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Show America Is Lav!::: Nation, Reports Criminal Author's ly NEW YORK America's soaring crime rate Is a direct reflection of the state of our national conscience and present-day moral standards. This is the opinion of Dr. Austin H. MacCormick, noted criminologist and professor of criminology at the University of California, reporting on the history of crime in America recently to the "Conference on the Future" arranged,in New York by 2500 mutual fire and casualty insurance in-surance companies. "A climate of crime is created by the moral standards of our contemporary con-temporary officials and citizens, our tolerance of wrongdoing, and our attitude toward law enforcement enforce-ment and the social controls opposed op-posed to crime," MacCormick said. Because of the national lapse in moral standards, MacCormick reported, re-ported, America today "has earned the unenviable title of 'the most lawless nation on earth!" We now have an estimated total of nearly two million major crimes and 15 million minor offenses committed com-mitted in the United States each year, he said. He outlined the transition of crime In America from the "need and greed" theory of motivation to present pres-ent "highly organized criminal syndicates syn-dicates operating on a national level, skillfully integrated and distorting dis-torting the latest advances in science and communication facilities facili-ties to their unlawful uses." A generation or two ago, ha said, Investigation of the youth caught holding up the- corner grocer revealed re-vealed he wanted the money for food or shelter or to impress his girl friend. "When that thief is captured cap-tured today, all too often we find ha got the gun from a higher-up who was selling him dope and thereby there-by stood to gain from a successful robbery. And this intermediary in turn was being supplied with dope wholesale by a third member of a criminal hierarchy." "Our present social and economic situation is producing a predominant predomi-nant motivation to crime," MacCormick Mac-Cormick said. "And today we must face up to the presence of organized crime, committed by predatory racketeers combined in powerful syndicates with a greed for money and a greed for power." Almost as important as supporting support-ing and strengthening our law-enforcement law-enforcement agencies, MacCormick said, "is a national moral renaissance, renais-sance, a return to the moral precepts pre-cepts of our founders, a return on all levels to the old-fashioned principles prin-ciples of teaching and believing in the intrinsic difference between right and wrong." Dr. MacCormick was one of 11 outstanding scientists and educators speaking at the Conference on the Future. Measnrlng Snow The Weather Bureau usually measures the fall of snow at the bottom of a standard eight-Inch rain gauge, which is essentially an open-ended open-ended can, eight inches in diameter and about two and a half feet high. The snow is leveled off to cover the bottom at a uniform depth, which, measured in inches, is the amount of snowfall during a particular period, pe-riod, ine snow is then melted and measured, to get the equivalent amount of liquid water in the snowfall. |