SOCIAL ALLEVIATION
WHEN the security of peace and an efficient government are attained,
the way lies open for the amelioration of social evils. Freedom from
war and from political corruption are but the pre-conditions of social
advance, which must consist in three things: the healing of existing
ills, the reorganization of society to prevent the recurrence of
similar ills, and the bringing of new opportunities and joys to the
people. Our first step, then, is to consider social therapeutics-the
palliation of present suffering, the redressing of existing wrongs;
however we may seek, by radical readjustments, to strike at the roots
of these evils, we must not fail to mitigate, as best we can, the lot
of those who are the unfortunate victims of our still crude social
organization. The detailed study of social ills and their remedies
has come to be a science by itself, and a science that calls for close
attention; for there is more good will than insight a field, and
nothing demands more wisdom and experience than the permanent curing
of social sores. But it falls to ethics to note the general duties
and opportunities, to point out the responsibility of the individual
citizen for wrongs which he is not helping to right, and to direct
him to the great moral causes in one or more of which an increasing
number of our educated men and women are enrolling themselves. A
questionnaire recently sent out by the author of this book discloses
the fact that over half the college graduates of this country have
given time and money to one or more of the campaigns which are being
waged for social betterment. [Footnote: Some of the results of this
questionnaire were published in the Independent for August 5, 1913,
vol. 75, p. 348.] These evils which it is the duty of the State to
try to remedy we shall now consider.
What is the duty of the State in regard to:
I. SICKNESS AND PREVENTABLE DEATH? Physical ills are the unavoidable
lot of the human race; but by no means to the extent to which they
now prevail. A very large percentage of existing sickness and infirmity
could have been prevented by a timely application of such knowledge
as the intelligent already possess. It is the poverty, the crowded
and unsanitary living conditions, the ignorance and helplessness of
the masses, that perpetuate all this unnecessary suffering, this economic
waste, this drag on human efficiency and happiness. Not only from
humanitarian motives, but also from regard for national prosperity
and virility, it behooves the State to wage war against preventable
illness and safeguard the general health.
How shocking conditions are, in view of the sanitary and medical
knowledge we now possess, we are not apt to realize. It is estimated
that of the three million or so who are seriously ill in this country
on any average day, more than half might have been kept well by the
enforcement of proper precautions; that of the 1,500,000 deaths that
occur annually in the United States, nearly half could have been
postponed. Tuberculosis, for example, is not a highly contagious or
rapid disease; it is absolutely preventable by measures now understood,
and almost always curable in its earliest stages. Yet half a million
people in our country are suffering from it, and about 130,000 die
of it annually. Typhoid, which could readily be as nearly eradicated
as smallpox has been, claims some 30,000 victims annually. It has been
estimated by various statisticians that the nation could save a billion
dollars a year through postponing deaths, and at least half as much
again by preventing illness that does not result fatally. Tuberculosis
alone is said to cost the country half a billion annually, typhoid
over three hundred million, and so on. The cost in suffering, broken
lives, and broken hearts is beyond computation.
There are many different ways in which the campaign for public health
can be simultaneously waged:
(1) The enforcement of quarantine laws, vaccination, and fumigation,
should be much stricter than it is in many parts of the nation. By
such means the cholera, bubonic plague, and other terrible diseases
have been practically kept out of the country, and smallpox has become,
from one of the most dreaded scourges, an almost negligible peril.
Experience shows strikingly the advantage of isolating patients
suffering from contagious diseases; here at least the State, in the
interest of the community as a whole, must sternly limit individual
liberty. And it looks as if we were at the threshold of an era of
"vaccination" for other diseases besides smallpox; typhoid is now
absolutely preventable by that means, and the number of diseases
amenable to prevention or mitigation by similar methods is yearly
increasing. In some or all of these cases there is a slight risk to
the patient, in view of which compulsory "vaccination" is in some
quarters strenuously opposed. Leaving the discussion of the principle
here involved to chapter XXVIII, we may confidently say, at least,
that voluntary inoculation against diseases is an increasingly valuable
safeguard not only for the individual in question but for the whole
community.
(2) Apart from state action, voluntary organizations formed to attack
specific diseases, by spreading popular knowledge of preventive
measures, and pushing legislation for their enforcement, offer much
promise. The Anti-Tuberculosis League can already point to a ten per
cent decline in the death rate from that plague in the decade from
1900 to 1910. [Footnote: For methods and results consult the Secretary
of the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis,
105 East Twenty-second Street, New York City. Free literature is sent,
and information furnished on request.] But while in New York City alone
nearly thirty thousand fresh victims are seized by the disease every
year, a voluntary organization cannot hope to cope with the situation;
the power and resources of the State are needed. The congestion of
population, and the lack of proper light and air, which are the
greatest factors, perhaps, in the spread of the scourge, must be
attacked by legislation. So typhoid must be fought not only by
vaccination, but by legislation insuring a pure water supply, proper
sewage disposal, and the protection of food from contamination.
Measures necessary to eradicate that pest, the house fly, must be
enforced, the mosquito must be as nearly as possible exterminated,
streets and yards must be kept clean, the smoke nuisance abated, the
slaughtering of animals and canning of food sharply regulated, sanitary
conditions enforced in homes and factories. One of the prerequisites
to any marked improvement will be the "taking out of politics" of the
public health service and making it an expert profession.
(3) Another service that the community must eventually, in its own
interests, provide, is free medical attendance, by really competent
physicians, wherever there is need. Without referring to the suffering
and anxiety spared, the expense of this service will far more than
be saved the State in the prevention of illness and premature death.
The most careful medical inspection of school children, including
attention by experts to eyes, ears, and teeth, is of utmost importance;
all sorts of ills can thus be averted which the parents are too ignorant
or careless to forestall. [Footnote: Consult the literature of the
American School Hygiene Association (Secretary T. A. Storey, College
of the City of New York). L. D. Cruickshank, School Clinics at Home
and Abroad. Outlook, vol. 84, p. 662.] It is earnestly to be hoped
that the present chaos of medical education and practice will be soon
reduced to a better order; that practitioners who prefer manipulation
or mental healing, for example, will, instead of forming separate and
antagonistic schools, unite their insight and experience with the main
stream of scientific therapeutic effort. The quacks who delude and
murder hordes of ignorant victims must be, so far as is practicable,
severely punished; and adequate physiological and medical education
should be required for all practicing healers, whatever methods they
may then choose to employ.
(4) Besides free medical attendance, the State must pro- vide free
hospitals for the sick, nurses for the poor, asylums for those who
are incapacitated by infirmity from self-support. The care and treatment
of the feeble-minded, the insane, the deaf, the blind, the crippled,
should always be in the hands of experts; and, so far as possible,
work that they can do must be provided. With the enforcement of the
measures we have enumerated, the need of such institutions will become
much less; but at present they are inadequate in number and equipment,
too often managed by incompetent officials, and not always free from
scandal. [Footnote: Cf. C. R, Henderson, Social Spirit in America,
chap. XV.]
(5) Most important of all, perhaps, is the work that must be done to
save the babies. Approximately a third of the babies born in this
country die before they are four years old; half or two thirds of these
could be saved. Wonderful results in baby saving have followed strict
control of the milk supply and the banishing of the fly. Besides this,
mothers must in some way be given instruction in the very difficult
and complicated art of rearing infants; for many of the deaths are
due to simple ignorance.[Footnote: For methods and results in
baby-saving, consult the Secretary of the National Association for
the Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality, 1211 Cathedral Street,
Baltimore, Maryland. Also Outlook, vol. 101, p. 190. J. S. Gibbon,
Infant Welfare Centers.] Poverty, the necessity of self- support on
the part of mothers, also plays a large part; we shall consider in
chapter xxx the possibility of state care of mothers during the infancy
of their children. II. Poverty and inadequate living conditions? If
human illness can be in large measure averted by state action, poverty
can be practically abolished. The poor we have always had with us,
indeed; but we need not forever have them. There is no excuse for our
tolerance of the suffering and degradation of the submerged classes;
the causes of this wretchedness are in the main removable. The initial
cost will be great, but in the long run the saving to the community
will be enormous. Individual effort can only achieve a superficial
and temporary relief; and even the two or three hundred charity
organization societies in the country are impotent, for lack of funds
and of power, to stem the forces that make for poverty. To dole out
charity to this family and to that is unhappily necessary in our
present crude social situation; but it is not a solution. It not only
runs the continual risk of encouraging shiftlessness and dependence,
but it does not go to the root of the matter. There will always be
inequalities in wealth and room for personal gifts from the more to
the less fortunate; but the State must not be content with such patching
and palliating, but must strike at the roots of the evil. We will
consider the chief causes of poverty and their cure.
(1) The cause that bulks largest is the inadequate wages of a
considerable portion of the lowest class. It is obviously impossible
to support the average family of five in decency, not to say in health,
efficiency, or comfort, with an income of, say, less than a thousand
dollars a year, as prices go at time of writing (1914). Yet great
numbers of families at present have to exist somehow upon less, even
much less. Five million adult male workers in this country receive
less than six hundred dollars a year for their work.[Footnote: Cf.
Professor Fairchild's comments in Forum, vol. 52, p. 49 (July, 1914).]
Even when mothers work who ought to be at home tending the children,
even when children work who ought to be in school, the total income
is often miserably inadequate. Yet there is ample wealth in the country,
if it were better distributed, to pay a living wage to every laborer.
By some one of the means which we shall presently discuss, the State
must see that all laborers are well enough paid to enable them, while
they work, to support in comfort a moderate family.
(2) Involuntary unemployment is the next source of poverty. This is
due to many causes: the periodic depressions and failures of industries;
the introduction of new machinery, throwing out whole classes of
laborers; the enormous influx of immigrants and consequent congestion
in the cities of unskilled labor; lack of education, or natural
stupidity, which render some men too incompetent to retain positions.
Ignorance can be overcome by proper compulsory education laws; all
but the actually feeble-minded (who must be cared for in institutions)
can, by skillful attention, be taught proficiency in some trade. And
with a more widespread education the work that requires no skill can
be left to the hopelessly stupid. The congestion of labor in the cities
[Footnote: In February, 1914, there were reported to be 350,000 men
out of work in New York City (Outlook, March 14, 1914).] can be largely
remedied by free state employment bureaus which shall serve as
distributing agencies; there is almost always work enough and to spare
in some parts of the country, and usually not far away. But more than
this is necessary; the State must see that work is offered every man
who is able to work. All sorts of public works need unskilled laborers
in every city of the country; there is digging to be done, shoveling
and sweeping and carting. There are roads to be built, rivers to be
dredged, parks to be graded, buildings to be erected, a thousand things
to be done. It will be quite feasible, when wages are generally
adequate, for the cities, by general agreement, to offer work to all
applicants at a wage so low as not to attract men away from other
employments, and yet to enable them to support their families decently.
The low wages given will save the city much money directly, as well
as saving it the care of the indigent. But it will be a feasible plan
only when the city's jobs cease to be used as a means of vote-buying
by politicians and are offered where they are needed. [Footnote: 1 See
W.H. Beveridge, Unemployment. J.A. Hobson, The Problem of the
Unemployed. Alden and Hayward, The Unemployable and the
Unemployed. C. S. Loch, Methods of Social Advance, chap. IX.
Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 8, pp. 168, 453, 499. Review
of Reviews, vol. 9, pp. 29, 179. Charities Review, vol. 3, pp. 221,
323. Independent, vol. 77, p.363. National Municipal Review,
vol. 3, p.366. The unemployment which is the result of laziness
must be cured by compulsory work as in farmcolonies, which
have been successful in Europe. Cf. Edmond Kelly, The
Elimination of the Tramp.]
(3) The third important cause of poverty is sickness and the death
of wage earners. Here the way is clear. When the State has taken the
measures we have enumerated for the public health, when it provides
competent doctors and nurses, and bears the cost of illness, we shall
have only the loss of wages during the illness or after the death of
wage earners to consider. And here some form of universal insurance
will probably be the solution; this is preferable to state care of
dependents, as it carries no taint of charity. This solves every
problem but the delicate one, which must be entrusted to expert
diagnosticians, of determining to work is caused by physical
weakness or mere laziness.
(4) The fourth great cause of poverty, drink, can and must be abolished
in the near future, by the means already considered.
(5) There remain three personal causes which need be the only
permanently troublesome factors- -laziness, self-indulgence, and the
incontinence which results in over- large families. The laziness which
prefers chronic inactivity to work is not normal to human nature, and
will be largely banished by education, the improvement of health, and
the improvement of the conditions and hours of labor. The obstinate
cases of unwillingness to work must be cured by compulsory labor in
farm colonies or on public works; most such cases respond to
intelligent treatment and cease to be troublesome when some physical
or moral twist has been remedied. The waste of income in self-indulgence
of one form or other is more difficult to deal with; but the law can
justly forbid the wage-earner from squandering upon himself money
needed by wife and children, and direct that a due proportion of his
wages be paid directly to the wife. If neither father nor mother will
use their money for the proper welfare of the children, the State must
take the children from them though that step should only be a last
and desperate resort. Finally, there is the tendency, unfortunately
most prevalent among the lowest classes, to have more children than
can be decently cared for. To some extent this evil can be remedied
by the dissemination of information concerning proper methods of
preventing conception [Footnote: There is, however, a danger in the
general dissemination of such information- the danger of increasing
prostitution by lessening one of the chief deterrents there from.];
to some extent by moral training to self-control and a sense of
responsibility. Or the State may undertake the countenance large
families; if this is done (see chapter xxx), steps must of course be
taken to prevent the marrying of the unfit-or, at least, their
breeding. With our rapidly decreasing birth rate, and the spread of
education, which will do away with "lower" classes and fit every one
in some decent degree to be a parent, this will probably be the ultimate
solution. With the disappearance of poverty, the miserable living
conditions of so large a proportion of our population will
automatically improve. But much should be done directly by the State
to prevent such housing conditions as make for physical or moral
degeneration. We are far behind Europe in housing-legislation, and
conditions in most of our cities are going from bad to worse. There
is, however, no need whatever of unsanitary housing; it is merely the
selfishness of owners and the apathy of the public that permits its
existence. The crowding-which in New York City runs up to some
thirteen hundred per acre-can be stopped by simple legislation. The
lack of proper light or ventilation, of proper water supply, plumbing,
or sewerage, of proper removal of ashes, garbage, or rubbish, is
inexcusable. The results of living in the dark, foul-aired, unsanitary
tenements of our slums are: a great increase in sickness and premature
death; a stunting of growth, physical and mental, and an increase in
numbers of backward and delinquent children; the spread of vicious
and criminal habits through the lack of privacy and contagion of close
contact with the vicious.
We are breeding in our slums a degenerate race,-boys who grow up
used to vice, and girls that drift naturally into prostitution; we are
allowing disease to spread from them, through the children that go
to the public schools, the shop-girls we buy from in the stores, the
servants that enter our houses, the men we rub elbows with on the
street or in the street-cars. Very salutary are the laws that require
the name of the owner to be placed on all buildings; shame before the
public may wring improvements from many a landlord who now takes
profits from tenements unfit for habitation. But it ought not to be
left to the conscience of the individual owner; the State must exercise
its primary right to forbid the crowding of tenants into houses which
do not afford sanitary quarters and permit a decent degree of privacy.
III. COMMERCIALIZED VICE?
The duty of the State in regard to the vice caterers is obvious; the
commercializing of vice must be strictly prohibited by law and enforced
by whatever means experience proves most effective. We must learn
to include in this class of enemies of society the manufacturers and
sellers of alcoholic liquors, as well as of the less generally used
arcotics; but this matter has been already discussed in connection
]with our study of the individual's duty in relation to alcohol. Of the
proprietors of gambling dens, indecent "shows," etc, we need not
further speak, concentrating our attention instead upon the worst
species of vice catering, the commercializing of prostitution. The
extent to which the sale of woman's virtue prevails in our cities is
scarcely believable. The recent commission of which Mr. Rockefeller
was chairman actually counted 14,926 professional prostitutes in
Manhattan alone, in 1912; while personal visitation established the
existence of over sixteen hundred houses where the gratification of
lust could be bought. Not all, certainly, were counted; and this list is,
of course, entirely exclusive of the great number of girls occasionally
and secretly selling themselves to friends, acquaintances, and employers.
Many hundreds of men and women, keepers of houses, procurers,
and the like, live on the proceeds of this great underground industry;
and to some extent-though to what extent it is, of course, impossible
to ascertain the forcible retention of young girls is exist in most of the
world's cities. What is being done to abolish this ghastliest of evils?
In most great cities, scarcely anything, for two reasons: the one being
that so many men, perhaps the majority, secretly wish to retain an
opportunity for purchasing sex gratification, the other that the police
generally find the protection of illegal vice an easy source of revenue.
If the police are honest, they break up a disorderly house-and let the
inmates carry the lure of their trade elsewhere. The magistrates fine
them, or give them sentences just long enough to bring them needed
rest and nutrition, and send them back to their business. Or they drive
them out of town-to swell the numbers in the next town. Attempts at
legalization and localization are frank admissions of inability or
lack of desire to fight the evil; their effect is to make the way of
temptation easier for the youth. Compulsory medical inspection gives
a promise of immunity from disease which is largely illusory, and entices
men who are now restrained by prudential motives. There are, however,
many promising lines of attack:
(1) When women gain the vote, they can be counted on to fight the
evil. The prostitutes themselves, being mostly minors, and, in any case,
anxious to conceal their identity, seldom vote; and the remaining women
are almost en masse bitterly opposed to the trade. With women voting,
and an efficient political administration inaugurated in our cities, we
shall hope to witness the end of the scandalous nonenforcement of
existing laws.
(2) The abolishing of the liquor trade will take away the great
political ally of the trade in girlhood; and without the demoralizing
influence of alcohol fewer men will yield to their passions and
fewer girls be pliant thereto.
(3) The Rockefeller Commission disclosed majority of prostitutes are
almost wholly uneducated-about half of those questioned had not even
gone through the primary school, and only seven per cent had finished
the grammar-school work. Compulsory education, vigilantly enforced,
will greatly lessen the number of girls who will be willing to take
up the life of degradation, suffering, and premature death; especially
will this be the case if sex hygiene is properly taught. Approximately
a quarter of the girls studied were mentally defective; these should
have been detected in the schools and removed to the proper
institutions before they fell prey to the clever schemes of the
procurer.[Footnote: Of 647 wayward girls recently at the Bedford
Reformatory, over 300 were accounted mentally deficient.] For a
falling-off in this alarming number of mental defectives we must await
scientific eugenic laws to be discussed in chapter xxx.
(4) It is a shameful fact that thousands of girls, dependent upon their
own earnings for support, receive less than enough to enable them to
live in decent comfort, not to say with any enjoyment of life. Many,
of course, waste their earnings on needlessly fine clothes, or at the
"shows"; the American fashion of extravagant dress and the craving
for amusement are factors of importance in the ruin of young girls.
But five dollars, or even seven dollars, a week is not enough to live
on in the cities; and many girls are paid no more, even less. The
State, in framing its minimum wage laws, or other legislation, must
take cognizance of this startling and intolerable situation.
(5) Provision should be made for the care of girls who come alone to
the cities. Dormitories with clean and airy bedrooms at minimum cost,
and attractive reading- and social-rooms, offering provision for normal
social life and amusement, can do much to keep lonely and restless
girls out of the clutches of the vicious provision for young men who
live alone might avail to lessen to some extent their patronage of
houses of vice.
(6) The model injunction acts of a few of our more advanced States
"vest the power in any citizen, whether he or she is personally damaged
by such establishment, to institute legal proceedings against all
concerned; to secure the abatement of the nuisance, and perpetual
injunction against its reestablishment." It is too early yet to speak
with assurance of the practical working of this method; but it bids
fair to make the brothel business more precarious. If, in addition,
laws against street soliciting are strictly enforced, the first steps
of young men into vice will be made much less alluringly easy than
at present.
(7) The most radical and effective measure of all will be to arrest
the professional prostitutes, segregate them, and keep them segregated
during the dangerous years, except as genuine signs of intention to
reform appear, in which case they may be released upon probation. The
expense will be, at the outset, considerable. But the girls will be
taught trades, and kept at work which will in most cases more than
pay for their support. Moreover, the community will, of course, save
the vast sums now passed over by its lustful men to these women. The
saving of health and life will be incalculable. The girls, although
under restraint, will be infinitely better off than they were, and
can in most cases, with patience and education, be made ultimately
to realize their gain; as they grow older and forget their early years
of shame, they can be set free again, with some skilled trade learned,
and some accumulated earnings. Professional prostitution will, of course,
still flourish to a degree underground; but it will be a highly risky
business, attracting far fewer girls, and difficult for the uninitiated
young man to discover. With this outlet for lust partially closed,
there would no doubt tend to be an increase in solitary and homosexual
vice, and in the seduction of innocent girls. But the latter outlet
can be checked by raising the "age of consent" to twenty or twenty-one,
and punishing the seduction of younger girls as rape. And the former
evils, serious as they are, are far less of an evil than the creation
of our present wretched class of professional prostitutes. As a matter
of fact, there would, beyond all question, be a great diminution in
sexual vice, the present amount of it being due by no means wholly
to desire that is naturally imperious, but to the artificial fostering
of that desire by those who hope to profit financially thereby.
IV. Crime?
The gravest of all social ills is-crime. Its treatment
may be considered under the three heads of prevention, conviction,
and the treatment of convicted criminals.
(1) To some extent, not yet clearly determined, the causes of crime
are temperamental, due to congenital defects or overexcitable impulses.
The inherited effects of insanity, alcoholism, and other pathological
conditions, make self-control far more difficult for some unfortunates.
Such baneful inheritances will some day be minimized by eugenic laws;
and individuals whose abnormal mental condition makes them dangerous
to society will be kept under permanent restraint. The causes of crime
are, however, to a far greater degree environmental. Undernutrition,
overwork, worry, and various other sources of poor health, create a
condition of lowered resistance to impulse. The herding of the poor
into crowded tenements, the inability to find work, the lack of
wholesome interests and excitements to provide a normal outlet for
energy of body and mind, the daily sight of the luxury of the rich
and the bitterness of its contrast with their own need, awaken dangerous
passions and reckless defiance of law. The lack of education, contact
with absorption of law-defying philosophies of life, tend to make crime
appear natural and justified. All of these unhealthy conditions are
being attacked under the spur of our new social conscience; and with
every step in social alleviation crime diminishes. Criminals are, in
general, just such men and women as we; in like situations we too
should be tempted to crime. We might all repeat with Bunyan: "There,
but for the grace of God, go I!" Give every man and woman a fair chance
for happiness in normal ways, and the lure of crime will largely
vanish.[Footnote: Cf. An Open Letter to Society from Convict 1776 (F.
H. Revell Co.).] Yet human nature in its most favorable circumstances
and in its most favored individuals has its twists and its anti-social
impulses. For the potential criminal-and that means for every one of
us-there must be elaborated also a system of moral or religious
training which shall seek to develop the better nature that is in every
man and enchain the brute. With such a discipline imposed upon each
generation there would be a far greater hope for the repression of
evil tendencies, whether due to temperamental perversion or provocative
environment.
(2) If there is much to be done in the prevention of crime, there is
also much to be done in insuring the prompt conviction of offenders.
The legal delays and obtrusion of the technicalities which now so often
obstruct the administration of justice, hold out a means to the
criminal of escaping punishment, work hardship to the poor, who cannot
afford to employ the sharpest lawyers, and needlessly retard the
clearing of the reputation of the innocent. The overuse of the plea
of insanity has become latterly a public scandal. In certain courts
it has sometimes seemed impossible to convict a criminal who has plenty
of money or strong political influence. In other cases such men have
been set free on bail and proceeded to further may have to wait years
for compensation; if they are poor, they may hesitate to set out on
the long and dubious course of a lawsuit; or, if they embark upon it,
it is only by an agreement wherein the speculator- lawyer takes the
lion's share of the compensation. The result of all this friction in
the machinery of the courts is an increase in crime, and an increase
in the illegal punishment of crime. Lynching, which are such a disgrace
to this country, are due primarily to indignation at crime which bids
fair to be inadequately punished; they will occur, in spite of their
injustice and brutality, until the penalties of the law are made
universally prompt and sure and fair.[Footnote: See J. E. Cutler, Lynch
Law. Outlook, vol. 99, p. 706.] A wholesome disregard of
technicalities, and an interpretation of the law in the line of equity,
a rigid exclusion of irrelevant evidence and argument, the provision
of an adequate number of courts to prevent the piling up of cases,
and of a public defender, of skill and training, to look after the
interests of the poor, the removal of judgeships from politics by the
general improvement of our political system, and the adjudgment of
insanity only by impartial, state-hired alienists-these are some of
the reforms that ethical considerations suggest.[Footnote: Cf. W. H.
Taft, Four Aspects of Civic Duty, II. Outlook, vol. 92, p. 359; vol.
98, p. 884.]
(3) The ends to be borne in mind in the treatment of the
convicted Criminal are four: First, reparation to the injured party
must be demanded of him, so far as money will constitute reparation;
if he has not the money, his future work must go for its accumulation,
so far as that is compatible with the support of his infant children.
Secondly, he must be punished severely enough to serve as a warning
to other potential offenders and, so far as they are amenable to such
fears, deter them from similar crimes. Capital punishment for the worst
crimes is shown deterrent than confinement; whether the danger of
executing an innocent man is grave enough to offset this public gain
is an open question.[Footnote: See A. J. Palm, The Death Penalty.]
Thirdly, he must be prevented from doing any more harm; this means
confinement just so long as expert criminologists deem him dangerous,
whether not at all (unless to deter others) or for life. The old system
of giving a fixed sentence is wholly unjustifiable; some are thereby
kept imprisoned when there is every reason to believe them capable
of living honorably and serving the community as free men, others are
let loose, after a term, more dangerous to the community than ever.
The habitual criminal, who alternates between periods of crime and
periods of imprisonment, should be an unknown phenomenon. The judge
should be obliged to pronounce an indeterminate sentence, and leave
it to the expert prison officials to decide if, or when, it is safe
to release the prisoner on parole. Experience has already shown that
few mistakes are made (where prison management is kept out of machine
politics); and as the released prisoner is under surveillance, and
may be returned to the prison without trial for disorderliness,
drunkenness, or other anti-social conduct, he is not likely to do much
damage. A second offense would be likely to bring upon him imprisonment
for life, which would be within the discretion of the prison officials.
This method provides a spur to good behavior, and, when used in
conjunction with the reforming influences we are about to consider,
works admirably in abolishing the criminal class; whatever criminal
class persists-those who cannot or will not reform are kept under
restraint for life, where they can do no harm. Fourthly, and most
important of all, a painstaking attempt must be made to reform the
criminal, to make him a normal, socially useful man. At present our
prisons are rather schools of corruption than of uplift; too often
first offenders are thrown into association with hardened criminals,
and come out after their term of years with their minds full of criminal
suggestions, and less able than before to live a normal life. The prison
should be a training school for the morally perverted. First of all,
the prisoner should be taught a trade, if he knows none, and made
competent to earn an honest living. He should be kept at regular work,
and his wages used partly to reimburse society for his keep, and partly
to support his family, or, if he has none, to give him a new start
when he leaves prison. Recent experience shows that the great majority
of prisoners can be trusted to work outside the prison, at any ordinary
labor, without guards-returning to the prison each evening.[Footnote:
See Century, vol. 87, p. 746.] Regular hours, and wholesome living
in every way, are, of course, enforced; sports are encouraged in leisure
hours, and physical development ensured. Educational influences are
brought to bear, through class-instruction, books, sermons, private
talks. The individual's mind is studied and every effort made to supplant
morbid and anti-social by normal and moral ideas. Few criminals but
are amenable to skillful guidance; most of them, could, if pains were
taken, be transformed into useful citizens. All this application of
modern penological ideas means a greatly increased expense per capita;
but this will be largely offset by the work required of all healthy
prisoners, and in any case is the best sort of an investment. The
prevention of crime is, in the long run, much less costly, even from
a purely financial standpoint, than crime itself. On pathological social
conditions in general: Smith, Social Pathology. E. T. Devine, Misery
and its Causes. M. Conyngton, How to Help. C. Aronovici, Knowing One's
Own Community. Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House. S. Nearing,
Social Adjustment. Charles Booth, Life and Labor of the People of
London. Hall, Social Solutions. C. R. Henderson, Social Duties. W.
Gladden, Social Salvation. Public health: H. Ellis, The Task of Social
Hygiene, The Nationalization of Health. Outlook, vol. 98, p. 63; vol.
102, p. 764. Literature published by The Committee of One Hundred on
National Health (105 East Twenty-second Street, New York City). C.
R. Henderson, The Social Spirit in America, chap. V. World's Work,
vol. 17, p. 11321; vol. 21, p. 13881; vol. 23, p. 692. W. H. Allen,
Civics and Health. Poverty and living conditions: R. Hunter, Poverty.
B. S. Rowntree, Poverty, A Study of Town Life. Adams and Sumner, Labor
Problems, chap. V. A. S. Warner, American Charities. E. T. Devine,
Principles of Relief. S. Webb, Prevention of Destitution. Literature
of the American Association of Societies for Organizing Charity, and
of the Charity Organization Department of the Russell Sage Foundation
(both at 105 East Twenty-second Street, New York City). L. Veiller,
Housing Reform. Deforest and Veiller, The Tenement-House Problem. J.
Lee, Constructive and Preventive Philanthropy. Alden and Hayward,
Housing. J. A. Riis, The Battle with the Slum. National Municipal
Review, vol. 2, p. 210. Commercialized vice: Jane Addams, A New
Conscience and an Ancient Evil. Report of the Chicago Vice Commission:
The Social Evil in Chicago. G. J. Kneeland, Commercialized Prostitution
in New York City. Outlook, vol. 94, p. 303; vol. 101, p. 245; vol.
104, p. 101. Crime: F. H. Wines, Punishment and Reformation. E. A.
Ross, Social Control, chap. XI. R. M. McConnell, Criminal Responsibility
and Social Constraint. H. Ellis, The Criminal. A. H. Currier, The
Present- Day Problem of Crime. P. A. Parsons, Responsibility for Crime.
E. Ferri, The Positive School of Criminology. W. Tallack, Penological
and Preventive Principles. E. Carpenter, Prisons, Police, and Punishment.
Outlook, vol. 94, p. 252; vol. 97, p. 403. World's Work, vol. 21, p.
14254. North American Review, vol. 138, p. 254. International Journal
of Ethics, vol. 20, p. 281.