INCREASE OF CRIME

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 20, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 47.

“INCREASE OF CRIME.”

It is frequently said by candid and careful observers that there is great increase of crime in these days. Not that this year there were more crimes committed than last year, but that the last decade, for instance, or the last half century, is more prolific of crime than the same period preceding.

These statements are sometimes made by social and political reformers, who have special political panaceas to advocate. They are made by religious teachers as evidences of a degenerating age,—of the fulfilment of prophecy. They are made also by sober, thoughtful, observing men, who can not be said to have any theory to support or political platform to carry.

These statements concerning increase of crime are often denied by optimistic teachers, who will not see anything wrong with their land or times, who will not heed danger signals when, in their mind, there is no danger. There are prototypes of these optimists in the history of the decline and ruin of many a nation and people.

Another class that deny the increase of crime, are penological students, statisticians of criminology. But whence do these obtain their statistics? Take homicide, for instance. A Chicago paper endeavors faithfully to collect from year to year the crimes committed in this country, as reported in the newspapers. It gives the number of homicides for a certain year at 6,225. This is presumably under rather than over the exact number; for there were doubtless not a few which never came to light. These have no particular bearing upon the discussion of this question, as the proportion, year in and out, would be about the same ratio to the known crimes. This is one source of information; and for the last few years it shows a falling off of homicides in this country of, in round numbers, from 10,000 to 5,000. This reckoning takes no account of the number who did the killing. What would be the number of the murderers if the participants, aiders, and abettors in the mad, murderous lynchings were counted? Every man who took part in these awful crimes is as guilty of the life of the victim of the mob’s vengeance as tho he, with the same motive, slew the man single-handed and alone.

Another source of information is the courts. But the criminals according to court statistics are those who are proved and adjudged guilty. But all who know aught about it know that many, very many, trials of criminals are the merest farces, and that the known guilty criminal is acquitted on legal technicalities through the shrewdness of some actually “criminal lawyer.” Of what worth are the courts as sources of information in the status of criminology?

Take, for instance, a county in this State as a sample of very many counties, in morals, in the United States. Last spring a mob in that county seized and hanged, without trial, or anything worthy of provocation, it is said, save the hatred of thwarted human hearts, an old man, three other men, and a child. Through the efforts of San Francisco papers, of the attorney-general of the State, and of a fearless judge in the county, some of these men were indicted for murder by the grand jury of the county. They have not been brought to trial to the present, because of the manifest sympathy of the people with them. And yet the court records of this county show it to be remarkably free from crime. A judge recently remarked, as reported in a daily of the 24th ult., “Look at the records, sir; look at ‘the records. Scarcely a criminal case in my court ‘from one year’s end to another.’”

A stage-driver, telling a story of the county, remarked:—

“‘Yes,’ peared like ’twa’n’t any use. They peppered away at each other across the street with Colt forty-fivers, and each of ’em put some lead in his man. They had to go to bed for a spell, and it looked like we might have a funeral or two. But when the case came before the justice of the peace, the district attorney got up and said he reckoned it had better be called off, because anybody could see that both of ’em shot in self-defense.”

“‘See yon’ break?” he asked, pointing to a dislocated bit of roadside fence. “Well, it’s curious how things happen. There was a dispute about some water, and the feller that had the best of it was in the way, ’peared like. One afternoon he was climbin’ that fence; but somethin’ happened, and he never got clear over. They found him next day where that rail is down. Had two bullets in his back somewhere. Those bullets settled the dispute, and things went on kind of smooth after that.”

“Was the murder ever investigated?” he was asked.

“Investigated!” he exclaimed. “Nope; nothin’ wuth while to investigate. ’Peared like he was in the way, you see, so what was the use?”

It is not put in just that way generally; but everybody knows that some of the great corporations in this land have ridden ruthlessly and wholesale through and over every hedge of law by which legislatures have sought to safeguard the State and public. Injustice, criminal injustice, of the baldest kind is charged to these great trusts again and again, but the merest tyro knows that the law is powerless to convict. Congressmen are bought, legislators are purchased, jurors are suborned, municipal councils are owned, by some of these mammoth combinations. Pennsylvania has been held for years, confessedly, in the toils of a gang of political criminals. New York City is so held to-day. So is Chicago, in many respects. The majority of the municipal council of one of the best cities on the Pacific Coast voted, the other night, to grant a saloon license to a confessed briber of a city official, who was forced to resign.

But none of these things are mentioned by our statistical criminologists. They are not court cases, or if they are, no one is convicted. Their sentence does not appear in the judicial records. No names are placed upon the prison register; and yet men know the guilt, know it and pass on with a smile, so hardened have become the moral sensibilities under the constant hypnotic spell of sin in high places, open, bold, shameless. The whole commercial world is corrupted by unapprehended, untried, unconvicted criminals, who are never reported by the statisticians. The “more sure word of prophecy” tells us the simple facts in the following predictions of these very times:— “Our transgressions are multiplied before Thee, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them; in transgressing and lying against the Lord, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off; for

truth is fallen in the street, and equity can not enter. Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: and the Lord saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no judgment.” Isa. 59: 12–15.

The apostle Paul draws a similar picture, as follows:—

“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.” 2 Tim. 3: 1–5.

The fearful peril of these days is that sin and unrighteousness and injustice (after the most approved, red-tape and polite forms, of course) is so prevalent in high places, among those who profess better things, that society in general is becoming poisoned with its deadly miasma. Evil no longer appears evil. God’s straight standard has become crooked, and men do not know and see its perversion. Crime stalks boldly abroad, gives to charity of his unjust gains, and men hail him as a friend.

The world is unregenerate, and the unregenerate heart is corrupt. God placed in this corrupting earth the salt of salvation in His people, to save it from utter corruption. He placed here His light in His church, that men might not walk in the darkness of sin. But when the salt has lost its savor, with what shall it be salted? When the light goes out, how great is the darkness! Wickedness and sin and crime are increasing in the face of the greatest light the world ever knew. It is no just comparison to measure these times by the days of past paganism and ignorance. The only true measure is the light which shines from God’s Word. Men may cry, Peace, but it will not bring it. Only surrender to God, only righteousness, will do that. “When they ‘shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction ‘cometh upon them, . . . and they shall not ‘escape.”