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Show THIRTEEN MILIIONS FOR CRIME Crime, according to Wade Ellis cf the American Bar Association's Crime Commission, costs the United States $13,000,000 a year. We have 12.000 murders annually, 50 times the number rr.-orded in Great Britain. Since 1900 cur mur der rate has increased 350 per cent. The causes of crime are many and foremost among them Mr. Ellis places our multiplicity of laws which, by simple mathematics, has increased increas-ed the total of crimes. Every new law breeds new criminals, decreases respect for society and places new burdens on our courts of justice. It is a disheartening fact that the great majority of our citizens take crime more or less as a matter of course. What is needed is an active public consciousness that will force a simplification and reform of our laws and legal system, and oppose the tendency to pile more enactments enact-ments on the already bulging statute stat-ute books. Too many laws touch the good citizen and fail to discomfort the criminal. The sole test for any law is whether it protects society and punishes pun-ishes or reforms the underworld. We must return to first principles in our war against crime. |