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Show Nation Can Head Off f fu Postwar Crime Wave uiil- i a ; Quick Reconversion Can Prevent Era of y s ;.: Lawlessness, FBI Chief Says; Expects foV-, Vets to Demand Order. t-'-VJ'L ,-"H"fi,rriiT- in By BAUKHAGE News Analyst mnd Commentator. WNV Service, 1018 Eye Street NW, Washington, D. C. Will there be a postwar crime wave In the United States? That question was put to the man who will have to deal with It 11 there Is one FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Hoo-ver. He threw the answer back on me and on a lot of other people In these United States. Here It Is: Whether we have a postwar crime wave In the United Statei depends on how well we as a nation can reconvert re-convert If we do have a period of lawlessness, It will In all probability probabil-ity be led by teen-agers. The returning re-turning veteran has It In his power to make or break such a crime wave. That's not beating around the bush. Let's look at the facts, disturbing dis-turbing though they may be, as the FBI director laid them before me.. After the last war, he said, there grew up a lawlessness from which the United States has never been entirely free since. When the gangster gang-ster era of the 20s and 30s was finally final-ly broken up there was some decline de-cline In criminal tendencies. Nevertheless, Never-theless, Just before World War II began In Europe crime was still very much with us In fact, the United States had 11 times more cases of murder and manslaughter ihan England and Wales. With our entry Into the war, crimes increased, the emphasis on type changing from crimes against property to crimes against the person per-son murder, assault, rape and the like. On V-J Day a major crime was being committed every 23 seconds sec-onds In the United States. One person per-son In every 22 in this country had been arrested at some time or other. New Crop of Criminals Teen-Agers Perhaps the most ominous single factor about the picture with which we start the postwar years is that the most frequent criminals In the United States today are boys and girls 17 years of age. Director Hoover explained why this has come about. These teenagers teen-agers have been maturing In a period pe-riod of great political, economic and social upheaval. As they were entering en-tering the critically formative years for them In the beginning teens, fathers fa-thers and big brothers, to whom they might have looked for guidance, guid-ance, left home to enter the armed services. Mothers frequently had to take jobs which kept them away from home, leaving boys and girls to their own social and recreational devices. Frequently, families pulled up roots and moved to teeming Industrial Indus-trial centers in other parts of the country where jobs could be had in war plants. Normal living was Impossible Im-possible under such overcrowded conditions. There was a general spirit of wartime abandon which impressionable im-pressionable youth was not long in catching lack of discipline, lack of personal responsibility, became the accepted thing. A "war hero" attitude at-titude developed in many of those too young to "join up." Then teen-age boys and girls found that because of the manpower shortage short-age they could stop school and take jobs where they would make more money than some of their elders did before the war. Coming suddenly onto what seemed sudden wealth, and of their own making, found them unprepared to use it wisely. "We have been developing a generation gen-eration of money-rich i.nd character-poor Americans." While we had our attention on the far-flung battlefronts the foundation was being laid for one of our major postwar problems on the home front. There is another condition that has been a breeding ground for lawlessness law-lessness during the war, according to Hoover, and which may spread if crime detection and law enforcement enforce-ment do not keep ahead of it. "Gangsterism has been showing signs of revival during the war," he said. "There have been gang wars in places where they used to thrive. Hijacking, shakedown rackets, black markets and bootleg have been on the Increase." Therefore, the groundwork has been laid for a new era of Dillingers. Then there are the returning veterans. vet-erans. Because of their peculiar training, will they present a new band of criminals efficiently trained in taking life and appropriating property that does not belong to them? Vets Desire Orderly Community On this subject, Director Hoover issued an emphatic "No!" Here is his reasoning: "Of course, soldiers are trained to kill but so are we of the FBI and I so are police officers. But no man of the FBI has ever been arrested for a crime of violence. There will be criminals among the returning vet- j erans, it is true criminals who will operate more efficiently than they would have if they hadn't had army training. But these are the men who probably would have been criminals crim-inals anyway if they had remained civilians. After all, the army is only a cross-section of the American people. peo-ple. Of course, the real criminals never got into the army their records rec-ords were too bad. "I expect the returning veteran to be a big help to us in combatting crime," Hoover went oa "The boys who are returning from the battlefields battle-fields have seen so much of destruction, destruc-tion, horror, disease, the dangers of dictatorship that they are anxious to see their communities get back to normal, peaceful ways. They are more interested in their homes and civil affairs. They want law and order or-der over here." The FBI expects the veterans to be a major influence on the criminal crim-inal tendencies of the teen-agers. "If the big brothers and fathers coming back settle down into jobs or go back to school, they can show the younger boys and girls how to be good citizens. The youngsters look up to these men as heroes they can be a strong influence on them." But the responsibility for leading the teen-agers aright does not rest solely on the veterans nor alone on the agencies of law enforcement. - "The question of crime among our youth cannot be pawned off on a few juvenile courts, overburdened juvenile juve-nile bureaus, and the local police," Director Hoover declared. "These agencies can help materially, but the big job is getting every parent, business busi-ness man, school teacher, salesman, farmer, mechanic, housewife, and' every other forward-looking citizen to knuckle down to the two-fisted realization that this is their job and it is up to them to do something about it." But no matter what is done to try to meet a crime situation that now has a potentiality for great evil in this country, there is one thing which Hoover believes will determine deter-mine in the long run whether it will be law or lawlessness from here on. "Whether or not we have a postwar post-war crime wave will depend in the last analysis on how we as a nation convert to a peacetime basis," Director Di-rector Hoover announced emphatically. emphati-cally. "You can't divorce economics econom-ics from crime. Although it is true that having money does not necessarily neces-sarily prevent a person from committing com-mitting a crime, not having money is a definite cause of it. When people peo-ple are out of work, there is a great er chance for them to get into trouble trou-ble than when they are employed." "If the Republicans don't look out, this guy Truman is going to pick up some votes right out from under their noses, he's so darned human," a political wiseacre whispered to me at the Press Club party for Byron Price. We were watching the President mingle with the guests, obviously enjoying himself. Just then a colleague of mine on the weekly press came up. His face was wreathed in smiles. "Guess what," he exclaimed. "I just said to the President 'I'm from Kansas City' and what do you think he said? 'That's a suburb of a certain cer-tain city, isn't it?' " And my friend, who has been a Republican since he can remember and especially so in the last 12 years, is beginning to think that "this guy Truman" is all right When the party was breaking up the President was heard to observe with a broad Missouri grin that he was having as good a time as he did when he was at the Press Club last. That time he was still vice president and his picture was taken playing the piano with movie star Lauren Bacall perched atop it. |
