p. 10 | Why Do Men Kill? by Earle Albert Rowell

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Feb 25, 1913

Why Do Men Kill?

By Earle Albert Rowell

We naturally suppose that men kill each other from some overmastering motive, at least in the majority of cases. Arthur Train, formerly Assistant District Attorney of New York County, in his recent book, “Courts, Criminals, and Camorra,” has analyzed a large number of murder cases with the purpose of ascertaining the reason why men kill. He reaches some astonishing conclusions.

After giving in detail sixty-two cases, he sums up:

“The significant features of this analysis are that about seventy-five per cent of the killings were due to quarrels over small sums or other matters, drink, and women; over fifty per cent to drink and petty quarrels, and about thirty per cent to quarrels simply. The trifling character of the causes of the quarrels themselves is shown by the fact that in three of these particular cases, tried in a single week, the total amount involved in the disputes was only eighty-five cents. That is about twenty-eight and one half cents a life. Many a murder in a barroom grows out of an argument over whether a glass of beer has, or has not, been paid for, or whose turn it is to treat; and more than one man has been killed in New York City because he was too clumsy to avoid stepping on somebody’s feet or bumping into another man on the sidewalk.”

“With a view to ascertaining conditions in general throughout the United States, I asked a clipping agency to send me the first one hundred notices of actual homicides which should come under its scissors. One hundred and seven clippings brought the following reasons why men killed: There were four suicides, three lynchings, one infanticide, three murders while resisting arrest, three criminals killed while resisting arrest, two men killed in riots, eight murders in the course of committing burglaries and robberies, seven persons killed in vendettas, three race murders, and twenty-four killed in quarrels over petty causes; there were twelve murders from jealousy, followed in four instances by suicide on the part of the murderer; six killings justifiable on the ‘higher law’ theory only, but involving great provocation; and thirty deliberate slaughters. The last clipping recounted how an irate husband pounded a ‘masher’ so hard that he died. Leaving out the suicides and those killed while resisting arrest, there remain one hundred persons murdered, not only by persons insane or wild from the effects of liquor, but by robbers and burglars, brutes, bullies, and thugs, husbands, wives, and lovers, and by a vast number of people who not only destroyed their enemies in a fury of anger, but in many instances openly went out gunning for them in the dark, or hacked off their heads with hatchets while they slept.”

A Sanguinary Record and Little Consolation

“It is, indeed, a sanguinary record, from which little consolation is to be derived, and the only comfort is the probability that the accounts of the first one hundred murders anywhere in Europe would undoubtedly be just as blood-curdling. I had simply asked the clipping bureau to send me one hundred horrors and I had got them. They did not indicate anything at all so far as the ratio of homicide to population was concerned, or as to the blood-thirstiness of Americans in general. They merely showed what despicable things murders are.”

“The reasons for these homicides were of every sort: A girl of eleven shot her girl friend of

about the same age, and killed her; a plumber killed his brother—also a plumber—for saying he stole two dollars; a jealous lover shot and killed his sweetheart, her father and mother; a card game resulted in a revolver fight on the street in which one of the players was killed; and a couple of dozen persons were incidentally shot, stabbed, or otherwise disposed of in the course of quarrels over the most trivial matters. In almost no case was there what an intelligent, civilized man would regard as an adequate reason for the homicide. They killed because they felt like killing, and yielded to the impulse, whatever its immediate origin.”

Abundantly Supported

This conclusion is abundantly supported by the figures of the Chicago Tribune for the seven years ending in 1900, when carefully analyzed. During this period 62,812 homicides were recorded. Of these were 17,120 of which the causes were unknown, and 3,204 committed while making a justifiable arrest, in self-defense, or by the insane, so that there were in fact only 42,488 felonious homicides the causes of which can be definitely alleged. The ratio of ‘the quarrels’ to this net total is about seventy-five per cent. There were, in addition, 2,848 homicides due to liquor—that is, without cause. Thus eighty per cent of all the murders and manslaughters in the United States for a period of seven years were for no reason at all or from mere anger or habit, arising out of causes often of the most trifling character.”

“Nor are the conclusions changed by the figures of the years between 1904 and 1909.”

“The fact to be observed—the interesting and, broadly speaking, the astonishing fact—is that among a people like ourselves anybody should desire to kill. It is even more astonishing than that the impulse should be yielded to so often if it comes.”

“This, then, is the real reason why men kill—because it is inherent in their state of mind, it is part of their mental and physical make-up—they are ready to kill, they want to kill, they are the kind of men who do kill.”

Strikingly Foretold

It would seem that the prophet’s words apply to-day: “There is naught but swearing and breaking faith, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery; they break out, and blood toucheth blood.” Hosea 4:2. “Your hands are defiled with blood. . . . Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood.” Isa. 59:3, 7.

We are certainly in the “perilous times” spoken of by Paul. 2 Tim. 3:1-7. But why do men kill?—“Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning.” John 8:44. Paul tells us that he is “the god of this world,” and “the prince of the powers of the air.”

Why do men kill?—Because they are of their father, who was a murderer from the beginning. There is no other reason, there can be no other. Satan is the author of murder, so Jesus tells us, and those who profess to have any faith in Jesus will believe Him, and not spend valuable time in seeking to account for murder on some sociological ground. Even lawyers like Arthur Train are compelled to admit that men kill without any reason for killing. And yet in the face of these 10,000 yearly murders which are admitted to be without reason, without the slightest justification, those who venture to assert that the world gives no evidence of getting better are derided as fanatical alarmists. May people see that the land is filled with blood because men have rejected the gentle Jesus, and chosen the murderer, Satan!

EARLE ALBERT ROWELL.