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Show Prevailing Opinions I Comment of th American Pru A Doctor! Lament Listen to Dr. Edward M. Pel-telle Pel-telle ef Loa Angeles, president of ths California Bute Medical association, as-sociation, addressing his fellow medicos at their state convention at Del Monte: "With at least 0 per rent of her population Intellectually adolescent ado-lescent America is in dsnger of becoming a nation of subnormsls, govsrned by subnormsls, for subnormals. sub-normals. "Ws not only support our ever-Increasing ever-Increasing number ef Incompetents Incompe-tents and give them without rhargs food, clothing and ths bast medical care, but we encourage them to have large famlliea and permit them to choose, often from among themselves, ths men who mske our Isws" We don't know Dr. Pallette. But we think we know his type. Ws assume that hs voted for Herbert Her-bert Hoover, and, before htm, for Harding and Coolldg. He is doubtless an abla doctor. Hs hss a romanlio and pleasing Idea of a society govsrned by ths slits. In practlcs, whsre would we be If governed by the "we's," who. In Dr. Pallrtts't phrass, "encour-ags "encour-ags them"? We wish that Dr. Pallette, an able man, had time to watch the processes of government and see Just whsre government by the "elite" leads us. Hs would find that thsse Incompetent In-competent common people who clutter up his personal world have sponsored and put through most of ths measures that havs Incrsased humaa happiness and msds for sclencs and eugenlca by giving fathers mors income and mothers mors leisure. He would find that hla "elite" th comfortable people bava fought chsngs and progress en every front because they were sitting pretty. He would remember that the "elite" of France In the Mih century cen-tury died on the guillotine becauss they were not elite at all, but stupid and cruel, and that the sams fstt overtook those Russians Rus-sians who kept 10 million people peo-ple In Ignorance and squalor In order to produce an "elite" of wasters and neuropaths. Hs would remember that the great ages of history are the ages in which nsw social classes wsrs forcing their way to a eight ta live the mercantile class that produced the Medlcls In Florence, Flor-ence, ths Eltsabethan traders and craftsmen who took England away from besotted feudal lords, ths middle class In France that ended the nonsense of Versaillea and began carrying out ths Idess of thst real aristocracy for which Voltaire and La Fayette stood. San Francisco News. A French Exampl On ef Uncle Sam's, guests In the Alcatras Island federal prison Is asking for a writ of habeas corpus on ths ground the climate of ths island Is detrimental to his hsalth. ' This convict ought to be allowed al-lowed to try the French penal colony on the lies de Balut (one of which is Devil's island) off ths Guisna coast Ths French are a realistlo people peo-ple who figure a msn does not hav to doom himself to exile In Guiana unless hs wants to, and that If he does so hs may well be allowed to take all the consequences. conse-quences. Our courts should take ths sams attitude. Sacrament Be. Behind Parol Wrda Jama A. Johnston of A lest rax federal prison tayt the parole systems of msny stales are so "haphazard" In failing to study case histories or to classify parole pa-role appkeationa that "many prisoners pris-oners are paroled who have a right to be." Recently Director J. Edgar Hoover of the federal bureau of Investigation warnsd the American Amer-ican Newspaper Publisher' association as-sociation that "parol today is becoming be-coming one of the major menace of our country" and blamed "the failure of pubMe ofrtetel fslth-fully fslth-fully te csrry out their public trust" There it tnother big factor back of the parole problem a factor tacitly recognised, but not often openly admitted. This Is ths theory the-ory that taxpayers feel It a good thing to parole as many prisoners as possible, becauss supervision la likely to be cheaper than maintaining main-taining convicts in prison at public pub-lic expenss. Unfortunately, the aame consideration of cost furnish fur-nish an excuse for lax or inadequate inade-quate supervision of parolees. Pa-role Pa-role board ar always ready to explain what they can't do for lack of money. Sooner or later the public must weigh the cost of prison maintenance mainte-nance against ths cost and danger of freeing publio enemies for whom supervision at best ha proved a precarious curb, Thi is a dollar-an d-cents background back-ground to the parole problem to be studied along with Mr. Hoover's estimate of f 15.000.000.-000, 15.000.000.-000, or 110 per month for every man. woman and child, as ths nation's annual crims bill. Nsw York World-Telegram. |