THE CRIME COUNTRY

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Volume 58, Issue 224, 22 October 1929, Page 6

THE CRIME COUNTRY

It ls almost irapossible for the nveraae man in tbe United States to obtain an adeqnate idea of tbe erime record of his country. Neither the Htates nor tbe Federnl Oovernmenfc prelend to pnblish full and H'ue returns. This is one of tbe I'Casons why 1 Lrat oomprehensive publication tli^ Htatesninn's Year Book — the finest- work' of' ifs kind in the tYorld— is nnable to inclucle in its annual statistic review of the United States the crime record of that country. Occasionallv a combination ^ of newspapcrs published in America essays to make a record, and recently tlie American Bar Association appointed a com missiSn to that end. That it should be Ieft for a private organisation of this kind to endeavour to fill the gap Ieft by the Eederal Government's laches is a- striking testimony to official and party neglect. Both parties are equally to blame. When President Hoover assumed office he emphasised the great need for a thorough investigation of crime in the United States, but even he said notliing of the failure of the Federal Government to collate and pubHsh full criminal statistics. Wben the American Bar Association mo-Ved in the matter of its investigation it also failed to indict the Government for its laxitv in regard to criminal statistics. At the head of Ihe investigation commission was plaeed an ex-Attorney-General,- Mr Wade Ellis, and he has been recently making public some of tbe conclusions he has arrived at. They will not eommend themselves as fully satisfactory to the great body of 'tbe people oi tbe United States. To take one example, he declares that the appalling murder record of the counli'y is due to negroes and foreignboixi citizens. We have no means of checking the value of his generalisation as to foreign-boi'n citizens, but it is not trpe to say that the negro is distinguished by excep-t-ional homicidal tendcncies. Taken in the mass the negroes have enough to answer for in regard t'o crime, and the lynching of negroes by exasperated whites is not quitc uukncwn, but all the evidence available goes to show that there is r-.o special negro bias towards tnurder. Mr Ellis also is mistaken when he says that the annual average of mitrclers in the United States is fiftv times the similar average in Britain. It is more than fift-y times. He is, if newspaper investigations are to be trusted, below the mark when he says that there are 12,000 murders per anrium in the United States. That number is too low if we are to place anv reliance upon the figures of private investigators. Mr Ellis confesses his belief that to some extent the murder record of the United States is due to 'its gi-eat wealtb. This, he explains, has "led the weak" — quite a new term for murderers — to seek "easy money." Tn this, as he puts it, "the weak" have been aided by motor cars and pistols (with silencers fitted) and -machine gunS. But we must be just to him. Before he ends his published statement we find him looking elsewhere than to "ihe weak" for the explanation of the American murder record. As an ex-Federal Attorney-General he must be regard^d as knowing something of the connection be-tw-een party politics and crime, and he declares that in many of the large cities there is always a political and sometimes a financial partnership hetween the underworld and tlie very officials who have sworn to protect the lives and propetties of law-abiding citizens. But this is old news. The United States has only caugbt and executed one highly-placed official — Lieutenant Ulrich— but this is not because there have been no others who should have been similarlv dealt with.

This rasc&l — not to be thought of for a moment as ev-er among "the weak" — for years ran his- own eorps of gunmen, taking toi) of vice and cl'ime ahd occasitoally "eliminating" by those gunmen people who got in his way, and during years of imdeteoted villainv be aee.umnlated a fortune of severn] million dollnrs. T'ltimately he thought- it necessary to "remove" one of his own gunmen, but. tliose rletailed for the job did not quite kill the selected vietim. He was taken to hospital, and before be died "squealed." Ulrich was electrocufed in the end- . That was many years ago, but the Ulrich species is not extincU As Mr Wade Ellife, ex-Attorne.y -General, puts it, in maiiy of the large cities of the United States police heads and l'eaders of the underworld are in partnership. This, and not the nlleged homicidal instints of negroeSj is the truh explanation of the crime record of the United States.