bank vaults change guardianship in expeditious order; and walls, floors and partitions give way to hungry hammers, chisels and crowbars, assisted by Fourth-of-July accompaniments and acetylene “can-openers”. Securities seem strongly disposed to change from regular to -illicit holders, disappearing from safes, vaults and the hands of bank and bankers’ messengers on the street, to repose in the care of pawnbrokers and irregular dealers at distant points, in amounts running to hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time.

Banditry

BANDITRY flourishes as never before.

Stolen automobiles on the track stop trains for hold-up men to ransack and cart the fruitage of their skill and boldness off in trucks. Golfers returning home get out of their cars and give up their possessions to perfect strangers. Clerks on mail trains look into the muzzles of shiny automatics, and permit new-found acquaintances to ‘depart with $100,000 or so. Mail sacks yield their registered mail, while armed guards in the next car watch in blissful bravery over their charge. Burglary in particular flourishes. A roll of oilcloth carried into an apartment for delivery is the cover for a handy firearm, and electric drills and nitroglycerine finish the job with the safe. Seldom have the citizenry felt less confidence that a good

night's sleep might not cover some great loss of. earnings.

With such crimes against property it is not ’surprising that the misdirected initiative and energy should yield a heavy crop of crimes against the person. Alen get off easy who are beaten with blackjacks, felled with the fist, dropped fo the earth with the butt of a revolver, - or clubbed into insensibility. Whether the attack is resisted or not, the objective of the assault is often found seriously wounded, with bullets through shoulder, chest, limbs or abdomen, and not infrequently dead, shot through the head, heart or other vital organ. Killings ( are not limited to New York: a southern city a thirtieth the size of the metropolis has the unenvied record of the leadership in murder and manslaughter; for a person in the larger city’ is eleven times as safe from death by this cause. Memphis is followed by Savannah, while the safest places from sudden illegal killing are Aliiwaukee and Dayton. New York, in spite of great publicity to the contrary, is the safest of the large cities.

American Crime Wave

UP TO the first of the year opinion differed as to the existence of a wave of crime. The dry interests naturally desired to make a good showing for the principles for which they stand, and pointed to statistics showing a general decrease in crime. Figures for the entire country’ are not readily compiled; but those for New ATork City, including only’ the varieties of crime most dreaded — murder, felonious assault, assault and robbery and burglary—for the first eleven months of the six years ending with 1920 were respectively 15,885, 14,431, 13,141, 10,838, 11,292, and 10,614, indicating the substantial decrease of a third. Another set of figures from the District Attorney’s office, taking 1917 as 100 percent to compare with, shows for the^hree following years respectively 118 percent, 141 percent and 128 percent.

It appears from this that the crime wave reached its peak in 1919 and receded about 16 percent in 1920, as far as New York is concerned. During the Christmas Holidays and just preceding, the opportunities for good pickings by the light-fingered is at the highest in the year, and takings of property increase annually, all cities reporting such a peak in crime. Illegal killings in 1919 and 1920 reached the high figure of 9.1 per 100,000 population, as against 8.5 in 1918, but less than the 9.2 of 1916 and 1917. Prison populations; have increased in some places, owing to police activity; but in most of the smaller cities and towns the jails were never as nearly empty. The U. S. Secret Service reports the greatest amount of criminal activity in its history, but fails to advise how much of it is the immensely greater i number of crimes under the new dry and other economic laws.

Foreign Crime Wave

THERE can, however, be no'doubt that a tidal wave of crime exists in other countries, and that the same conditions in America would produce the same increase in offenses against the law. Some European countries are reported to have nine times the crime that they had before the war. In Spain political .crime is rife, and many business houses have petitioned the Spanish Government-to give guarantees for the lives and property of factory owners, employes and workmen. England in 1920 had 11,034 more sentences to prison than in 1919. Paris joins wnth London in a wave of crime, suggesting that the widespread prevalence of lawlessness has a common world-wide cause. Alany American cities show some increase in crimes of violence. Alen made desperate by the cause that is making people desperate the globe over, come out of the darkness ' to rob and, if unavoidable, to kill. It should not be concluded, however, that anything like the amount of crime exists here that does in Europe. — -

Politics and Crime ,

IN POLITICS, as in love and war, anything is considered fair by those to whom a trusting populace gives the management of public affairs. It is the regular thing for a group of politicians to lie and to slander to the limit in order to prejudice and ruin an opponent, however honest or capable he may be or may not be. Every conceivable and imaginable expedient is resorted to in order to bring about the removal of a man. An observing French historian remarked recently that nearly all elections in America are fought on religious lines, the Democratic party being substantially the Roman Catholic, or Clerical party, and the

■ *

Republican party being in effect the Protestant party, for overwhelming majorities in the parties belong to those respective faiths. This fact is sedulously sidestepped in press discus-sions'of political affairs, but in a locality predominantly Romanist a Protestant official is. liable to become the target for political misT representation with a view to prejudicing him in the eyes of the public and obtaining his removal, and vice versa in a predominantly Protestant community. Something of this kind may explain in part the “terrible crime wave” Of New York City.

■Protection against Crime

ALL sorts of protection against crime have

• been advocated or put into effect. Long-range remedies are hauled out of storage, such as surgical operations on the heads ofcriminals to make them law-abiding citizens, the removal of tonsils, and the perpetual restraint of mental defectives, beginning at childhood, continuing with a three-year reformatory course,., training in trades, and life-long supervision at home— the army of supervisors to be paid for out of ♦Axes. The number of such defectives is under three percent of the population.

For immediate protection many are the instructions. Good, strong steel safes are advocated, particularly with unremovable bottoms requiring more than the all-night work of expert yeggmen to get into them. A better plan is suggested in the removing of all valuables and money to the bank, which must then be open till six or seven, and the leaving of all private safe doors open by night “to foil the •robbers”. Mustard gas in the safe over night sends robbers off. Vigilance committees, security alliances, safety-fund societies, protective unions and like associations of merchants increase the, difficulty of successful crime. Revolvers and automatics are plentifully scattered about stores to,be handy for employes in thelnstant of' danger—and friends are shot with them. Prompt use of the telephone to the police is another anti-crime activity of the lay population. Foot-signalling devices abound in stores, especially ih th$ jewelry trade. A few’ merchants have* installed able-jawed bulldogs in their places of business.

Banks and cashiers are canvassed to erect glass shields capable of resisting 45-caliber bullets at twelve inches range. The United States

Bureau of Standards is training its employes to become expert safe-blowers and “can-open- -ers”, with a view to ascertaining the burglar’s line of attack and of finally developing "the absolutely impregnable war-chest”. Hotel guests are supplied with elaborate instructions how to keep their doors locked and to take extraordinary precautions about suspicious persons. Garage owners are exhorted to maintain close relations with the official guardians of the peace. Streets, and particularly dark comers and nooks, are to be better-lighted.

The Police and Crime

HE average voter imagines that a large police force means an equally large number of policemen constantly on duty. The actual figures for the New York police force of 10,700 men show that the number available for actual patrol duty is 14 percent at a time, the other 86 percent being divided as follows: officers 134 percent, traffic duty 13 percent, detectives 8 percent, plain-clothes duty 5 percent, sick or on vacation 8 percent, court duty 13 percent, two shifts off duty constantly 26 percent. On this basis the 1,500 patrolmen constantly on duty on 3,514 miles of street have something over two miles of street apiece, certainly a very small number of officers to do the excellent work that is accomplished. On a population basis this is one patrolman to every 3,747 population, probably as light a representation as any place of any size in the world.

Naturally the patrolman has to be a broadminded, tolerant citizen with a live-and-let-live policy for all the hundreds under his care. He is likely to know the persons of criminal tendency and to let them alone when they are not making trouble for the citizenry. There is always a kind of armed truce between the officer and the known members of the underworld. It is in times of public alarm that the criminal is dealt with with strict severity, and in such times as the recent newspaper crime wave stringent action is taken. The jails become filled, not because of any great increase in crime, but from enhanced zeal on the part of public servants. Spectacular auto patrols with rifle squads hurdle the street comers. This proved an excellent plan in Cleveland, where such squads are ahvays ready to reach the scene of a crime in two or three minutes, rendering more difficult the escape of the offender.

-ri'.

fa

Motorcycle patrols ehug ceaselessly and swiftly along thoroughfares and deserted streets, warning the would-be criminal to wait : a Ini or to “hide himself until the danger be overpast”. The policy is adopted of keeping known committers of crime on the run and to give no rest day or night, so that the birds may take wings to healthier localities. General roundups embracing scores or hundreds of suspected persons gather jailfuls, out of whom a few are detained as “wanted". Gambling dens and other resorts are broken into, and the inhabiters* names entered on the blotters of the police station. Rough work is encouraged, as in ordinances granting promotion to officers that kill a criminal, so that it is the boast that more men are brought in on shutters than ever before, a policy, however, which invites reprisals in the shape of an unusual wave of illegal killings and woundings of both citizens and police. Persons unable to give a satisfactory account of themselves are brought in to the station to be questioned and citizens out after midnight are stopped and asked what their business is. In Cincinnati "suspicious appearance” is the offense entered, and convictions are many, but the suspended sentence protects the officer and • the court from prosecution for illegal arrest.

Roads to and from municipalities are guarded, passers stopped and questioned, and quick communication is arranged between localities to trace suspects promptly; neighboring states cooperate, and frequent and large rewards are offered for the arrest of wrong-doers. Paroles from prison are restricted so as to keep the prisoners from being at large as long as possi-

ble. Many times the usual number of police end of each year—probably not over 6 percent. .

telephones are installed to afford facilities for the prompt reporting of trouble. Firemen are called into service to report difficulties, as are municipal employes of all kinds. In many cities the brutal beating of offenders arrested is

practised to make them afraid of the personal injury'connected with trouble with the police. The clergy are enlisted to urge faith in—not the Deity—but the rank and file of the police force, and to plead for cooperation in municipal endeavors to. keep crime down and to provide anti-criminal education — nothing, however, to be said about employers not profiteering or not keeping their factories open or paying wages that will not drive men into crime. Mounted state police are asked for, like the so-called

"Cossacks” of Pennsylvania, to strike terror by -ruthless and lawless methods. Fleets of high-powered automobiles are provided to compete with the swift cars employed in crime.

New York and a few other cities are distinguished by having zones or deadlines where nq known crooks are allowed, but are arrested on sight within the forbidden precincts. Criminals, in their armed truce with the police, usually respect these limitations, but not so much of late. Of course the poor average citizen with a few dollars or cents he hates to lose, wonders why a whole city should not be a forbidden ' zone, as well as the haunts of His Excellency, Big Business, in Wall Street In some office buildings everyone entering the building is expected to register his name and the office he intends to visit. Special protection is often . given to localities wher? large payrolls are handled on pay-days. Some simple folk even wonder why little criminals and their gambling dens are broken up and the big stock exchange gamblers and the big criminals are given special protection and the law not enforced against them.

A Dangerous Vocation ’

THE policeman's life is not a safe one. Many an officer in discharge of duty is wounded or killed. The officer has to be ready any time to advance amid the whistle of bullets. Daily he flirts with death, in dangerous neighborhoods. Loyalty and efficiency are the rule of far the greater proportion of these public defenders. Considerably less than 10 percent of the murders of New York remain unsolved at the

Few have “soft” positions, except at the pleasure of politicians higher up. Graft, once considered rife, has not of late been often charged against the Metropolitan police, though there are occasional suspicions of collusion with lawbreakers, something almost inevitable in a period reeking with such public stealing and corruption as was exemplified in the Shipping Board scandal. In some places, where charges of inefficiency are made members of the force are detailed to give brief talks before a variety of organizations to lay the facts before them. Large parades and receptions to public men afford examples of the efficiency of the police ta handling people with tact and without offenee. The mixed population of American cities pre-

f

sents a much more difficult police problem than London, for example, with a homogeneous multitude; yet in America the number of people per patrolman is about double that of London.

Detectives and Crime

N IMPORTANT class of public servants in the handling of crime is the detective. His

duties call for patience, knowledge of human nature and courage, and many are the tales of the detective’s skill. The detective bureau is the invisible eye and ear, and sometimes the powerful hand, of the department of public safety. The detective is omnipresent and almost omniscient. Cities are divided into zones about im- - portant financial, manufacturing or shopping districts, which are patrolled by plain-clothes men whose business it is to detect offenses and offenders. Detectives frequent the haunts of criminals; they arrange the round-ups whereby hundreds, scores or dozens are taken, and the persons wanted sifted out; they make acquaintances and obtain the friendship and the confidence of offenders, for the purpose of betraying them in the interest of society. They patiently watch houses for hints of habits and acts of the suspected;, they attend public and private gatherings in the search for evidence; they . masquerade as members of- suspected groups, ■ by pretended zeal rise to high places, and even incite the groups to crime, in order to “get” individuals wanted out of the way. They watch the streams of travel at stations, docks and transfer points; they keep an eye on the crowds entering and leaving theatres and public places; they busy themselves in the corridors of public buildings. They act as postmen, expressmen, milkmen, or delivery men; at times they commit crimes themselves in order to emphasize to the public or their employers the need of their services.

Some detectives are men of particularly strong physique for the muscular handling of men; for in the pursuit of duty they are assaulted, wounded, and sometimes murdered. Occasionally they have to show themselves veritable gymnasts ip the pursuit of their quarry. Yet they are huriian, and score some marked • failures to detect, as when stores are looted and the contents of safes taken out while dozens of public guardians pass, and when Nicky Am-stein parades showily in an automobile before hundreds of them without being recognized. It is particularly hard to get good men for this service, and its efficiency is hampered by green and amateurish members and by the class of men who will take such work at the pay offered,

■ Lawyers and Crime

LAWYERS, as agents of the courts, bring ■ 1 about the conviction of offenders, and are an important factor in the social defense against crime. But criminals are to be considered innocent till proved guilty, and often are able to hire better lawyers than the prosecution can. Every conceivable device, straight and crooked, is employed to preserve the accused from harm. It is a poor lawyer that cannot obtain repeated adjournments of the trials of men who are actually committers of crime, until the offense is forgotten, the witnesses scattered or tampered with, or strong political or religious infiu-ence corrupts the action of justice, and the accused is freed, often without trial. A class of able lawyers is relied upon by offenders to get them out of trouble. Bail is secured; but the criminal often prefers to leave and forfeit the bail, after which, in the press of new cases, the old are forgotten. Lawyers, too, know to a nicety the personality of judges, and get cases, if possible, heard before certain judges whose peculiarities can be played upon to the utmost. In the United States the jury is chosen, practically by the attorney for the criminal, and in murder cases not far from 90 percent escape conviction for offenses of which there would often seem little reasonable doubt.

Courts and Crime

THE ideal court is one where justice is impartially and speedily meted out, but the courts are hedged about with hindrances to ideal action. Precedent favors the accused., Postponements are so presented as to be hard to refuse, especially in the magistrates’ courts, where the matter can easily be passed on to a successor. Patrolmen are needlessly kept waiting in court, where calendars might, be rear-Tanged to get" the officers quickly back on patrol duty. Too low bail is allowed for desperate men; the cases of w’ell-known offenders might be advanced and speedy trial given, especially in crimes of violence. First offenders are sometimes treated too leniently, and permitted to go back unscathed to further crime.

. The treatment of criminals in the United States is outlined by a Middle West editor:

“If a man starts out to rob and kill upon the highway in England or Canada he knows that if he is caught he will in all human probability suffer the penalty of his crime. If he does this same thing in the United States, he knows that in all human probability nothing whatever will happen to him. At the police station every facility will be afforded for his prompt relief, able lawyers will search for flaws in his indictment, political judges will listen to appeals from state and county and city chairmen and bow fo the threats of journalistic dictators .... Perhaps the chief offenders are those members of the legal profession who seem to have no compunctions whatever about securing the release and escape of our very worst criminals. The bar associations turn a sympathetic ear toward their black sheep, and eminent attorneys decline to become prosecutors or judges. There is more money in the defense than in the prosecution.”

The leniency of politicians—as when President Wilson pardoned Dorsey, the wealthy seller of thousands of tubercular cattle — discourages judges. It was this state of mind that made Judge Kenesaw M. Landis refuse to sentence six poor men convicted of stealing six sacks of sugar. “I can’t sentence these men with the Dorsey thing fresh in iny mind”, said the Judge in court. “Dorsey’s activities ran into the thousands of dollars, while these men stole only a few hundred dollars’ worth of merchandise. I will continue this case indefinitely.”

Punishment for Crime

UNISHMENT for crime seems to vary with several factors. Political judges in Chicago impose the minimum of $25 for running gambling joints, and the minimum of $5 on professional crooks and gamblers. Such penalties are too light and can handsomely be afforded out of current proceeds from the “business”. Other judges impose the maximum both in fines • and imprisonments, and urge laws increasing the penalties to unheard-of extremes, in the face of the science of penology, which clearly demonstrates from the history of crime that severity of punishment is no particular deterrent to crime; for crime does not-vary with the hardness of judges, but with other causes entirely unrelated to courts and prisons. “As well be killed^ for, an ox as a sheep,” illustrated the mental processes of an offender in the days when hanging was the punishment for scores of offenses against property.

The taking of a criminal’s life, however, is regarded a reasonable penalty for bis taking

of his victim’s life, and is the rule world-wide. If the penalty is certain it deters from murder; but for the three years of 1916, 1917 and 1918 the United States had 23,842 murders, but only 285 executions, or 1.2 percent—a laxity which accounts for the fact that Chicago, with a third । the population of London, has twelve times the j murders, or with equal population would have thirty-six times as many. !

Insurance against Crime i

OPULAR palliatives of crime are quite ineffective. Rewards for stolen articles ■

seldom lure the goods back; for the greater profit is in keeping the stealings, and the risk ’ of the required honesty is too great, because of the practical certainty of the descent of the heavy hand of the law on any criminal who might venture to disclose his connection with : a crime, however real his change of heart. Rewards for the apprehension of offenders, are fruitful occasionally, but such propositions are •’ usually “safe” enough offers. •

Insurance against crime, while comforting to the insured, hinders offenders but little. That crimes against property are on the increase is . demonstrated by the ever-rising premiums for ; burglary insurance, which in certain cities advanced on residences from $27.50 to $40.00, and on apartments from $30 to $50, the advances of 45 percent and 67 percent representing the '' increased value risk to property in residences and apartments. For banks and brokers the * premiums have had a heavy riser and in some instances and localities the policies provide that armed guards are to accompany all movements of cash and securities, for the average loss ratio in proportion to premium has run as -i high as 70 percent. I

Civilians become alarmed over press stories of crime, and by thousands carry concealed weapons even in states where this is prohibited, little reckoning on the incredibly swift gunwork of the professional criminal. Bodies of excitable citizens cry for vigilance committees and like organized mob-methods, while right under their noses the criminal, who knows the futility of such extra-legal methods, plies his trade. Who. for instance, would want to agree to the suspension of constitution, law and order asked for i by a writer in the New York Globe, “in the steamship business”—“Establish vigilance com- ; mittees of business men in every locality, and I

■■ -Wi .-1

’ give them full authority to act”! Stories of law; ' and-order mobs of “business men” a few years

" back forbid the handing over of law and order

I; to plug-hat anarchists. When officials of the law cry loudly for posses of “Citizens’ Protee-' ■. tive Leagues” the qtiery works its way into the

* mind, “What politician are they trying to dish credit and get out of office!” Whatever a poli-

t; tician may say, the acid test to be applied is, “What political motive prompts the saying!”

z. Methods of Crime

THE methods of crime are as many as the crimes. Hold-up men impersonate detec. tives, and follow up with smashing blows, and resistance with a shot. They enter houses and secrete themselves in the most unlikely places. ZOn'e victim asserted that the burglar hid in a washtub. In a courtroom robbery the men ___ entered during business hours and waited in a

washroom until they were safely locked in for r the night. Safes not yielding to frontal attacks are turned upside down and the flimsier bottom cut off. Burglars take lunches along, or get them on the spot; for a “job” may last eight or ten hours and “a working man needs lunch r in between”. A detective calls, shows his badge to get the lay of the premises, and later makes a “business” visit. Cord is not up-to-date enough, and victims are immovably bound with wire. The acetylene-gas “can-opener” cuts its fiery way through thick metal.

Furniture is smashed up if the day’s—night’s —wage proves disappointing—no wage cut for the burglar! Porch-climbing is not a forgotten “ art. In the office of the German Finance Ministry at Berlin demolished walls and splintered furniture evidenced the ardent search for treasure. Too obvious victims are crammed into trunks or closets, to delay the hue and cry. “Give us aii-” may he the opening demand in a garage.

Tfi&'-law of violence is the canon law of the desperate criminal; demands refused or orders

disobeyed invite the same reaction as in battle through’a criminal career, soon to be sold and

trenches. Crowds are lined up against walls, hands u^>, and gone through, at the menacing muzzle of ail automatic. Steel drills and collapsible ^jimmies” (crowbars) are among the apparatus of the day, with numerous electrical devices.

Railroad agents may find themselves lashed to the outside of trains for a ride with death

until untied by friendly railroad men. Skylights are more fashionable entrances than doors. Dead men and women will never learn, till the end of their long sleep, how deftly their bodies were relieved of rings and jewelry. Payroll men. do not know when they may look into the business end of a gun, nor lines of workmen on pay-day when they will hand over their pay- . envelopes to men whose toil is not after the : way of the shop. - ' '

Women cleaning a house may be paid off and sent home by what they imagine is the man of the house. Bank officials obey with alacrity the bogus Federal bank examiner whose tool for the audit is an automatic pistol. Knitted soldier-boy helmets make excellent masks. The movements of the patrolmen are known to the minute in advance of a nocturnal operation. Roadside inns are not so popular after the guests have been lined up against the office wall, hands up.

Against the criminal the odds are heavily increased by the ready telephone. "Citizens are requested to report promptly to Police.Headquarters or any police officer any suspicious circumstance.” Nothing is so effective a deterrent as the certainty of the immediate spreading of the news of crime over a wide area, with the prompt spreading out of a horde of officers and citizens forming a net that the utmost skill alone can escape.

Automobiles and Crime

COUNTERING the telephone in the race for supremacy is the automobile. A considerable percentage of public chauffers is said to have criminal records; most of them are seeking to earn an honest living, but some are all too familiar with the urgent, “Now heat it as fast as you ean”, from “pals” that jump in after some desperate offensive—and then nothing can be so quickly lost as a swiftly moving taxi on a crowded street.

Cars are stolen and in "short order put replaced by others. In crime waves citizens are asked to record the number of every taxi they get into, hut the tags of illicit cars are often so covered with dirt as to be unreadable. In the country, and especially in suburban sections, the automobile is almost inseparably associated with the dashing exploits in which hanks and business places are separated from their cash.

! In some Western states, it has long been the ’ .practice of automobile drivers to pass by any one signalling for help in a breakdown, so frequent have been the hold-ups worked by that I ruse. The homely, useful, slow-going truck does ;its part in the wholesale* moving of the proceeds '. of big thefts. '

- The advent of everybody’s automobile gives police protection‘a new and almost unsolvable problem:

' ■ “Criminals are not seen by police officers on the streets,” comments the editor of the Buffalo Evening Post. “The man or the woman who steps into an automobile after dark vanishes until he or she leaves it. The magic carpet of eastern lore could be no more effective. Crime has-discovered what a perfect means . for approach and for getaway the automobile provides —swift, silent, unnoticed and unrecognized.”

And the New York World adds:

“Crime has been put on an automobile basis. A taxi-cab slows down to permit a pedestrian to be assaulted and rifled of his valuables, and a touring car speeds off with a murdered policeman dropping from the running board. It is a startling and sinister condition of things in a civilized community.”

The same machine that flees with the offenders, carries the spoils off to the thief’s partner, the “fence”. Every article stolen is worthless until it is converted into cash. The “fence” is a seemingly honest merchant who by day keeps store and by night receives the proceeds of robbery. Some wholesale establishments with a reputation for bargain prices for retailers get much goods in this way. It is risky “business”, and a goodly profit is kept by the “fence”, who after a while cleans up his business methods and becomes a sure-enough merchant, or retires for life, to live his years in fear of betrayal by his “clients”. Very few “fences” appear in the criminal docket, each “fence” unmolested being an intimation of “protection” by some powerful politician who works not, and yet magically grows in wealth.

Education and Crime

T^HE characters “of criminals present an interesting study. Education plays no small part, but there is yet to be put in operation an •educational system that will develop mentality and chkrac^er and will strengthen weak points to an extent that will eliminate criminal tendencies. Even at school age the American criminal begins his operations. Serious crimes are to be thought of as the work of the old and hardened, but young boys are found committing heinous crimes. It is probably not the school, but a social system" working by environment, that is instructor-in-chief in crime. ‘

Much responsibility, however, lies at the school door. Schools, with all their transform- ' ing potentialities, train ch^fly the intellect, and leave the moral faculties to the haphazard of other agencies. Mrs. Ellen O’Grady,, deputy police commissioner of New York, revealed a . great principle, saying:

"Too much science and not enough conscience. The whole basis of living, the framework of all legal and . ethical codes, is the tablet of the law of the ten commandments. This lesson must be woven into the daily curriculum of our children, if we want to stamp out this menace of child crime. The state must safeguard . its future and see that it has strong, stalwart, upright citizens, and the way to do that is to give them the spirit of the ten commandments in an agreeable way. When children are convinced that there is just as much fun in being good as there is in being bad, then they will be good.” ’

Professor Wenbley, of the University of Michigan, confirms this: ‘

"Our educational system appears to be designed to prepare the student body for ‘hog competition’ and eighty percent of what is now taught in our schools • should be thrown out.”

Governor Ferris also says:

“We have spent all our time making ministers, lawyers and blacksmiths out of men, and now find it necessary to face about and make men out of blacksmiths, lawyers and ministers.”

Boys that steal simply follow efficiency methods in getting what they want in the shortest and quickest way to which their education points them. Crime is nourished on efficiency in business, because of its heartless, characterless principles. Education makes boys smart enough that not over one crime in seven is detected and punished. Prisons have many men that can measure up to the educational standard set by President Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia University: <

“The five evidences of an education,” says he, “are correctness and precision in the use of the mother tongue; refined and gentle manners which are. the expression of fixed habits of thought and action; the power of the habit of reflection; the power of growth; and efficiency, or the power to do.”

Men of this standard make the cleverest and crookedest criminals, because there are not included in it the requisite high principles of morality and religion.

Clever Bw Criminals

HENCE boys of sixteen surprise officers of the law with their clever methods in stealing money by the thousands of dollars, and by ready wit in answering questions under examination. Boys of thirteen and under are caught in the midst of' a career of successful robbery and arson. Boys with revolvers and a liking for stories of crime and adventure—from which few boys are exempt—are already on the path to prison doors. Infant prodigies of crime— boy burglars, embezzlers.and train robbers— fill columns of newspaper space that might be devoted to useful topics.

Dry-os-dust education, with a fatuous disregard of boy psychology, drives boys the wrong way. With a negligible appreciation of the capacities of boyhood for good, society hustles the boy of fertile imagination and super-energy away into fields of misapplied ability, that reach finally to one of three things: reform, the penitentiary, or big business.

Boys are especially apt in picking up a working knowledge of crime when in touch with experts whose adventurous efficiency they cannot hut admire. In prison the boy convicts are the hardest to reach with good influences. That many of them come back to their cells is evidenced by American prison records, and by .the statement in England by Dr. W. A. Potts, medical advisor to the Birmingham justices:

“Of the people who go into prison it is probable that sixty-two percent have been convicted before ; this makes it safe to say that the present system does not prevent crime, but rather manufactures it. Although juvenile crime diminished considerably during and immediately after the war, it is now increasing at an alarming extent.” -

In Paris the head of a most desperate band, which had managed many magnificent coups— the Black Net Band—was Tarzan, an elevenyear old boy. In New York almost any day anywhere in the poorer districts boys of six to fifteen years may be seen “swiping” articles from hucksters’ wagons and taking them to their mothers, who accept the stolen goods—and the policeman says: “They are only kids”. In hundreds of homes boys commit offenses, are punished by their fathers—and taught further crime by mothers that blame the fathers for the. discipline—and vice versa.

Dullness and Crime

DULLNESS, however, is a common characteristic of a large class of criminals. Only a fifth of prison populations have left school in the grade they should have been in for their age, and only one in fifty has left school in a grade ahead of the proper age. Three-quarters were backward a year or more, half of them two years or more, forty-two percent three years or more, down to the one percent that.left school ten years behind the proper grade.

Illiteracy dooms many to prison, because it has an effect like that of dullness in making the struggle for a living so hopeless that many give up and yield to the seemingly easier pathway of crime. So far from the average prison taking proper means for reforming and educating its unfortunate wards, the prisons are in charge of professional politicians, and the officials are usually given their places as rewards for political efficiency rather than for efficiency in penology. • Hence prisons do not reform men, but trajn them for a further and more successful life of crime, despite all twaddle of mushy reformers and ignorant clergymen to the contrary, [To be continued]

The Irish Question--(Part Tu/o) By Frederick J. Falldncr (Dublin)

IN A previous article, which appeared in the columns of the The Golden Age No. 39-40, the writer set forth a number of the prominent features oft the\ Irish Question. It is believed that the following additional facts will prove of interest to the many readers of this Journal in America, the British Isles, and elsewhere.

Recognizing The Golden Age to be a journal of fact, as well as of hope and conviction, care has been exercised in order that an accurate presentation may be made of the matters re- ' ferred to herein.

The writer desires, at the outset, to make it perfectly clear that he is in no way associated with any of the contending parties in Ireland, and that he views the Irish Question from a thoroughly impartial standpoint. The ensuing remarks will show that in that small country lesson are now being taught which, if discerned, should be of benefit to every thoughtful mind.

Though the year 1920 has proved to be a ’ momentous one in Irish history, there is every ; evidence that the year 1921 will be yet more , r weighty. During the years 1914 to 1920 Sinn > Fein gradually increased in power until event- ually it dominated the whole of Ireland,, with < the exception of the north-east corner of Ulster, i where the majority of the people are loyalists.

„ The words “Sinn Fein” mean “Ourselves

. Alone”. This great movement, with its well, trained secret “army” and elaborate system of

espionage, was so thoroughly organized in its every department that it was thereby enabled to strike repeated and effective blows at the supremacy of British rule in Ireland. Thus the 1 year 1920 saw Sinn Fein at the height of its triumph. But the year 1921 witnesses the pres-1 ence of another formidable combatant in the 1 arena of Irish politics. It is known in Ireland by the name “the Black-and-Tans”.

r The Royal Irish Constabulary, a semi-mili-

t tary body, originally consisted of 10,500 officers and men, and was recruited in Ireland. Owing f to the internal conditions of the country local enlistments in this force practically ceased. ' Consequently, as its strength had to be aug-men ted, recruiting commenced in England. Many ex-soldiers, who were then unemployed, offered their services.

As it was found impossible at the- time to supply these new police with the usual uniforms worn by the Royal Irish Constabulary, a mixed uniform was used. This, in some cases, consisted of green breeches, a khaki tunic, and a black belt. Hence as a nickname these men were called “the Black-and-Tans”. It is stated that the use of this term originated in Limerick, where there is a local hunt known as “the Black , and Tan”.

Another force, separate from the Royal Irish ■ Constabulary and raised in England for service in Ireland, has received from the Irish the same ' title. It is an auxiliary police force whose members are ex-army officers, some of whom held high and distinguished rank in the British Army. They receive £1 per day pay. This body of men appears to be mainly responsible for the rapid change which has taken place in that lountry during the past few months.

. Charges of a very scr:mis nature have been ■ ' brought against members of these forces. Build

ings are being methodically destroyed. Men are being shot in cold blood. Robberies, are frequent. Intimidation is rife. These have in some districts now become quite common occurrences, and in many cases are believed to be the work of servants of the British Crown.

Mr. Arthur Henderson, M.P., English Labor Party, when addressing a meeting at Hough Green (England) in December last, is reported to have made the following remarks concerning the conditions prevailing in Ireland:

“At the present moment it can be said, without exaggeration, that the ordinary machinery of Govern--ment in Ireland is at a standstill. Coercion has been applied with such indiscriminate violence that the people are terror-stricken. No man is safe. JJven women and children run terrible risks of’ being shot in the streets. The ordinary flow of trade is cheeked, and the economic life of the country is coming to a standstill. I have also information of robbery from the persons of men stopped by servajits of the Crown, and it may be said that looting and arson are commonplace. All this goes on day hy day and it cannot be dissociated from the Government’s settled policy, which is reactionary in conception, brutal in its application, and destructive in its consequences. I am not saying that all the outrages are on one side. I have never for one moment attempted to defend or condone the outrages committed in the name of Sinn Fein. But the outrages of that kind are one1 thing; and a policy of deliberate reprisal, sanctioned, if not inspired, by a civi-lizefl Government, is quite another. The forces of the Crown, which exist only to maintain law and order, have been made the instrument of a blind and ruthless vengeance. This is not resolute government, but primitive barbarism.”

A labor commission, sent by the English Labor Party to Ireland, to inquire into the situation in that country, in its report published last December, makes the following observations : '

“The situation in Ireland today is nothing short of a tragedy, whether from the point of view of the Irish people or from the standpoint of British honor arid prestige. The Labor Party regards recourse to methods of violence as a confession of bankruptcy of statesmanship.” .

“In the Auxiliary Division [of the Royal Constabulary] the men who matter are those possessed of ability and education who are inflamed by political passion and who as far as could be seen during the visit of the commission, were being given a free hand in the south a nd the vest of L eland. Wherever reprisals have been .‘••cicntiflcnllv carried out so as to cause the maximum economic and industrial loss to an Irish countryside or city, they have almost invariably been the work of detachments of cadets.”

“Several cases investigated by the commission revealed the fact that these detachments had worked independently of, and brooked no interference from, the forces of the Crown. Hitherto reprisals by Auxiliaries have been hushed up as far as possible, and efforts have been made to impute the blame for their misdeeds to innocent civilians. Evidently this force enjoys special and powerful protection.”

“A large number of buildings in Ireland have been destroyed by fire, but the government has admitted only a few cases of arson committed by members of the Crown forces. Incendiarism is part of the policy of the ‘Black-and-Tans’ and Auxiliaries. It is, we - believe, one of their methods of terrorism and revenge.”

“There are so many cases of looting and theft that the commission must add these crimes to those of burning and destruction.”

“Members of the Crown Forces have deliberately shot men in cold blood. These crimes are as revolting as the murder of British officers in their beds, and deserve equally thorough denunciation. Even if the victima-were ‘gunmen’ we do not think this in any way lessens the guilt of those who committed the murders. Terror. ism and outrage on the part of members of the forces of the Crown in Ireland are condoned, defended, and justified."

“The outstanding fact regarding lots of the ‘Black- •’ and-Tans’ and Auxiliaries is that they are not under control. The Government has created a weapon Which it cannot wield. It has liberated forces which it is not at present able to dominate. The men have got out of hand, and the Government cannot truthfully deny it. The blame for the present situation does not rest primarily with the members of the Crown Forces but with the Government.”

The foregoing extracts contain very serious allegations; and though this severe criticism comes from a source antagonistic to the existing British Government, their accuracy is not thereby affected. The charges appear to be well-founded.

It is now the definite policy of the Crown _ Forces in Ireland to engage in reprisals against Sinn Fein. These have become general throughout tliiNfountry and in them the innocent have suffered with the guilty. The policy of reprisals appears to have received the unofficial approval of the British Government. In many instances the destruction of property has been very extensive. The most serious, so far, was the systematic burning of the centre of Cork city following an ambush of a detachment of Auxiliaries in the neighborhood.

The Government has practically denied that this was the work of servants qf the Crown, though the consensus of opinion among the Irish people is to the contrary. A military Court of Inquiry was appointed to investigate the matter, but at the time of writing its report has not been published.

The following official list of buildings then destroyed and damaged in the City of Cor£ will give some idea of the extensiveness of the work of the destruction:

Destroyed by fire:

52 business houses -

3 private houses

1 hotel

2 public buildings

3 other buildings •

Damaged by fire:

18 business houses

2 private houses 1 other building A number of other towns and villages have suffered in a similar manner, and many unarmed civilians have been shot dead. .

The following notices, which appeared in the Cork papers, in December, 1920, are reproduced, as giving a further insight into the conditions in Ireland:

“NOTICE

“If G. Horgan is not returned by 4 o’clock on Friday, 10th December, rebels of Cork beware, aa one man and one shop shall disappear for each hour after the given time. (Signed), B. AND T.”

"IMPORTANT NOTICE

“We, the undersigned, do now give the male sex of Cork City notice, which must be adhered to forthwith, that any person of the said sex who is seen or found loitering at street corners, or on the pathway, without reasonable excuse why he should be there; or any man or boy found standing or walking with one or both. hands in his pocket, will, if he does not adhere to this order, suffer the consequences which, no doubt, will ensue. (Signed), SECRETARY,

"Death or Victory League “God Save the King, and Frustrate his Enemies.” The southwest of Ireland has been, and still is, the most disturbed area in the country. In December, 1920, the counties of Cork, Tipperary, Kerry and Limerick, were placed under martial law. Subsequently several neighboring counties were included. In the City of Dublin people are prohibited from loitering in the streets, and all persons are required to remain -indoors between the hours of 10 o’clock p. m. and 5 o’clock a. m. The extension of martial law to the City of Dublin is probable if its

present disturbed state should long continue.

Within this area the militant section of the Sinn Fein movement, which is called the “Irish Republican Army”, has been most active. An official return of serious outrages attributed to Sinn Fein in Ireland, for the period January 1 to December 31, 1920, comprises the following:

Courthouses destroyed

R. I. C. barracks destroyed----—. 533

R. I. C. barracks damaged

Raids on mails

Police killed.

Police wounded

Military killed

Military wounded

The list for January, 1921, is as follows:

Crown casualties (21 mortal)

- Attacks on military or police

Raids on mails------------------------—......

Attacks on police barracks

Nb statistics are at present available as to the number of civilians who have been killed and. wounded, and the total amount of valuable property which has been destroyed. It is known that the figures are high. .

One method which the “Irish Republican Army” has adopted in its guerilla warfare upon the British Forces in Ireland is that of carefully prepared ambushes. These are a daily occurrence throughout the country. So frequent and so effective have they become that military and police motor transports and patrols now carry hostages with a view to protection.

The many assassinations which have taken place, and for which Sinn Fein is responsible, are stated to have been merely the carrying into effect of the sentences of death imposed by the courts martial of the “Irish Republican Army”. It is argued that the execution of enemies of the “Irish Republic" are legal acts of war. Confiscations and levies of money have been made in different localities for the support of this anqy.

Internment camps have been formed i n Ireland, in which active supporters of the Republican movement are being interned by the British military authorities. Considerable numbers of 'men- have been already apprehended and cwifined in this fashion. House to house searches for arms and ammunitions have taken pl ’eo in certain districts.

.Extreme Sinn Fein has not been satisfied with aggressive warfare in Ireland alone. There is evidence that a plot was formulated for the wholesale destruction of warehouses and public buildings in England. On November 27, 1920, a number of incendiary fires, believed to have been the work of Sinn Fein, broke out among the Liverpool and Bootle warehouses.

Hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of damage was done. Had the plans been more efficiently carried out immense loss would have-resulted. Owing in part to the vigilance of the police the plans were not so successful as was expected. An abortive effort was also made recently to destroy a number of London warehouses. .

The Roman Catholic Church possesses great power over the minds of the Irish people. Though in recent years, owing to the increase of educational facilities, and the consequent enlightenment of the minds of the people, that influence has waned, yet the Roman Catholic Church still occupies an important position in • their affairs. The younger clergy in the priesthood are Sinn Fein in sentiment. Several priests are prominently identified with the movement. A number of them have been shot dead or imprisoned. -

The following notice, addressed to a Roman Catholic clergyman, in Tralee, will prove of interest:

“Anti-Sinn Fein Quarters. We are hereby informed you are a member of that murderous gang called Sinn Fein. We do inform you you are on our list for execution, so prepare to meet your God. You give no time for preparation (sic), but we do; so you may repent of the seed of wickedness you have sown throughout Ireland, and you priests are responsible for every murder in God’s sight. So God help you.”

Such occurrences as these have tended only to stir up the religious passions of the people. They have not relieved the situation.

The Roman Catholic Church, as a unit, cannot be said to have taken a very decided stand on one side or the other during the last few . momentous years. Caution seems to have been the predominating motive. Dr. Cohalan, Roman Catholic Bishop of Cork, some time ago pronounced the ban of excommunication upon all those who in his diocese commit murder by taking part in ambushes. In explanation of his action he is reported as having said:

“I did this because murder is against the teaching of the Chiireh and. moreover, its commission has entailed suffering and hardship on innocent persons. Since I made this pronouncement there has been only

P - *■ , - , .. . :..

1 ?. one ambush in my diocese and those who took part in • it are assuredly excommunicated.”

. . The Roman Catholic Church as a whole has ' not issued a similar decree. Had that Church exercised its power in instructing the people concerning the things “pertaining to the king; dom of God” and its foundation principles of ? righteousness,, justice and love, the conditions ' in that troubled country would be different - today. It is a regrettable fact, which cannot be gainsaid, that the churches in Ireland, both • Protestant and Roman Catholic, have not done their duty. Instead of devoting their attention to the education of the people in the principles „ of true Christianity, as they are revealed in God’s Word, they have dabbled in politics and - thus have been instrumental in fanning racial and religious hatred.

This can be said of all the great ecclesiastical systems throughout the world. They have outlived their usefulness. They have now become a hindrance to man rather than a help. Accordingly, Jehovah has decreed, in fulfillment of His prophetic Word, that all the organiza-. lions of men, small and great, religious and . ' secular, must be destroyed in this dawn of the

Golden Age, preparatory to the inauguration, in their stead, of God’s great organization which the Apostle Peter has termed “the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”.

The object of that kingdom, in which the gospel church shall be associated with Christ in the majesty and glory and power of the divine nature, shall be the restoration of man- _ kind to “that which was lost” by the human family through the willful transgression of father Adam in the garden of Eden; viz., ever. lasting human life on a perfect earth. See Daniel 2:44; 7:13, 14, 18, 27; Revelation 11: 15-19; 18: 21; Acts 3:19-21; Galatians 3:8, 16, 29; .etc., etc.

Father Flanagan, of Roscommon, was acting ' head of Sinn Fein during the absence of Mr. - De Valera, President of the Irish Republic, in America. In that capacity he recently entered into negotiations with the British Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George, with a view to obtaining i- peace in freland. They ended abortively. It is

! expected that a further peace parley will soon

take place lw»tween representatives of Sinn Fein and the British Cabinet.

The Government of Ireland Bill or Home . Rule Act, which has now received the Royal assent, has not been accepted by Sinn Fein; for Sinn Feiners uncompromisingly demand an Irish Republic. The Bill provides for, two Irish , t Parliaments, one for Northern Ireland, en>-bracing the six counties — Antrim, Armagh, Down, Londonderry, Fermanagh and Tyrone ' . —the other for Southern Ireland, embracing the remaining twenty-six counties.

The Parliament of Northern Ireland will consist of a House of Commons of fifty-two - members, and a Senate comprising the Lord . Mayors o f . Belfast and Londonderry, and twenty-four Senators elected by the House of Commons of Northern Ireland by proportional representation. ’ -

The Parliament of Southern Ireland will consist of a House of Commons of one hundred twenty-eight members, and a Senate comprising the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, the Lord Mayors of Dublin and Cork, seventeen Senators representative of commerce, labor, and the pro- . fessions, nominated by the Lord Lieutenant, and forty-four elected Senators, including four Archbishops or Bishops of the Roman Catholic ' Church, two of the Chureh of Ireland, sixteen Peers, eight Privy Councillors, and fourteen . representatives of County Councils.

…