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Show PROHIBITION AND CRIME Two Topics of the Hour and Their Aspects Below is what the editor believes to be a most comprehensive discussion with regard to the prohibition question and its relation to Crime. Its effect upon the nation and its probable outcome. The article because of its length wil! appear in two installments, this week and next. It is offered to our readers because of its merit and soundness of logic. Outstanding editorials, and . the world's best and most well edited publications were gleaned for most of the information We hope you will enjoy reading it and invito comment on it from our readers. As we write, a law has just been enacted greatly increasing the maximum penalties for violation of the Volstead act Its sponsors say that it is not to apply to amateur offenders only professional bootleggers. But this is not mandatory in the law. Under its provision a judge may send you to prison for five years for carrying a flask to a November football game. . The Sparish Inquisition made it possible to drive the Jews and Protestants out of Spain by the use of the rack and thumbscrew, thumb-screw, but it's doubtful if the rack and screw will be permitted tha drys in the attempts to extirpate the wets. Short, however, of using torture or at Jeast the death penalty upon people, it is hard to make them change their religion by passing laws. r And even if capital punishment shoud come as the next step, we don't beieve it will wipe out the use of liquor. The desire for ' liquor in some hearts is so intense that it will drive a man to ruin his family and prospects to get it Othen, not so extreme, 'simply know what they want and are "willing to pay for it Ti e point is, they don't think it is wrong. , The American in a pretty individual kind of a bird. He came over here to escape restraint and get religious freedom. When a laws looks to him tyrannical hcopposes the law, and he has always done so. Such people think it better to fight for freedom than to give up without a sniggle. Prohibition is not a part of the religion of the Jewish people, nor of the Catholics or Episcopalians. And of course there is a vast number of people belonging to no established church who do not like to have the religious tenets of other people forced upon them. Among these there are many who abstain from liquor for economic reasons, to please the little woman, or because they got a headache the last time out That is an admirable thing - but we do not think it admirable to try to compel them to abstinence because be-cause the Methodists and Baptists believe in it. The fathers of this country were right in providing for various vari-ous forms of religious freedom and thought the right to worship wor-ship and think as one likes. It would be better if some similar degree de-gree of latitude in conduct entered into the consideration of the liquor problem, so that those who want it within reason might have it within reason, and those who do not might be permitted to do without The demoralization which prohibition has brought about over tl t-MW4.u 4 kwirulfK fViA InnI fhn jiAvnmfiin ihn Irillmar nt citizens, the poison hooch, the confiscation of property by padlocking, padlock-ing, the removal of trial by jury these are evidence that something some-thing is very much amiss. ' We believe this recent step to increase the penalties for violation viola-tion of the Volstead act is a der.perate effort perhaps the last of one religion to enforce itself on others. It would seem that prohibition itself has become a religion in this country. It inspires in its followers the same devotion and spirit of consecration as aroused by the various other forms of religious re-ligious faith. In the minds of its proponents, prohibition is more h matter of religion than of economics or law. J . . In its essence it has nothing to do with Christianity. The point has often been made that Jesus was a maker and user of wine. '. ' I By this of course we do not mean that it is not a widely accepted ac-cepted belief of many Christian people. Many devout Christians are devoted prohibitionists just as they are sincere Republicans; but prohibition has nothing to do with the religion Christ taight Methodists and Baptists are generaly among the most exemplary exem-plary of Christians. And Methodists and Baptists generally believe be-lieve in prohibition. But in doing so they have added something to their Christian belief. And because this matter of prohibition is in dispute it has become the part of their religion which they are the most determined to enforce on themselves and others. Therein, we think, lies the error. Unquestionably, abstinence on the part of those who practice it is admirable. It frequently improves the character, health, spirits, temper, longevity, and pocketbooks of its adherents. The same can be said of goigg to church or abiding by the tenets of any of the established religions. They are acts of faith. But abstinence is most valuable, when it is practiced voluntarily. To this the prohibitonists do not agree. They seek to impose their belief in it on other people, and .this is where heat and passion come in. The great majority of the people entertained the- ideal that when they cast their votes in the election that gave the country prohibition, the job of making the country dry was over. Little did they realize the enormous undertaking that they had placed upon the shoulders of the government. HOW DOES THIS CONDITION AFFECT THE CRIME AVALANCHE AVA-LANCHE WHICH IS SWEEPING THE NATION? Every evening the sporting extras and the pink sheets blazon before us the accounts of new hold-ups, of jewel robberies, of safecracking, safe-cracking, of machine-gun battles between enemy re tachments of aggrandized thugs. Crimes grow in number and they take on a new cast. They even have a distinct touch of modernity about them, as witness the recent Chicago massacre. Once outbursts of crime were sporadic. Robberies would follow fol-low one another in quick succession and then outlawry would subside. sub-side. . So familiar was this phenomenon that someone, with a csri-inoW csri-inoW onfAohM ImAfrinatinn. invented the term 'crime wave.' It stuck because it was accurate. The phrase still fills the newspaper columns but overuse has made it meaningless. Crime no longer moves in spaced intervals; it is as steady and repetitious as noon. Sensational hold-ups are as much a routine part of the day's production pro-duction as the rise and fall of stocks. Furthermore, as the outrages out-rages grow in number, important arrests and convictions decrease. There was a day when a spectacular crime was almost inevitably inevit-ably followed by police round-ups nd ultimate prison terms, i Today To-day police still stage their round-ups, but the results are not the same. The headline Tolice Baffled by Daylight Crime' lias become so increasingly common that most of us know it by heart, and there is nothing local about the situation; in Chicago, Detroit, St Louis, San Francisco, New York, in all the great cities, it is the same: the power of the police seems impotent to cope with the crook. . , . Let us make no mistake about i,t either. Charges of police dishonesty and indifference do not get to the heart of the matter. Reform city governments have not shown appreciably better results re-sults than their predecessors. Police shake-ups, spectacular drives to 'clean up the town,' have no further effect than a temporary lulling of public apprehension and a soothing of political unrest Wholesale arrests do not curb crime unless you get the criminals. And the situation seems to be getting worse, not better, v JTo be continued in next issue). - : |